A Quick Look Back at the Year

 

Happy New Year to everyone that reads my almost daily ramblings.  

I hope that this coming year is kinder and more gentle with you all than the last one was.  Before we step forward into the great unknown here is a look back at my life during 2020 ... the year that lots happened but that somehow still seems to feel like a total non-event!!

January

Rather fortuitously I started the year buying a pair of new walking boots in the Hotter sale.  They sure came in handy when walking became the new going out!!

February

While the Caravan Park was still closed I was stuck in wet, wet Wales.  Flooded fields and dreary days.

March

Then it all changed, the sun came out and the Park re-opened after the closed season.  Washing was dried in the sunshine and doggy walks along the river made me and Suky happy.  Then after a couple of glorious weeks the park closed again as Lockdown hit the UK with a vengeance.

April

A lovely surprise was waiting for me when I got home to Wales, Ethel was back and with her a brand new son ... Joey.

May

The month my new best friend arrived.  

Who else will tell me what day it is without laughing at me!!

June

Then suddenly it was quite nice being stuck in Wales with the sunshine and the flowers.

July

But then Van Life resumed and my true life beckoned 😃

August

Long days, long doggy walks and lots of blogging from the kitchen table.

September

The month I managed to get to two car boots sales, before they were closed down yet again.

October

October brought a massive change, with me renting a flat and putting the Van on the market.  It was the end of an era but one I think that was a very necessary transitioning zone.  It was fun turning a blank canvas into a comfortable temporary home.

November

November was spent falling in love with my new hometown.  

The shopkeepers, townsfolk and the town council do so much to keep things warm and welcoming and participate in all calendar events.  The Remembrance poppies are just one of the ways the town shows it cares. 

December

It seems somehow fitting for December to show the leftovers of my Christmas dinner.

In my view 2020 is a year best left behind, and as we move forward into the chilly New Year I wish all my blog readers, family and friends all that they would wish for for themselves if they weren't such a beautiful bunch of  be more generous to others glorious folk.

Happy New Year ...let's make the most of it it's all we have until the next one!!

Sue xx

It's Here at Last - Moving Day

Like any good blogger on moving day my computer will be the last thing to be packed away, so here I am drinking coffee and tippety tapping away on the keyboard.  I thought I had done a really good job in moving everything over the course of the last week, car load by car load.  

At first glance you would think so wouldn't you!!

But then last night I lifted the sofa cushions to get to the storage area underneath where I knew the salt crystals and a big box of dehumidifier plastic thingies to put them in that we use when the Van is closed for the end of season were ... and I found a great big vacuum bag of duvets and more bedding which will make for a whole boot full for my little Fiat.

I am running to no definite timetable ... except one of my own making ... but I want to hand the keys in this afternoon, so I will be making a run to the flat to empty the car of this load and then one final return to the Van for a good clean of the floors and steam of the carpets.

Then the keys will be handed in ready for hopefully some viewings in the next few weeks.  As Alan said on the phone last night it's the end of an era.  Another chapter of our lives completed and enjoyed, time to move on to the next chapter.

Small town living here I come.

Sue xx

 

One Final Day and Night at the Van

 

Today is my last full day at the Van.

I am busy packing up virtually everything, just leaving myself enough food for my tea and one of everything I might need ... plate, cup, glass, knife, fork, spoon etc.  As I go round picking up the bits and pieces that are left and stuffing them in my usual haphazard way into bags I am giving the Van a really good clean ready for it going up for sale on Wednesday.  When it appears on the company website I'll share a link so you can see how it looks.

Alan was an amazing help over the weekend, he came through in our Mitsubishi truck with a few things from home for me.  My double bed and it's bedding, my little green 'alien' storage box, a large plastic box of kitchen items that I had packed up when I was last back in Wales, my clothes rail and a few other bits and pieces that have disappeared into the flat.

Once we had unloaded it at the flat on Saturday we went back and reloaded the truck with all the larger pieces from the Van, the bench from the garden, the tin bath ready for some Winter replanting, some large boxes and another set of filled bags.

Once we had unloaded the truck, he put up some shelves for me, assembled the bed frame and helped with a few of the heavier jobs.  Then we treated ourselves to a spot of late lunch before heading back to the Van to get on with some vital office work.  The only reason Alan was able to come out of Wales is that our company handles a type of work that gives Alan key worker status for travelling and we needed to sort out some of those work things together.  Now that has been dealt with he will be able to abide by the full Welsh lockdown and remain based in Wales until it is over or at least changes again.

Having the truck here for two days though was such a huge help.

My bedroom on Friday ...

... and then with the double bed in place and the net curtains hiding the worst of the horrible blue venetian blinds on Sunday afternoon.

Today I am doing one full car load and unpacking the bags into the spare room so I can bring them back to fill one last time tomorrow, when I will be handing in the keys of the Van.  While Alan was here we signed the contract for the caravan  park to act as agents and sell the Van for us, we have our fingers crossed it sells quicker than the house in Wales!! 

Then it will be time to head down the road into my new home town with the last of my bits and pieces.  For someone who thought she was minimal this Van sure held a lot of stuff.  Something I will be rectifying over the next few months.

Sue xx

Nooks and Crannies, Hidden Storage and Damp

Living in 432 square foot means the space has to be well planned out, and in most static caravans this is pretty well a given.  These days more than ever before, there are nifty storage solutions and clever ideas.  But I have the sort of mind that is always designing and redesigning the space I live in until I find the best possible solutions for things.

