Days out in the Campervan - November 2024

I'm struggling to get out the house at the moment. Having our son's dog staying with us has been a life saver. She is forcing me to get out for walks. Once I'm out the door I'm perfectly fine in social situations. I can join in with conversations, or sit quietly on my own, read, or just people watch. But the physical act of leaving the house fills me with anxiety. Staying inside is safe, it's just the act of crossing the threshold. 

I haven't been venturing too far and most of it has been on foot, but a couple of times I've taken the dog with me to meet. a friend for a coffee at a garden centre and I've taken Bailey up the Malvern Hills.

We haven't slept in the van since September so as we've had a couple of dry days I decided to air the pop up roof out after walking the hills. I cooked some soup, made a cup of tea, read my book and had an afternoon nap for an hour. I spent some time tidying up a few areas and decided to leave the table set up to save fluffing around with moving the bench seat every time we go out.

You can't use the back seats with the table set up when driving, but it's ok to leave it set up as long as they're not occupied.

I was parked on a slight slope so I used bungees to keep the doors open.

I'm looking to buy a foldable stool to store in the cupboard so I can sit during the winter and cook and make tea/coffee with the roof down as it's canvas and needs to dry properly before being stored closed and it's difficult to stand up for too long with reduced head height. So far the only stools I've found are knee height. I need one that's slightly higher and without a back so it stores in the cupboard.

When the roof is down the head space I have is at shoulder height in the photo below so you can see why it's uncomfortable to prepare food with limited headroom.

We have to keep an eye on the leisure battery at this time of the year as we're not camping and there is little sun so I gave the battery a charge to ensure it doesn't run flat.

We've got a second vehicle now as a runaway around that `I can use for popping back and forth to work and to the supermarket with, as that's all we really do in the van and it's adding the mileage quickly and guzzling the fuel, never getting out of 3rd gear around 50 miles a week. 

I stayed at my friends the other week, but now her children are spreading their wings and leaving the nest there is now room to sleep in her house and the drive is now for parking on. Whilst it's nice now it is winter time, It has been a fun year, camping on her drive.