Role Call !!!

[mike202]

Hi all,

We’re in Prudhoe, Northumberland, in the Tyne valley. Couple of interesting fun facts about this area: George Stephenson, the ‘father of railways’ was from a couple of miles from here in Wylam. Thomas Bewick the Wood engraver and natural history author, was born in Cherryburn also a couple of miles from our house.
I took redundancy in January, from my job as a pharmacy delivery driver. The job involves not only delivering to customers homes, but also care homes and picking up prescriptions from doctors surgeries. I was ill for a couple of days over New Year, although it may not have been the flu, I felt cold and sweaty at the same time, horrible. Funny because I had something similar about a year before.
My wife works at a hospital in Newcastle, and our younger daughter is working from home. I’m mainly looking after them, and get some time to work on my campervan in between. Some of you may remember I had a new engine put in last year, and so I’m really looking forward to going for a drive when we can. I might even go to the supermarket in it just to give it a run.
We’re missing our older daughter who is stuck in Cambridge and has been furloughed, but can’t travel!
At least the weather has been good recently, and I try and get out for a longish walk regularly to stay fit.
Stay safe everyone

 

[ozziedog]

Mike, amazing how many peeps had an unusual flu ish viral thing in that period.
P.S. Don’t get way toooo fit and show us all up.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,glad you’re in good shape. :mrgreen:

 

[YellowBay69]

Hello from Tenbury Wells Worcestersusustershire - the one that flooded in Feb.
Got made redundant week before Christmas- now worrying if I’ll ever work again.
Mrs furloughed. Think she had C19 flu 2 weeks before lockdown. Was bad but she’s fine.
Kids at home and Bay on drive.
Therefore .,,,,
Beam rebuilt with new seals.
Hubs brakes and bearings rebuilt.
Master cylinder rebuilt.
Rear hubs brakes and bearings rebuilt
Re furb fuel tank going back in now.
My son wants to go to his postponed prom in it in Sept so pressures on. 2020 could be the year.
Hope everyone safe and well .... missing the shows.

 

[Wannabay]

Hello from sarf london, Peckham Rye to be exact
I'm retired so little has changed for me, but now have wife working from home trying to set up online courses for further education college
Lots of gardening and, my little bit of paradise, the allotment, 5 mins walk up the road, have been panic veg seed sowing, potting on and just starting to plant out
The van is here in the garage, i've got all the kit to install a solar panel, so no excuse now..........
The weiderst thing is seeing so many people in the park all the time, we overlook it, so much so that we avoid it now, during the week in the 'rush hours' its like piccadilly circus with joggers, PE addicts, dog walkers, yummy mummies, cyclists etc etc, And so surreal to see a police van a couple of weekends ago cruising the park barking 'no sunbathing, excercise only'
stay safe and keep sane

 

[Davydomes]

Hello from Newton-le-Willows, Lancs. Working from home and busy as hell (by no means comparing myself with what the NHS and others are facing day to day - big respect!). I'm a Project Manager for large scale bread, biscuit and cracker plant supplier. Installations still going on in Japan, USA and Canada with limited resources on site so doing lots of support from base. The days are actually flying for me. Getting a bit "stir crazy" in my home office (posh for tiny box room with a desk crow barred in). I go out to shop once a week maximum. I do stretch my legs along a length of the East Lancs road (A580) which is virtually people free. I still get surprised how many cars are still on the road though when I'm walking. Hope the the curve flattens and dips VERY SOON.

Stay safe - stay home.

 

[vwsunseeker]

Hi from Leamington spa in Warwickshire so angry with HS2 going through our village ancient woodland with more important things to spend tax payers money on ATM cannot believe they are still going ahead with building it!!! me and the Mrs are gardeners so isolated work away from clients so just ticking over, so many people doing good things for each other makes me smile in these testing times like most missing camping/driving our bus and meeting people.

take care be safe

 

[fallingoffalot]

Hi Mike202, all my family are from Hexham, in fact my dad's from Ovingham, I haven't been up there for a while. Lovey part of the world. Must go up, I haven't seen my cousin's for ages.

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[ozziedog]

So I’m off in just a few minutes but I’m just gonna have a little moan :roll: it would seem that everyone had done something to their van apart from me unless you count screwing a new Stella bottle opener onto one of my drawers :lol: The shark needs new dentures I’m afraid. I’ve mostly been in the garage keeping out of harms way while she’s going stir crazy in the house. I’m putting crap from the garage out into the back lane to try and clean it out a bit, looks like a full weekend of trips to the tip when we gets back to normality whatever that might be.
I need to clean out the garage, to make space to break out the old concrete lintel, that’s riddled with concrete cancer, so I can then raise a new lintel to raise the garage doors so I can raise my van and get away from these crappy reversed ball joints and get back to stock height and maybe more and bounce along the road as VW intended. Luckily I kept all the old stuff This would be ace for me if I had a week or two off. Maybe have my hols soon and crack on, might be a good idea

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,wonder what the Mrs will think about that? :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[chad]

I'm retired in North Norfolk and am catching up with a decades worth of neglect of the garden. Our eldest son is providing most of the muscle on this as he's a science teacher at a currently closed special needs school. The missus is doing shopping and baking for some the isolated and infirm oldies in the village.
The youngest son has been working on a CV vaccine and is now switching as to why some people are hit harder than others. He will be looking at their DNA, which he has a lot of experience with as before this blew up he was researching what cancer treatment was best for various groups of patients.
We haven't seen him or his girlfriend for a long time and any phone calls are brief as he's more than a bit busy.

