Having secured the lock-up garages in Long Ashton at the last minute I decided to use the existing van hire planned for a Cornwall trip to shuttle the short distance to 'LA'.
Spent the weekend frantically packing and preparing as many boxes and objects as possible ready for a cheap van hire from National in Muller Road, Monday lunchtime.
Friends Rachel and John joined me to help load and unload, especially the big stuff from upstairs.
In 3 trips we had moved all big domestic furniture and boxes into Garage No. 6.
Spent the evening and a late night organising the contents of the workshop including timber and sheet materials I wanted to hang on to. Bed at 1am and up again for loading at 8am, just about managed 2 big loads and practically filled Garage No. 4., raced back across town to return the van by the 1pm deadline, annoyingly the fuel needle had just moved to reveal the 'full' marker so diverted to ASDA petrol for a top-up, decided on £4 injection (I had only done 40miles) but the fuel gauge was stuck in the same position! my erratic driving managed to encourage the needle into the full position by the time I got to Muller Road bang on 1pm.
Machine Move to Cornwall
Spent Wednesday organising machines ready for a 7am pickup on Thursday morning.
Most of the heavy machines had already been broken down, all the heavy accessories were packed into a purpose made packing case and I had made a 'landing', a kind of jetty leading from the loading dock out beyond the doors so that the machines could be hoisted vertically onto the truck.
Managed to bollard the street corners and moved the neighbours car to ensure the truck, whatever size it was, could get to the workshop doors with ease.Although I had promised to get all machines outside the evening before the move it was raining at 10pm so this was impossible and I went to bed. Up at 5am on Thursday morning and after porridge and coffee arranged the machines in a line ready for take-off along the jetty.
Gently moved the big machine weighing about 1 tonne onto the jetty but found that the vibration mountings were grounding so quickly wedged each corner up while the feet were removed taking care not to leave any fingers under the machine!
The machine moved more easily along the pre-determined line but there was a slow sqeak from the MDF deck and the front wheel crashed through without much drama. I tried to lever the machine out of the hole, but 1 tonne is not possible to shift and the lorry was arriving in 15 mins! I had overlooked the fact that the 3 roller points are not symmetrically arranged so the front steering wheel designed to run along a timber joist line was in fact bearing on 18mm MDF - think; elephant in stilettos!Driver pulled up and shook his head - always the same; I was promised all machines would be outside ready grrrr.
I feel like a complete idiot.
We put our heads together and attach the hoist to the front of the machine to first extract the wheel from the MDF and then lead the machine like a dog on a lead at Crufts, out along the jetty. Very nervous process a few inches the wrong way and the machine will crash to the floor. The driver was pretty skillful and a pot of tea later we had the lorry loaded and sheeted albeit 45mins later than the 1 hour allowed. In hindsight, departure from Bristol at 9am was completely clear of commuter traffic so an 8am departure would not have been sensible. I also promised a quick turnaround in Cornwall which we managed in 20 mins so everyone was happy. The cost of the move was pretty pricy but I could not fault the driver + lorry - Thank you Arthur Booy Transport.Cornwall
Was feeling pretty shattered on arrival, but the sun was shining so no worries about messing around in the rain, after a wind-down BBQ, stayed overnight and started to prepare a small outbuilding before moving the big machine into place. It will have to be moved out again when I level up a decking floor but this can be done on my next visit. The train from Liskeard to Bristol on Friday evening was full of happy day trippers returning from a sunburnt day on the beaches of Cornwall. The buffet was more like a (bikers) pub with a train attached travelling along the most beautiful coastline through Dawlish before heading north through Exeter. 
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