I went over to meet Andy and Mike the Sparky at Shobdon, near Leominster, where the bus is having its last few weeks of refitting. Mike had taken the day off work and came over from Cheltenham with some trade plates so that he could drive the bus to and from its test for us.

The test was at 2pm, but before it even started we had to wait for a scary half hour to find out if it was ok to have the upstairs seats facing the back of the bus. Fortunately it was ok... and we were also fine on the re-classification side of things.

The bad news is that the bus then failed its MOT.

The front brakes were the problem, but after a quick call to Bob at Thamesdown Transport (the company we bought the bus from) Mike knew it was something he could fix... if only we had a giant jack!

Luckily for us, a company in Hereford called Truck Care allowed us to take the bus to their yard where Mike was able to make the necessary adjustments and fix the problem. Truck Care let us leave the bus in their yard overnight and took it back to the VOSA testing place at 8am this morning for us... where it passed its re test. Phew! It's interesting that over the last 6 months, every time we run into unexpected problems a solution presents itself; so I think the universe must be on our side!

Anyway, I really want to say an enormous thank you again to Mike Ellis (who is probably beginning to wish he'd never popped his head up above the parapet last year when I was looking for help to find a bus!) for helping us out yet again with the bus. HUGE THANK YOU MIKE!!!!!!