Thursday 17 May 2012

Its here!

Yesterday, I collected my van. I expected that collection would be a nice 30 minute chat over a cup of plastic coffee, then a short drive down the motorway home, an hour stuffing cupboards, then off to play. WRONG! 3 hours later, we are *still* discovering stuff I have to know, and little switches and levers in secret cubby holes which have to point in mystical directions in order to function appropriately.That said, it does seem to be extraordinarily flexible - I can heat the van and the water off mains, battery, or gas, and the fridge is exactly the same, so it will keep ticking along all day quietly to itself. ( i'm still wondering about how *burning* gas *cools* but ...). The most limited function in the van turns out to be the cooking - it only runs on gas. So, salads for me if I run out of gas when wildcamping.

Packing was also fun : I collected everything together over the weekend so it should have been quick and simple. Turns out it's an art form! All the cupboards need to be lined with gripper fabric, and every single one of them has some wiggly corner that needs cutting out specially. Weight needs to be low down, so planning where to hide everything whilst still maintaining a minimal level of usability takes a lot of thinking. More bizarrely - the cupboards seem to just expand and absorb huge amounts of kitsch (which promptly rattles when only half full) so trying to make a logical combination of  compressed items in any one cupboard went out the window by late last night. I guess this is something that just develops over time, as you gradually acquire sufficient 'stuff'.

Today, more packing. Then we will see. I promised myself I'm not planning this too far ahead, and at the moment it seems my window of decision is about 2 hours hence!

First? Coffee!

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