Living Alone in my Van, getting ready for Autumn ep43

And there we go, it doesn't look particularly appetising. Happy days, happy days, which is just nuts if you think about it. There's a guy right down there fishing. Yeah, you feeling okay? You feeling all right? That's not gonna happen. Good morning, we are at Freshwater Beach. Camping park which we've been at for a couple of days now and uh very warm. The temperature has got back up it's currently 21 degrees so 21 degrees celsius which is um yeah a lot warmer than it has been recently but we've got a nice pitch put the awning out this morning which is good because I've not really used it much because it's been so windy recently. It is really nice because it gives a nice bit of shade when you've got the door open so uh yeah any kind of direct light coming in from this way kind of gives a little bit of shelter here and uh yeah it's a nice addition to the van i like it yeah it kind of completes the outside look don't it Although I was a little bit not sure at first because I put it on and then didn't use it at all I think it's going to come in handy especially for the summer and it's um it's quite big as well it's like two and a half meters deep and four meters long so yeah it's quite um quite big awning and I've not got it all out all the way obviously yeah because you can I've got the legs mounted on the side of the van but you can also take these legs and then put them in the Put them in the grass and put them in with pegs and stuff. So, but I've done this just for, Just for ease today. Yeah that's my awning. So I think today is going to be mainly a day of getting the van up together. I've got a load of washing and stuff which I've got um a load of washing on at the moment. I've got stuff drying. I've done all the bed stuff. I'm doing my big blanket as well which I haven't done for couple of months which I wanted to get washed. Loads and loads of stuff which I yeah haven't really put in a wash for a long time and just like hoodies and things I don't really wash that much. Yeah I thought while I'm here the washing is quite cheap so I'm just going to take the opportunity and get it all done and I've got the time to do it as well which is nice. I also want to try and do a nice deep clean on the van today as well because although um I did one a couple of months ago. I've done a lot of work on the van since and I've been flying around here, there and everywhere doing a load of things. And yeah, it's pretty... It's pretty disgusting. So I need to give all of the cabinets a good clean, all the cupboards a good clean. I need to do all of the cab because the cab area desperately needs cleaning. I'm pretty much done with all the electrics now as well, so my cab carpet can go back down. Probably going to, yeah, give all the floor a good clean as well. All the desk area, just everything. Just needs to be spic and span everywhere. And then I think what we'll do is, I'm probably gonna get changed into some shorts actually, and then we'll probably head up over the top. Let me show you guys because there's a little walk you can do up on the top of that cliff just up there so I think we'll take a walk we'll go Come out here so we can go down to where on my last video I took you guys down to the beach and we watch the sunset so if we head down here we can then go up this kind of cliff here and we can go up the top I think so there's a few people over there doing at the moment so I think we'll we'll do that this afternoon once I get everything done with the van probably got a good couple of hours on the van and then once the vans done we can head up there and Yeah get a nice little walk in and see some views and then tonight mum and dad are coming down. As I said before mum works on this campsite she does the accounts here and she said that she would come down tonight with my dad and we'll go for a little walk together and then she'll show me around the site give me a bit of a tour so but right now I think I need to do myself some lunch because the time's getting on and although I said it was morning it's actually 10 to 1 so I need to crack on do myself some lunch go sort the rest of the washing out and then crack on with the van cleaning. So I've been going like the clappers all day getting the van done and I just thought I'd walk down and meet mum after work and she's not feeling very good and nor is my dad. They're both feeling pretty wrung out and got bad stomachs and stuff so they're probably not going to be coming down for a walk tonight which sucks a little bit but I'd rather they stay home and get themselves well but look it's just another stunning evening. It's like summer's just come again. It's Look at it out here, just blue sky, not a cloud in the sky either. See a couple of guys on the hill up there as well which is pretty cool. So now that mum's gone I think what I'll do is get back to the van, I'm pretty much done which is good, and then I'll do myself something quick for dinner and then we'll have a hike up there and watch the sun go down, like I did in the last video. But you know me, I love a sunset and the sun is set to go down at It's nine minutes past seven so yeah we should have just enough time to fix something for dinner and then go check it out. So like a genius I forgot to get chicken out of the freezer for dinner tonight which is annoying but it is what it is. I have got one of these though this is a beef and barley stew these are like like hiking meals I call them ration meals but I have loads of these stashed in the van and like Instant pastas and all that type of stuff because it's super handy to have for A when you're hiking but B if you run out of food or forget to get stuff out of the freezer. Yeah they're quick and easy to do and in times like this super handy. So yeah beef