Ziggy played Laika....

 When we bought Ziggy, the fridge worked on Mains, 12volt and gas. After a couple of trips earlier this year, we noticed that the EHU no longer worked. (It took a while to realise this as the the fridge automatically switches power sources - and of course the gas is generally running when we are parked up). Being logical, I started with checking all the fuses and then looked at the back of the fridge First thing I noticed was that there was an awful lot of corrosion / damage - some terminals were replaced and I had a liberal spray with WD40. (This was while we were in France, and is probably why the cover panel vanished quicker than an asylum seeker - I have already written on how I made a new cover). I then took - after a lot of advice and pointers from assorted FarceBook forums - Laika Owners group, and Fiat Ducato Motorhome Group, along with two forums  Motorhome Facts  and  Motorhome Craic  - the second of these being for a specific reason - more on that lat...

 Many people have commented that I am a very careful Red Sea Pedestrian, so when we lost the outer cover panel from the fridge, I checked the cost of a replacement - and then started plotting…. I was reliably informed that the cost of the replacement was a lot - so I started to look for what I actually needed. I found a 3mm thick white gloss sheet on Amazon for 20 drinking vouchers, and I also sourced a selection of well nuts that I knew would be needed to safely secure the panel when completed. Additionally, I sourced a large cardboard box from Lidl. By chance I had a grille still in its packaging from a project a couple of years ago - a new one would cost around £10 from amazon I believe. The card board bos was flattened and then, with the aid of a set square, metre long rule and and craft knife - and the assistance of Number One Son a template was made. Once the template was made, and a good fit obtained the we moved the template over too the acrylic sheet NOTE - the plastic wra...

Having decided some time ago that we wanted to take Ziggy overseas, we had started planning in January where to go. (Booking Annual Leave is not a problem – I am the Boss, so…..)   Initially we had thought of going into Normandy, but having chatted with several folks on assorted Farcebook forums etc, we decided that it was too long a haul, so elected to look closer to Calais. We also looked at crossings, and – remember we booked in January so we did get decent rates – we elected to use the Dover to Calais Ferry at £150 all in return. The Chunnel was £120 more…. The crossing time was longer but…   We left Norfolk at 1310 on the Thursday afternoon and drove down via the A11, M11, M25, M2 to just outside Dover – Black Horse Campsite in Densole, a Caravan and Motorhome Club site. I chose this site as they have provision for late arrivals/ early exits. The site was clean, with a warm welcome. Just 100 metres from the site was the Black Horse Pub where we had a lovely meal – nothi...