Project Erica Part 4: In which Erica is floored

On 5 and 6 August Erica enjoyed plenty of attention as we stripped her. The next activity she experienced was on 12 August. So, what happened in between? 

Well, that’s when I demonstrated that decision making is not (or is no longer) something at which I excel, making me wonder how I ever held down a job that involved decisions* ! If I had enough hair to grip, I would have torn it out and the level of frustration was huge as I spent hours going round and round in circles on questions of what to buy. To give just one example, I spent about three hours trying to make a decision on which solar panel to buy, only then to go right back to questioning whether we wanted a solar panel at all (spoiler: I have a brand new, boxed, solar panel sitting next to me as I type). I may have felt triumph in finally hitting the ‘buy’ button, but then another hour or more was lost in deciding what sort of brackets to get, and even more time on the subject of cables, gland cover and adhesive/sealant. 

We did fit some other activites into this period, like making this year's batch of blackberry jam.

Day after day slipped by, but purchases did gradually start arriving, helping us along towards the point where we would be able to start work in earnest (although the ‘to buy’ list is still a lot longer than the ‘bought’ list; I’ve prioritised the things we need first). Finally, last Tuesday we took Erica into town and proved how useful it is to have a vehicle into which you can fit 2.4m x 1.2m sheets of board and insulation:

There's a big grocery shop under that lot too! 

Wednesday saw me sawing and feeling mightily proud of what I achieved, but then Thursday was lost to more planning (how many hours can one reasonably spend coming up with the dimensions of a sofa-bed, particularly when you already know that the bed will be 1040mm wide? Quite a lot, as it turns out, when you don’t want the sofa to stick out too far into the middle of the van, but also don’t want the backrest to go up above the height of the windows.). Friday and Saturday were then a hive of activity, finishing what I’d started on Wednesday, that being the laying of an insulated floor within Erica’s wheelchair ‘trough’.

You’ll find the story in the YouTube video linked below. I’m afraid I couldn’t make this one short, so it comes in at just a few seconds under 20 minutes. I’d *really* appreciate it if you could make a cup of tea, get yourself a sticky bun and sit down to watch it, because it took me hours (including quite a few when I should have been sleeping) to edit it together. I’d like to think that I’m getting a tiny touch better at this editing malarkey too.

Don’t forget, you can always use YouTube’s controls to watch it in less than 20 minutes!

(*I once went for a job interview in which I was grilled for a couple of hours at the end of which I was subjected to some psychometric testing. The following week I was called back for a second interview, where I was grilled again for another two hours, mainly on the subject of decision making. They later told me that the reason for that was that the psychometric testing had said that I had a weakness in that area. I couldn’t understand it at the time, because whilst I could dither for hours in front of two frocks in a clothes shop, I never had a problem making business decisions. It seems that buying stuff for a motorhome has more in common with clothes shopping than it does with business. Incidentally, when I was offered that job I took it as I figured that if they wanted me after that four and a half hours of intense interviews, then I must be capable of the job. My acceptance was a good move: it was in that job that I met Mick.)