and barley stew and it is 390 calories 400 calories so it's actually quite a low calorie meal as well so yeah that'll do for tonight. And being as that mum and dad aren't able to come down tonight either I'll give you guys a very quick tour around the campsite as well and then you can kind of see what's what and uh yeah get a feel for the place. And as always if you guys want to check it out for yourselves I'll leave the link down in the description below like for the website and where you can book and all that stuff. I know when you come here in summer it's absolutely mental like it's It's heaving in this place, but out of season, it's very quiet, which is why I come out of season. And there we go. Doesn't look particularly appetising, but beef and lentil stew. Yeah, I'll tell you what, I bet on the top of a mountain it would taste good after you've just hiked up however many feet and however many miles. I'm sure a meal like this would be welcomed. In tonight's situation, needs must, because I don't have anything in the fridge. I'm down to me last supplies at the moment. I need to go food shopping. Cheers. Tastes good. Not bad. Not bad at all. All right quick tour then so that's where I've obviously been parked and these are fully serviced pitches so you get your electric and water and waste all on the pitch and your bins and stuff here and then you've got standard electric pitches all down here all over here and as far as you can see over there. I know I keep saying it in the last couple of videos but god this weather's glorious. I don't like super hot weather but I like the sun being out like if it could be like 15 degrees Celsius all the time with the sun like this, happy days, happy days. These are all of the other pitches here which again there's just hundreds of pitches here. And then over here is the shower block and laundrette. When I say shower block they've got a few so up over the back here there's like caravans and stuff you can stay in and up over there. Like it's a huge place and there's a shower block right over the far side over there which obviously all this lot uses in the summertime. I think it's closed for now though. And then yeah this is the one I've been using. And then just down the side of the shower block you've got your home services. So this is where I dump my waste and you can fill it with water and yeah cool little spot. You don't actually have to have a drain that you aim into you can just dump here and it all just kind of goes into the drain at the side which is kind of handy. And then dishwashing facilities are in there if you want to wash up in there. And then Launderette, you've probably seen that today, is in there, and then you've got showers and toilets and all that stuff in there, of which there's loads of them. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say there's probably 20, 25 showers in there and toilets like all lined up. There's a lot. And then down here is kind of the main area, so you drive in just over here, then you've got like The sales offices for the caravans and stuff here, so arrivals come in down there and then you drive up there and then you've got like AMPR, number plate recognition, barriers which open and then you go through. Then you've got security and the site shop here, all the statics over there and then you've got the main kind of swimming pool, sauna, arcade. Bar, restaurant, everything all over there. And from my understanding, there's actually a couple of bars. I think there's like a members bar, and there's a normal bar, and then there might even be another bar. But it's a big place. There's a lot here. There's a lot here. And then this is the outdoor swimming pool, which is closed for the season. But, yeah, you've got a pool here, and then there's this kind of wet play area thing for the kids. Yeah, it's a really nice site. It's a really nice site. It's such a lovely evening it's a shame mum and dad couldn't come down but if you're not if you're not feeling well what do you feel like doing? Normally just crashing out in front of a telly or going to bed. I know when I'm unwell all I do is sleep. I literally just want to go to bed early, wake up late and just try and give my body as much rest as possible and uh yeah. Anyway continuing with the tour so you can see the kind of bar up there some people are about to go sit out on the on the veranda or whatever you call it and then all the statics here. and we're gonna walk up here which is where i was in my last video. so my van is just kind of tucked around the corner over there. you can see how big the site is. it's uh huge. and when i met my mum after she finished work i asked her about the storm. Because I showed you in my last video that they banked up all the kind of beach here and apparently what they did was they got these they look like massive Lego bricks but they're massive like concrete stackable blocks that they stacked up. by the beach and then they basically dug a massive great hole right around the back of the site somewhere and they carted tons and tons and tons of like gravel and soil all the way down to the beach and had to build the beach back up because it basically the storm last year flooded all of this came all over the site and even all in the car park here and flooded the shop which is just It's nuts if you think about it. Like when you think about how far the sea is away and how kind of low down it is compared to this area it's mad. The kind of more you explore this place the more it kind of makes sense actually. Looking at it the sea is kind of the same level as this so obviously the sea's out there and you've got the kind of bank of sand and gravel here and then as you look at these These caravans, it actually goes downhill into kind of... this sunken area so it's no surprise actually that if