Driving home my big fear was that the new van wouldn’t fit on the front of our drive. I’d measured and re-measured and I still wasn’t sure. Even though it’s only two foot longer it does feel a lot bigger and I worried all the way home. Good news though, it fits, only just, but fit it does. Longer term I am going to need to move the sky dish on the house as the van obscures it but a small price to pay in the scheme of things
Tuesday and Wednesday was taken up with packing, repacking, moving stuff from that cupboard to that one then back again. “Oh look there’s another cupboard there!!”, you know the drill. Then finally fitting a TV. A bit of a challenge in the FB due to the deep TV cupboard. In fact, some people I’ve spoken to install two TVs, one in the bed area and one in the lounge but I wanted one TV which could be viewed from the bed or from the lounge. I opted for an 18” Avtex and a German TV arm which although expensive fits and functions brilliantly.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00FWL7SQG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
So Wednesday off we set for Billy’s Holiday (got to have a soulful link somewhere
). Wanting to test Billy out both on-grid and off-grid we headed the short distance to Bracelands campsite in the Forest of Dean for the on-grid test. Due to the Bank Holiday and half term we could only manage to book Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night but that was perfect for us. Thursday and Friday were glorious, beautiful weather and a very peaceful campsite. We BBQed, we drank far too much wine, we watched the herd of deer walk through the camp in the middle of the night but as the Bank Holiday masses arrived on Friday evening and Saturday morning we were grateful to be moving on.Knowing how quiet the Brecon Beacons were last August Bank Holiday we headed there to test out off-grid. All was super quiet at Usk Reservoir, parking exactly where we did last year. Took the wrong road getting there and it’s always a worrying when you start seeing grass in the middle of the road but we arrived safe and sound. Stunning views accompanied by the screeching of the Red Kites and the splashing of rainbow trout. In fact, the whole weekend was peace and tranquillity with the only exception of Friday midnight. Woken at 11:45pm to quite a commotion, engines revving, shouting, car doors opening and slamming. Looked out the window to a sight of about 20 to 30 cars all jammed into the parking area. Even if we had wanted a quick getaway it wouldn’t have been possible. But within 15 minutes our vocal visitors had worked out a system of turning all their vehicles around and tranquillity returned. Ironically the only bit of rubbish left was a roll of bin bags.
So, what are our initial thoughts on Billy Broadway?
Build quality looks really good.
Liking the reversing camera.
Love having a full-size oven again with a grill to warm the plates.
Love having a big fridge again with a decent freezer box.
Bed’s too small. Well, actually it’s not, Chester our ginger Lakeland terrierist just insists on getting into bed and sleeping sideways.
Can’t quite work on the electrics yet. I need to do a bit of reading. We seem to have a permanent drain on the battery of about 0.7amps. From what I’ve read so far the Sargent unit is taking some of this, and the battery doesn’t appear to charge up as quickly as I would have expected.
Faults found
Toilet cassette locker doesn’t lock properly. I’ll fix it this weekend.
Wood facia just below the sink rotates. Fixed with some double-sided tape.
And what next
This weekend I need to sort out some of the rattles.
Another re-organisation of the cupboards.
Off to Van Bitz in July to have the Strikeback fitted.
Work out how to use the Hal-Locate tracking device.
Will probably add a second leisure battery.
Start planning our 3 week Scotland trip in September.
Need to sort out some of the rattles.
Sadly, back to work tomorrow. 
