BUMPS IN THE ROAD

​28/01/2016
A week has gone by since my last diary entry, I am just grabbing a second to write down a few thoughts whilst cooking porridge in the van. The van is parked next to the Byre, its on a bit of a slope which makes cooking challenging, but I am getting the hang of it. Roddy and Daryll are on the roof fixing the lean-to join.
Daryll didn’t want to get up this morning and I woke up with a horrible headache which I am still trying to fix with tea, instant coffee and some sugar in the form of Go Ahead biscuits. Tomorrow a big storm is forecast. It scared the life out of us when we first saw it coming on Monday. Constant 80mph winds with 105 mph gusts. We scrabbled frantically for insurance…luckily we were at Johns and had internet.
There are many problems this week and at times there have been long silences and downward mouths. I will try and rationalise things into a list:

1. Impending storm
2. Uninsured building project
3. Money sent by my Mum got eaten up by cheque written to Bodmin College for my laptop.
4. Had to ask Mum for more. Now owe her £500.
5. Daryll’s cheque (tax return) not clearing till tomorrow.
6. Still can’t afford insurance because a payment of £63 went out to Three today. They charged me this for severing from them in favour of Vodafone, as there is no reception here with Three. All this is annoying as I don’t have a phone at all at the moment because it froze.
7. Had to sign on to Jobseekers-we had our interviews yesterday in Stornoway.
8. Cathy persuaded us to have a box of foodbank food from CAB.
9. The wood burner regs say it must be 50cm away from the wall in the Byre which seems to put it in the middle of the room.
10. The last roofing sheets are very battered and bent.
11. Even if they do go on it looks like we will be about 1m short. No money to buy more.

So you get the picture! I am fed up with living in the van. I want to live indoors. Even peeing in a bucket would be a luxury at the moment! I am fed up with wearing my hat all the time, even in bed, and only showering once a week.
Whilst sitting here eating my porridge I pondered the morality of accepting the foodbank food. Cathy says we are entitled. She reminds me how much tax I have been paying until recently. It still doesn’t feel moral. Am I amoral or immoral I wonder? Do you have to be amoral sometimes to survive? Is it something to do with travelling? Even though we are not travelling as in moving along through space, I still feel like I do when I am travelling. Things are unpredictable, you have to go with the flow almost studiously at times, being careful not to over plan or look ahead in too much detail, otherwise you simply wouldn’t go there, and all momentum will be lost.
This morning when Daryll didn’t get up, I thought he had stopped travelling. All the problems seem too much, and it is easier not to get up.
Once up and out, yes, it’s windy, with some very cold sleety showers, but it is fresh, beautiful, full of life and not yet unsafe to be on the roof! Roddy being here has given him confidence and we are off again, travelling hopefully once more.