Setting up a glampsite

Tales from the farm – Rocker John and the container!

Logistics never stop us in our tracks when we have an idea. Sometimes to our own detriment!

After having our planning permission for our yurt site granted, which was no easy task in a village. Fearful we were about to set up the next eighteen to thirty party site, we became the village gossip when our planning went in!

Whilst we knew we had a beautiful sunny site for our then pipe dream, we never really knew if we’d be able to pull it off!

The biggest hurdle was getting the facilities block in to position, a large shipping container that we would convert into toilets, shower and outdoor kitchen. We knew our access routes were limited and the neighbouring houses hadn’t held back during planning informing us, under no circumstances could we use their access road, which would have made life slightly easier.

Now I’m not the biggest fan of that well known, blue branded social platform, but am partial to a browse on its market place.

One evening I found a shipping container for sale locally, it looked in great condition, no rust, not mouldy, clean inside. A few messages later and I’d already lined Rob up to go and see it!

My none committal comment of, ‘great, someone will be there tomorrow to look at it, although I have no idea how we’ll get it in’, opened up the start of our glampsite, reminding us there can be a lot of helpful people in the word!

Cue ‘Rocker John’, not only was the shipping container just what we needed, it was dark green, so less offensive to the already upset neighbours until we got round to getting the cladding on. John was our life line to getting the container in the right place. It turns out he was a builder with all the kit, diggers, trailers, hardcore, you name it, he became the one stop shop for getting started.

What had to us, felt like a logistical nightmare, John had done in a day.

Being in the neighbouring village, he popped down to level the ground, lay the hardcore and grab his farmer friend to get the container in and unloaded.

Timing was everything and blessed with a sunny summer’s day meant we could bring the container in through the freshly silaged field.

This was a great day, after a turbulent start and a year of lockdown, the project was off the ground. All hail Rocker John!

Why was he called Rocker John? I mean, just look at his hair! We also found out he was in a rock band!