this kind of you know what is a sea defense for all intents and purposes gets washed away then all of this lot will be yeah just obliterated but there's the uh swimming pool and bar place over there it's got like that sedum roof thing which is kind of cool anyway see for miles tonight again look it's even clearer than yesterday Look at the moon! You can just see the moon on the corner of the cliff there. That's so cool. And then the Isle of Portland in the distance. Look how clear it is. And guy on a little bodyboard out there. That sea is so still. I don't think I've ever seen that that's still actually. It's like we're in the tropics right down the coast. Look at the silhouettes going down of all the kind of land masses all the way down. Just stunning. Absolutely stunning. It really is a beautiful place down here. I know I say what I say about crowds and car parking and tourist hot spots and all that but you know when it's not absolutely heaving it really is such a beautiful place. Right I've eyeballed a bench which I think we can get to. So the bench I've eyeballed is up on that cliff. Kind of here, not sure if the camera is going to pick it up, but there's a guy walking to it right now, but we can't get there from here because there's a river in the way and it cuts through down there and you can't cross it. So we've got to go back along here and then across the field and then up to the bench. So I think that's a plan. I'm going to head there now. It's currently twenty five past six and the sun goes down at ten past seven. I think we've got enough time to walk around. Go get ourselves a bench to sit on and watch the sun go down. That was some trek getting up there. Let's go over here and have a look. Don't want to get too near the cliff that's literally crumbling away. Look there's a guy right down there fishing. But I don't think I want to get near the edge at all because these cliffs are very unstable. And there's the caravan park over there look. And I can just about see my van. It's kind of over there somewhere. I haven't got a hope in hell of seeing it on the... camera screen but you can kind of see the caravan park up the top as well and there's uh people parked in the other bit way up there as well and then yeah all the touring caravans down the bottom and then our view down the coast i mean it's just well i keep saying it absolutely stunning so time check it's currently quarter to seven we got 20 minutes ish just over before the sun Crazy how much just looking after yourself as well, like going to the gym, working out, eating the right foods has such an effect on you. It's at the time of filming this, it's the 22nd of September. I've been consistent now since the start of September. Well, tail end of August into the start of September. And when I say consistent, I just mean Eating good, clean food every day, sticking to a plan, doing some sort of workout every day, whether that's getting on the elliptical for an hour, 90 minutes, lifting weights, just moving my body, getting a sweat on. The elliptical is something that's really, really helped me though, because I'm just, I'm working on my VO2 max. So when I actually do walks and when I like do little hikes like this and and longer ones come to that I don't get out of breath as easy I can actually just maintain like a steady heart rate and at the moment I've just managed to get into like zone three and keep my heart rate like nice and steady while I'm uh while I'm working out and it's just crazy how good it makes you feel being able to actually do something without feeling like you're gonna Burst a lung or collapse because I was in just such a such a poor way. When I look back into kind of like middle of August I just I let myself go. Wasn't in a good place, wasn't in a good place but I'm grateful that I had the determination and the discipline to turn it around which means I get to do walks like this and watch the sun go down. I had a goal as well to lose 10 pounds by the end of September uh which was quite quite uh it felt like it felt like an impossible goal. when I set it but I'm very very close to hitting it and it's the 22nd of September so I'm really really excited and of course I'll share that with you guys when I do. I'm quite proud of myself and that's not to say that I've not deviated from the plan like there have been a couple of days this month where I've not worked out or I've had something sweet when I shouldn't have done but again I've caught myself and I've just like nipped it in the bud like that and it's only through just having one or two couple of bad days but I always remember what James Clear says and he's the author of Atomic Habits and it's like never miss a day twice like when you're doing a habit or never repeat something twice if you miss the gym like one day don't miss the following day because that's the start of a new habit a new habit of not going to the gym you know and the same with like healthy eating and things like if I do slip up for whatever reason and I eat something that I shouldn't just Just don't do it the following day, just. catch yourself and uh yeah anyway without going on a health pep talk again Thank you again. i'm still in awe of this evening it's just look at it it's um we could literally be like in the south of france right now i don't i honestly don't think i've ever seen the water this still here before i was a bit naughty in my last video as well i put the drone up and i shouldn't have done It's a bum. I didn't look on the drone map beforehand, which I normally do, normally I'm quite good, but I know there's some boundaries around here. Like I know I can fly it down at Golden Cabin, Bridport, but the further you go towards Portland, because of the prison and military and all those things, you can't fly and I wasn't sure in this