We received our new genny today. I had a call from the lorry driver (lives in Hereford and works for a haulage firm in Kidderminster). I guided him to Taberno car park thinking that we can either off load into my car or he can drive up to site if it’s a bit heavy. What I didn’t anticipate was that he would arrive in a forty foot articulated lorry and that the genny would weigh one hundred and seventy kg with out packaging. One thing was very plain, he was not going to bring the lorry and genny up to the caravan, no way Jose. So little genny sat on it’s own in a forty foot container looks small but O! boy looks can be deceiving. We stripped all the packaging off it and slid and dragged it to the back of the container. I then drew my car up, with the tail open, to the back of the lorry. The height difference was probably three foot. The lorry driver is a jovial and very portly young man who clearly does not do aerobics. One each side of the genny and we slide it off the back of the lorry and aim the front end at the back of the car. Between vehicles it sticks at an angle of about forty five degrees. I am close to total rupture and the driver is on the brink of a heart attack whilst the genny is precariously dangling twixt lorry and car. All we could do was to tip the genny right up on its butt end and push and shove it into the car sufficiently to then turn it back on its proper end. The lorry driver was so relieved to have got rid of the genny that he looked almost happy when I last saw him. The back of the car was a bit like a waterlogged sailing boat to drive but I drove back to the caravan in very circumspect manner (about 5MPH). Would you believe just when you need the assistance of three burly (compared to yours truly) builders it’s five to two and siesta for an hour. Anyway, bless ‘em, they came over as soon as they had rested and then the genny between four of us was easy to off load.
When I had read the instruction booklet (translated from Chinese to English)for the third time I went out and switched it on. It is advertised as ‘silent’, well compared to Elland Road when Leeds have just got through to the European Cup, it is, but compared to the petrol genny’s it is about the same only a deeper more resonant sound. Then there is the smell of diesel, phew!! Well we do have it just near the caravan and the exhaust pipe is almost pointing at the caravan so I suppose these things will be a problem. Tomorrow we will decide where it should be sited and we will buy some pipes to deflect the exhaust up and away.
Carlos (the multi talented electrician, joiner and general factotum) came up to site today to show us his interpretation of the electrical diagram for the whole of the house. It is brilliant and he has thought of many things that we hadn’t. He has put the whole thing on ‘AutoCAD’ so that now it is on his ‘puter ,we can amend and alter as we wish, until he actually puts the cables in. He has also shown us some kitchen designs (he will also make and fit these, what a man) to digest and discuss and tomorrow he says that he will be up on site putting door surrounds in place. We also had two other new guys up on the roof today but we didn’t get to meet them and we still don’t know what they were discussing up there with Dario,. Perhaps they are tiling the roof soon.