I’ve had quite a long break from drystone walling, but after a particularly irritating teams meeting I got out in the garden to build some more, my own bit of meditation. It’s a bit of a unstable wall at the moment as I need to backfill in a number of the places, having built the wall straight when the earth bank isn’t.

But come the weekend it was back to the campervan. Unfortunately, our plans were a bit undone this weekend when Chris woke up on Saturday morning feeling terrible. He therefore got the day off to lay on the sofa and I did what I could on my own.

Firstly, I had to clear the kitchen to lay out the flooring from the van, on top of the insulation to allow me to cut it out. Chris did have to get up briefly to help me move some of the heavier furniture out of the way to make space.

The template worked really well and I only had to shave a small amount off one corner to get it to slot in.

Prior to the insulation going down a couple of cables needed to be laid to be connected up later.

I then cut and attached additional vapour membrane where it was missing. The vapour membrane was then taped to the floor and membrane added over the wheel arches.

The solid flooring now put back down, and screwed into place through the old screw holes, I had to pack insulation around the wheel arches and tape to tops to the wall to seal. An awkward present to wrap.

I felt pretty pleased with my progress on my own, particularly as I had a late start after fetching supplies for Chris. So when Chris said he would be well enough on Sunday to lend a hand I thought we’d fly along the rest of the jobs…

Sadly, Sunday was a bit of a disappointment. We’d hoped to get onto building the structure and the electrics, but the ceiling just sapped all time out of the day with two simple jobs.

Firstly, Chris wanted to get the ventilation fan in place, needing to cut out a hole in the metal and then secure it in place. With one thing and another the job took most of the day as it refused to fit, and it turned out we didn’t have the right wood.

The job I spent my time on, after adding more insulation to a few awkward places in the walls, was trying to get the insulation to stay on the ceiling. Firstly, I needed to drill holes for a special bolt system for the batons that the ceiling would attach to, but despite the instructions recommended a 7mm drillbit the bolts just slid back out. Not a good sign.

When that was finally resolved we attempted to stick the remaining insulation up with expanding foam, as the specialist spikes we’d brought didn’t work. Unfortunately, the foam didn’t harden quickly enough so in the end we had to screw in batons to keep the insulation in place while it dried.

Finally, we got to fill the remaining gaps with expandy foam and attach the vapour membrane to the ceiling. It felt like a very unsatisfactory day, with it feeling like we’d barely moved the needle. But hopefully now the ceiling is at least fixed in place, things might be a little easier with most of our jobs no longer fighting gravity.

I had a particularly cheeky visitor one day, a lamb escaped from the neighbouring field. I wouldn’t have minded his presence, except he insisted on eating my prettiest flowers, so in the end I had to herd him back home. He can come back when he’s learnt to appreciate my planting scheme.