The kit is fetched

On a cold Saturday morning in early February I made my way to local van hire centre to pick up a Luton van. I was pretty much there as the place opened at 8.00 a.m. After the formalities I set off on the two and a bit hour drive to Kingswinford, home of the Westfield factory. I skimmed the paperwork, but did notice there was a £2,000 excess for damaging the roof of the van, which somehow hadn't appeared on the web site. I can only hope the Westfield when it is finished is more fun to drive than the van. I could almost see the fuel gauge going down as I drove, and I wasn't exactly racing. In the end it cost me as much to put diesel in the thing as it did to hire it.

I arrived at the factory, feeling relieved not to have encountered any low bridges, where a helpful employee went through the contents of the kit with me, and helped me load it onto the van, with suitable wrapping and padding to avoid any chance of damage in transit. I had been due to go the previous weekend, but the factory had been snowed in. Westfield kindly agreed to open just for me this day, and there was only me and my helper at the factory.

Loaded up I set off back to London, pausing only to fill up with diesel and a sandwich. I made it back early afternoon, and with my wife's helped unloaded the kit into the garage. This took some time, as I had to assemble the chassis stands, before putting the chassis on top of them. Hiring a Luton with a tail lift was definitely an inspired choice. With that out of the way I returned the van.

Upon returning a further hour or two was spent re-arranging things in the garage, including sending to landfill some things I would otherwise would have kept. Any how here are a couple of shots of the beast in the garage.