 

[mike202]

Hi Mike202, all my family are from Hexham, in fact my dad's from Ovingham, I haven't been up there for a while. Lovey part of the world. Must go up, I haven't seen my cousin's for ages.

Sent from my SM-G9600 using Tapatalk

Small world ! Used to live in Hexham. It is a lovely part of the world up here, I like the north country although I’m originally from Leicester.


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[fallingoffalot]

Hi Mike202, all my family are from Hexham, in fact my dad's from Ovingham, I haven't been up there for a while. Lovey part of the world. Must go up, I haven't seen my cousin's for ages.

Sent from my SM-G9600 using Tapatalk

Small world ! Used to live in Hexham. It is a lovely part of the world up here, I like the north country although I’m originally from Leicester.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

OMG that's even weirder, I was born in Leicester, and grew up around Leicester, lived in Cosby then Market Bosworth. My parents settled in Leicester around 1970.

 

[mike202]

Hi Mike202, all my family are from Hexham, in fact my dad's from Ovingham, I haven't been up there for a while. Lovey part of the world. Must go up, I haven't seen my cousin's for ages.

Sent from my SM-G9600 using Tapatalk

Small world ! Used to live in Hexham. It is a lovely part of the world up here, I like the north country although I’m originally from Leicester.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

OMG that's even weirder, I was born in Leicester, and grew up around Leicester, lived in Cosby then Market Bosworth. My parents settled in Leicester around 1970.

We’re probably cousins [emoji23]
I’ll pm you


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[AlanWesty]

Hi Guys, I'm from Pretoria, South Africa where we are in our 4th week of lockdown. That means no going out unless for essentials. You will not be able to buy anything not classified as essential. We have one more week unless government decides to extend once again.
The going for me is good as I have a large property and can still do things. I now have made good progress on my Westy rebuild. Problem is I have run out of some supplies I need to do even more.

Stay safe
Alan

 

[Graham L]

Hi
Yep still here, working at the moment but not on customers vehicles.
After the initial confusion over were we 'allowed' to work or not the consensus is that as long as I'm in the unit on my own then I cant do anyone any harm, I've furloughed my mechanic Paul although HMRC tell me I have no employees and cant claim the 80% yet last week they sent me a revised tax code for him, you couldn't make this **** up.

Using the time to create more of an online presence than we have had in the past so an online shop is going live gradually, we recorded one of our mini workshops last week (well I did) and put it online (some of you may have watched it) and are looking at doing other things in the next couple of weeks.

We are getting to a point where we are going to have to work on the customer vehicles stuck in the unit just to get some money coming back in.

As a small business owner its hard to see where this is going to end and whats going to happen in the future for the workshop and the business itself, I'm surprised that other VW restoration garages have remained open with customers still dropping vehicles off to be worked on. One garage not that far from me employs approx 10 staff and I just don't understand how they can keep social distancing with one loo, kitchen etc etc, I couldn't live with myself if those actions resulted in a member of staff or customer catching the virus and the consequences.

Keep Safe everyone

 

[Bundy]

Hello from sunny Cheshire! All well here, thankfully. I'm still working but it's quiet...IT hardware...but I've worked from home for a company down south for the last 8 years, so this is same old for me but without being able to nip out anywhere! It is odd having my wife and daughter at home all day every day...makes it hard to remember what day it is!
My office is in the garage, so while it's quiet I have been getting lots of jobs done in the nice weather on the bus and recently aquired yank pickup :lol:
Stay safe everyone
Al

 

[Pellwood]

Hello from Bristol, still working full time. I have worked from home for the past 5 years but now have a wife and three kids for company (which is not as fun as it sounds believe me). Anyway I should count my blessings as I've been largely unaffected by what is going on and its given me an excuse to start working on the van again. Hats off to all our NHS staff & carers and key workers keeping the country running.

See you all on the other side.

 

[ozziedog]

So hi there to South Africa and good luck with it Graham and it’s next to impossible to keep the social distancing thing in our part of Asda with the on line shopping and click and collect etc, but we do stay that far away from our customers but I’m still training new drivers in a van, now that’s impossible to be 2M apart unless I put him in the back in the fridge ! Hi Al how’s it going bud, I hope you been showing your little un the satellite train at night, getting harder to spot now , reminds me of that time with us all in Malvern I think it was. So peeps from all over the world and one from Bristol right near me brilliant brilliant brilliant :mrgreen:

Ozziedog,,,,,,,, all good so far :mrgreen:

 

[Bundy]

Hi Oz, strangely we were out looking for them the other night! Forgot last night. Look forward to another star gazing session under the influence of a few ciders...just not sure when that'll be! Take care mate

 

[montypsx]

I’m in donny and not working until 12th may. Getting lots of jobs done around the house with gear that I already had but struggling to get passed the kettle and judge Judy . I came back from Austria in January and I’m sure I had it then, I’m never ill but boy did I feel **** 4 days of doing owt then nearly a month to get back to normal. makes you think

 

[ozziedog]

Star gazing with Early Mates 8) 8) what’s not to like :mrgreen:
It’s got me wondering how many peeps may have had it for a bit when you mentioned the four day thing ^^^ :?
At least you didn’t get stuck in Austria, now is that a good thing or a bad thing.

Ozziedog,,,,,,, I’d heard that Judy piece used to be a hooker so go careful :mrgreen: