Over winter work done on the Big Green Bus....

I've just returned from the Thamesdown Transport Bus Depot in Swindon with a fully MOT'd and serviced Big Green Bus... all spick and span and ready for the 2010 season!

If you've been reading my blog, you will know that we needed to get an awful lot of mechanical and electrical issues sorted out over the winter - and that we always ask Bob Gillespie at Thamesdown Transport to oversee the work, because he knows the bus so well. I also have a little inkling that Bob enjoys being able to work on such a challenging project, because it means he has to try to source parts for our bus from all kinds of unusual places, which must add great variety to his working day.

As well as getting the bus MOT'd and serviced, we have also added some new features to help make it warmer, easier to drive and more fit for purpose. These include: functional draught excluders at the bottom of the front doors (saves us having to find a blanket to keep out the cold air on the way back from events); new, up-to-date, electric windscreen wipers (saves us resorting to pulling them from inside the bus with pieces of string whenever they play up!); fabulous new panels of LED lights at the rear to make us extra visible in the dark; a gear stick that doesn't keep jumping out of gear; easier-to-use accelerator pedal and a number of other gizmos and gadgets that Bob managed to cobble together from reused bits and bobs from broken buses.

What is particularly wonderful is the effort that Bob has gone to in order to make sure that, wherever possible, Thamesdown Transport have used recycled parts to fix whatever issues we have asked them to address. Thank you Bob... I'm truly grateful for that.

So - I'm happy, Bob's happy, Grenville (our driver) is happy and, although I realise of course that it's an inanimate object, I like to think the bus is happy.

Bring on 2010!!!

Brigit x

Bus photo (c) www.swindonlink.com