This is a picture of the yard when we arrived here in July 2004. As you can see, it is pretty basic, just a dirty yard. No electricity, water or sanitation.
We ran 3 phase electricity to our part of the yard and then got a good water supply too. (Although this sometimes freezes in the winter due to being completely exposed on the top of a wall.) On either side of us are skip lorry yards so we have a handy source of firewood when its very cold.We have now enlarged the yard and put a fence around it to stop any Tom, Dick or Harry wandering in. Andy's boxer dog, Rocky, comes in useful here too.
In August last year we had a real downpour and the site had about 3 inches of water over the whole area. We later used a grab loader to excavate a deep drainage hole to act as a sump/ soakaway. Below is a photo of Andy Ellis digging the sump/drainage hole with a borrowed grab loader.The drainage hole is about 8/9 feet deep and regularly fills after heavy rain. But it soon drains away again so seems to have solved the problem. My 'office' accomodation is visible in the background. The small caravan was what I used for the first few months after we moved here. Next to it is the double decker bus that we aquired in about May 2005. It had been fitted out by a local college as a mobile IT suite and had all the seats removed, and a ring main , 
recessed lighting and computer network wired in to it. This was much more roomy than my small caravan, so the caravan had to go. The caravan was duly dismantled and as much as possible of the fixtures and fittings were transferred to the bus.
I took a photo from on top of a storage body, on top of an artic to get a view of the lay-out of the yard. You can see how much more room I have in the bus, compared to the tiny caravan. The upper deck is where I have my PC set up and my office area. (I am self-employed so have to keep books, write invoices, estimates and other such boring stuff. Downstairs I have fixed up a small kitchen area using all the gas bits and the sink from the caravan. I have running hot (Warm!) water and have just completed the installation of an oil-fired central heating boiler and 4 small radiators. I have covered all the windows upstairs with a reflective solar film because although cold in winter it is extremely hot in summer!
We also have a kitchen area and toilet over in the artic trailer on the other side of the yard and because its a very dusty site and we are sometimes doing dirty work, a shower . My friend Andy is a diesel fitter so there are often grab-loaders, skip lorries or 40 foot trailers and units in the yard. As well as building a boat I am also learning quite a bit about fixing big trucks.
This is a more recent picture of the yard , showing how crowded it can get at times and showing the fence around it.
We had the opportunity to get some free decking wood from one of the skip drivers so took the chance to build a small deck on the rear of the trailer. This had the advantage of a proper set of steps to climb up to the trailer. We can sit on here between fixing trucks or welding and enjoy 'a nice cup of tea and a sit down!' (See 'Links' page)
Andy is a bit of a night owl. Because he works on big trucks that are out and busy all week, he tends to get to do maintenance on them after the days work is done or at the weekend. I think he prefers to work like that and I find I am becoming the same. I go out to fix boilers during the day then come back, have something to eat and start boat building or give Andy a hand if he needs it. I am sometimes out welding till 12.30 or 1 o'clock in the morning. I still wake about 7.30 but don't rush around in the morning if I worked late the night before. At present I am only doing boiler breakdowns because I want to get a bit of a push on with the boat.
This morning I had to fill up the fuel tank on the forklift truck so while I was in refuelling mode I filled up my central heating tank and the welding generator and put the rest of the 200 lt. drum into smaller, easier to manage drums. We use pink diesel for the plant and equipment in the yard so don't have to pay road duty on it. I also replaced the bottle jacks that had been holding the bus up since last April with some blocks of steel. One of the jacks had been creeping down for the last couple of months so making the bus uneven. ( The water wouldn't run off the draining board properly after I'd washed up.)
