Time to Face The Music

RelievedSheff

It won't be a no spends day today. We are taking advantage of staying at home this weekend to get stocked up with bacon and sausage from the local butchers. We also need to go to the farm shop to get some fruit and vegetables for this week and next.

Breakfast and dinner will be from stores. Sausage and mushroom sandwich for breakfast and dinner tonight is goat madras with pilau rice, homemade onion bhaji, chapati and some poppadoms and a pickle tray for starters.

The neighbours are coming round for dinner and drinks tonight. Will be nice to be entertaining again. Seems like a long time since we last had anyone round for dinner.

Got a few jobs to do on the van today. Most important is fitting the shelves and luggage straps in the outside locker. We need these for next weekend as we will be three nights off grid so will need to take the gear with us that will fit on the shelves to extend our off grid capacity. Would like to get the shelves in the wardrobe done as well but these are not as important. 

Must fit in walking the dog as well somewhere along the way today.

Looks like a busy day ahead.

joedenise

What are you planning on fitting in the outside locker to extend your off grid capacity?  The only things we've added to our van is solar panels (on the roof) and extra batteries which are in the same locker as the original battery was.  We did 6 nights off grid in April this year and never had to worry about not having any power.  We could easily have stayed off grid longer.

We're having a goat curry tonight as well which I made some time ago and has been in the freezer so a nice easy dinner.  Enjoy your dinner with your neighbours tonight.

Sun_Addict

Tonight’s plan sound great, enjoy 🍻

RelievedSheff

The main thing is the spare toilet cassette. 

Not concerned about the leisure battery. The solar panel does a good job of keeping that charged even on low light days and we do plan to move every day so the engine will help as well. We had planned to increase the size of the battery bank and add another solar panel but don't think it is necessary now having used the van.

The spare cassette will be on a shelf in the outside locker strapped down with luggage straps in a dry bag holdall. The other shelves in the outside locker will hold the water hose pipes and the levelling ramps. That will then free up a huge area at the bottom of that locker for beer 😀

The inside wardrobe we are adding a couple of shelves. One for the laundry bag and one each for our clothes bags. Currently that wardrobe is huge but not very usable, everything just gets chucked in it. We will also put some hooks on the back of the door for the dogs jackets, collars and leads. 

It's all little bits. But it is all bits that will make it easier for us to live with. We will keep doing odd jobs as we go along. Thankfully nothing expensive to do though.

joedenise

Forgot about the spare cassette!  Ours is stored in a dedicated box on the underside of the van at the back.  Think it's been used 2, maybe 3, times in about 15 years of motor homing - have to say the box was fitted on the van when we bought it.  Can understand wanted the shelves for hoses etc - think we were quite lucky as ours has shelves to one side of the van which holds all those bits and pieces and we didn't need to add them ourselves.  It's probably worth adding hooks for your coats as well as for the dogs coats etc!  We have some in the shower compartment for our coats as it keeps them out of the way - just have to take them out when we have our showers but no big deal!

Sounds like your wardrobe is much bigger than ours!  Ours only has a couple of hanging rails from front to back and definitely no rooms for shelves.  All our clothes have to go in the lockers around the bed!

RelievedSheff

joedenise said:

Forgot about the spare cassette!  Ours is stored in a dedicated box on the underside of the van at the back.  Think it's been used 2, maybe 3, times in about 15 years of motor homing - have to say the box was fitted on the van when we bought it.  Can understand wanted the shelves for hoses etc - think we were quite lucky as ours has shelves to one side of the van which holds all those bits and pieces and we didn't need to add them ourselves.  It's probably worth adding hooks for your coats as well as for the dogs coats etc!  We have some in the shower compartment for our coats as it keeps them out of the way - just have to take them out when we have our showers but no big deal!

Sounds like your wardrobe is much bigger than ours!  Ours only has a couple of hanging rails from front to back and definitely no rooms for shelves.  All our clothes have to go in the lockers around the bed!

The van came with hooks for coats in the bathroom as standard and a fold down hanging rail in the shower stall for drying wet gear.

The outside locker doesn't have shelves because it should house the ladder for the bed which would mean any shelves would be quite small. If using it as a 4 berth the drop down bed wouldn't come down low enough to climb on. We will only use it as a 2 berth so can drop the bed much lower and leave the ladder at home out of the way.

We are pretty certain the spare cassette will get used next weekend. 

joedenise

Just remember not to use loads of water to flush the loo!  Just use very little and then spray the bowl with a mix of diluted Zoflora (or something similar).  The less water that goes into the cassette the longer it will last.  

RelievedSheff

joedenise said:

Just remember not to use loads of water to flush the loo!  Just use very little and then spray the bowl with a mix of diluted Zoflora (or something similar).  The less water that goes into the cassette the longer it will last.  

It isn't water that's the problem. It's second hand beer 🤣🤣🤣

joedenise

🤣🤣🤣🤣 - it's wine for us mainly!

RelievedSheff

The other half has been busy this afternoon. He has done the shelves in the van and it is a much better use of space now.


He is going to fabricate something at work to hang the spare wheel under the van. The spare wheel takes up a lot of room in that outside locker and there is loads of room under the van for it without reducing ground clearance. 

He is now finishing off fitting a spice rack to the inside of one of the kitchen cupboard doors, some hooks on the back of the wardrobe door for the dogs jacket and some hats and a kitchen roll holder. All the important things 🤣🤣🤣