area. And then last night when I put the drone up to get my footage, I saw a couple of messages on the drone screen and I was just like... Got rid of them because I was trying to like get up to see the sunset and just didn't even didn't even see the messages. I think the screen was a little bit glary as well because of the sun. But anyway I checked the app before I came out tonight. I was like I wonder if I can fly here and you can't. So I left the drone in the van. I thought I got away with it once I don't want to risk it again. Well there it is just cresting the horizon nearly gone. It went behind a load There was a load of clouds and then came out again. Just about to just about to hit the deck. When it disappeared behind the clouds though I decided to walk back down a little bit because I was getting eaten to death by flies and there are a couple of other people who came up as well and I figured I'd let them have the bench and enjoy it as well. Yeah there it is about to disappear. It's like it disappears behind mountains when you get clouds like that and you kind of get the little silhouette. What an evening, what an evening. Well I think I'm going to continue my stroll back to the van and then I'm going to go and have my second shower of the day because I can and then get myself all nice and cozy in my freshly washed tracky bottoms and my hoodie my uh my lazy stuff so I will see you guys back at the van once I've showered and got myself all nice and cozy. We are officially Cozy. I've actually been back about an hour. I got back to the van. I've got all my cozy stuff on and I've just been editing this video. So I dumped the footage and I've just been working away while I was a little bit awake and starting to feel a little bit tired. I want to switch out from editing and just probably put someone on YouTube for an hour and then get some sleep but before I do I'm going to drink my peppermint tea because that's a go-to for me in the evenings and also one of my kind of hacks at the moment and I've seen this from a few people because evenings are my worst time for me like if you've watched my previous videos of me talking about my health and my food and the kind of addiction to sugar and processed sugar that I've had sometimes in the evening I am craving because obviously I'm Reducing my calories at the moment having a calorie deficit. Yeah sometimes in the evenings I'm just like ah I need some some biscuits some cookies or some ice cream or something. So what I'm doing is having normally four or eight of these so I've got some pitted dried dates. These ones are from the grape tree. They're super cheap and this is what they look like. So that's what they look like. So just your kind of normal dates and then I pair them. With a square of this. So this is, I'm not even going to try and pronounce the brand. 100% dark chocolate. This stuff is super, super tasty. I've actually tried quite a lot of dark chocolate over the years. Although I've had my moments where I don't eat the best. I do love dark chocolate opposed to like milk chocolate and stuff. Which is a little weird because I'm a sugar addict. But yeah, I do like kind of like 100% dark chocolate. What I do, get a square of the old dark chocolate there. and then we pair it with a date and i kid you not it's like chocolate caramel it is so good and so tasty i can't remember the calories i think like eight dates and eight squares of the chocolate is a total of like 195 calories it's like less than a chocolate bar win-win cheers you guys have to try it that's so good and the thing i love about it is the fact that although it's really nice after like four pieces i'm done and i don't want any more so actually i think i'm only having like 100 calories i did work this out the other day i think it was like 100 calories for four and 200 calories for eight pieces of chocolate eggs along with the dates and when you pair it with a mint tea as well it's the best Anyway, I'm going to feast on the rest of my dates and chocolate here and finish my mint tea, find something on YouTube to watch, and yeah, have a bit of a chill. So I will catch up with you guys bright and early in the morning. Good morning. We are just leaving. I want to say we, you and me, because everybody still asks in my comments, who is we? It's you and me, my friend. You and me. We're just leaving Freshwater Camping Park, Holiday Park, and yeah, I've managed to top up the water this morning. Empty on my waist. Hang on, my mum's saying goodbye. Morning! You okay? Yeah. You feeling okay? You feeling all right? That's her office up there, and she saw me leaving. Bless her. She's still not feeling the best, but... Hopefully she will soon. Right so plan for today. I need to hit the gym. Had a bit of a slow start this morning. Got a bit of editing done. Sorted a few things out on the van and then yeah before we left I just wanted to fill up with water and empty my waist and all of the things. Now we're literally only like five minutes from Bridport town centre so I'm probably going to park up somewhere do some work for an hour or so and then hit the gym early afternoon and then this evening I want to park up on the business park where I fitted my alternator and I want to try and have a go at removing the leaf spring that I keep on about. I've got the extra heavy duty leaf springs fitted to the back of my van. and i don't need the really thick one that's at the bottom now which is like an inch thick because it's restricting the travel of the airbags on the back that i've since had fitted and also it's kind of pushing the back of the van up now so my van always looks like raised at the back it's one of the reasons i'm having to use so many leveling blocks at the front of the van now as well is so as i can bring the front end up of the van and keep everything leveled hopefully it's going to do a number of things when i get those removed so This evening's job is going to be to park up there and then have a go at removing this one rear leaf spring, leaving me the two that are on there with my airbags. That's the plan. But right now, I'm going to find somewhere to hunker down for a few hours, get some work done, and then hit the gym until doing those leaf springs later on. All right so it's currently 6.20pm. I managed to park up earlier and I got a load of editing done which was really good and a couple of other jobs done that I needed to do that I've been waiting to do for ages, just stuff on the laptop. Then I went to the gym and did a longer workout than I originally was going to do which felt really good and now it's 6.20pm so I haven't had dinner yet I'm probably not going to eat right now because I know that the sun's going down at seven minutes past seven tonight so I've got less than an hour until the sun goes down which means I've got about an hour and a half until I lose the light and I'd really like to get these rear leaf springs off today if I can. I'm going to get underneath the van now I'm going to crack off the bolts and get the axle stand under and see if I can do it and see how easy it is. Hopefully I can get them both done within the next hour which would be great and then I can do myself to dinner and then I can chill out for the rest of the evening. Knowing that when I wake up tomorrow morning that job's done and it's another one ticked off the list because then I've got a full day of revision tomorrow for my C1 driving test theory which I need to pass on Friday. So today's currently Wednesday so I've got kind of a full day revision tomorrow plus a couple of calls in the evening and then full day revision Friday until my test. Friday afternoon. That's the plan, so we need to crack on. Quick pause a minute, but it looks like a rocket going up there. It's not, it's an aeroplane, but kind of the way the clouds have gone and, uh, yeah, it's like going, it almost looks like it's going straight up. That's so cool. It's probably all blown out anyway because I haven't got a filter on the camera, but, um, mission failure, folks, mission failure, which, um, Which kind of sucks because I was really hoping to get this done but I'll show you under the van and then you'll you'll know what I'm talking about. All right, not that we've got a lot of light under here but um I'll put a picture on the screen as well of what my rear leaf springs look like but so we've got a triple leaf spring here so we've got one two three and this bottom one here is like an inch thick right at the base here and this is the one I wanted to remove. Now you've got a kind of a I don't know what you call it like a c-clamp on the end here which is bolted through the bottom one with a rubber bush here and then this basically Just keeps it positioned with these two. And it's the same the other end, but I wasn't sure how they were connected in the middle. But it turns out they're actually bolted straight through the middle. So there is a nut bolt going through them, which is obviously going to be countersunk in this one at the bottom. Or that sits in, you know, a little recess on the rear axle. The problem I'm having is the fact that I've only got a bottle jack and although it's an eight ton bottle jack I don't feel particularly comfortable jacking the van up like two feet in the air on one corner just with a bottle jack and although I've got axle stands in the in the back I don't really want to that's not really something I'm comfortable with because I have actually got to get my hands in there and undo that nut and bolt and try and get that leaf out and I can just see that being, yeah, not pleasant and if something was to go wrong I'm literally going to like crush my hand and break my hand and I'm just not prepared to do that, obviously. Obviously. So although I thought this would be a relatively simple job and I thought I'd be able to slacken them u-bolts off and take that rear spring out, that's not going to happen. But I think instead what I'll do is I will actually go to, it's Midland Road Springs, leafsprings.co.uk is the site, but they do, they're an amazing company and they do leaf springs for literally every van, well more than vans, so we're going to do 4x4s and all sorts. But yeah they do literally springs for everything. They're actually linked on my website so if you guys are wanting like rear springs for your van that's where to head to but I think what I'm going to do is actually I'm actually going to book in with them on the way up to Scotland you know in like a few weeks time and actually go and see them and just say hey can you drop a rear leaf out because then they can get it on the ramp and like they'll have it done in 10 minutes whereas it's going to take me like two hours of messing around plus I've got to try and get another jack. and a means of jacking up the back end that's actually safe where I'm not going to injure myself and I can actually do what I need to do and to be fair taking the rear wheels off would be Probably an advantage as well, but just something I can't do today. So anyway, as it's getting late, I think I'm going to have a very quick clear up here, fold these towels up and get myself sorted and then get something to eat because it is currently four minutes past seven. The sun is literally just setting behind me. So I'm going to get myself something to eat, get myself sorted and then chill out for the rest of the evening. But as always, I truly appreciate you guys watching. And if you haven't already, maybe consider subscribing as it really does help out the channel. And while you're down there, drop this video a like. Please help me out and I will see you guys in the next one.