The living room is pretty well thought out, and to be fair there's little I would change about it except perhaps to have a built in corner unit for the television to stand on rather than the free standing one we currently have, and also I would have no window above where the television is.  

Under the section of the built-in sofas in the top photo is a fold out double bed.  Useful I guess if you have people staying over a lot or rent out your Van to more than the four people the bedrooms can cope with.

Under 'cosy corner', as I call it there is lots of storage space, as the boards under all the big cushions lift up  to reveal a big square space, but I only use one section of it at the moment as I just don't have that much stuff, so the only part of it that has anything in is the foot end.   

Oh, it's called cosy corner because of the Suky coloured fleece that covers the cushions for evenings of television watching and Puggy cuddles.

You just lift up the cushion and then use the missing corner of board to lift it up ...

... revealing a cavernous hole.

This one has the double bedding ready to be used if anyone needs to sleep in the foldaway double bed.  Two ready pillow-cased pillows, a duvet already in a cover and a mattress protector and fitted sheet ready to put on the mattress.

Under the king sized bed in the main bedroom is the largest of all the storage spaces.  And it was me going under here this morning to get out a basket that  I wanted to use for storage in the wardrobe that sort of led to this post.

When we leave the Van for the three month 'closed season' we have to dot these sort of damp absorbers around the caravan to help keep the air as dry as possible and everything mould-free.  When we got back this time some of them hadn't completely turned to liquid so after taking out the things we needed to use from under the bed, I left three of them stood in the now half empty space.

It's a good job I did, as this morning when I went under the bed to get out the basket I needed while making it up with fresh bedding ... they were all completely liquid.  The cold, wet weather we have had over the last few weeks has no doubt been the cause.  So I was happy that me needing the basket out from under the bed made me spot the need to recharge these.  Yes, they are supposed to be the 'throwaway' sort and not the more permanent refillable ones like the others I have.  But if you carefully cut away the fabric top layer you can pour away the liquid and refill with some more of the crystals.

Which luckily I bought far too many of at the end of last year.  😃

After leaving it to air for a little bit and waiting for the little pots to drain I will fill them with more crystals and pop them back under the bed.   While the bed is raised I should maybe have another look at what is in all the bags and boxes that are under there, because I obviously haven't been using any of these things since I got back, so the question must be ... do I actually need any of them?

What else would I change in the Van?

Well for starters, in the bedroom I would make the 'dressing table' into just a simple radiator shelf/cover and have a bookcase instead of the chest of drawers ... these two changes would give a lot more space at the end of the bed.

I would also completely do away with the en-suite and instead have a low three drawer chest of drawers at each side of the bed, giving the person nearer the window much more space for getting in and out of bed, oh and have built in reading lamps on the wall.

Maybe I should go in for caravan design ... or maybe just win the lottery and have one custom made just for me  😃

Sue xx

Sorting Out the Food Stash - Part Two

Another closed door - another food stash, this time in the little spare bedroom ... in the wardrobe.

A shelf full of food ... well I mean who uses wardrobes for clothes these days 🤣

It seemed a good idea to have a stash of food here at the Van ready for lockdown, less trips out, less shopping, less risk.  Then came the total closure of the caravan park and I had to set off back to Wales, taking just what I could fit in my small car.  

Most of the stash stayed here, all the tins, jars and packets and the special offers I had bought to see me out through the Summer.  Just the shorter dated and fresh food items and the contents of the fridge were piled into my little Fiat, along with Suky, the plants and some clothes.

Also in the small spare bedroom was a box of food that I had brought from home at the start of the season back in February, and had never gotten around to unpacking, not that there was space for it in any of the cupboards.  I sort of saw it as back up foods for refilling the cupboard as I ate my way through the things in it.

Finally on the bed was the food that I had just brought with me when the park opened a couple of weeks ago.  So much food in so many places.  I just had to get stuck in and make sense of it all.

With all the foods taken from their respective places and like placed with like I then started to put things in date order.  So the tins were stacked with the 2022 being at the very bottom of the towers, then 2021 etc etc.

Taking away the tiered 'steps' meant that I could use the tins built in ridges to safely stack them up to four high at the very back, making full use of the height of cupboard.  Coming forward in front of the highest stack when I had more than four of something.  I seem to have a lot of chickpeas and tinned tomatoes, but then I use a lot so it's no problem.

I have tried to do this with the four types of food I use the most, making full use of the height of the cupboard at the back and dropping forward nearer the front.  So one line of chickpeas, one of tinned tomatoes, one of tinned beans (of many descriptions ... baked, butter, mixed) and potatoes and one of tinned lentils.

Once the four lines of tins were in place I had a narrow gap down the middle, just wide enough for those little jars of red or green pesto that are so handy to have in for those nights when brain freeze dictates a simple supper of pesto and pasta.  So all the narrow jars I had were lined up in this small space and now absolutely no space is wasted.

Then the basket was filled with all the little odds and sods that just clutter up food cupboards, meaning I can easily lift it out of the way to reach the serious stuff.

The bottom shelf may at first glance just look messy again but it is now all logical, with all my Almond milks moved in here from the pan cupboard and lined up in date order, the nut butters are stacked with the longest dates at the bottom etc etc ...  And more importantly, now that I have looked through everything I know what is where, what needs using up and I know for sure that I do not need to go shopping for anything other than fresh foods.  Also lined up in here are my jars of baking supplies, flour, sugar, ground almonds etc, it's always safer to have things in jars rather than packets in the caravan.

The jars that were hard to stack in the cupboard were put into the box in the bedroom, with the few Deliciously Ella treats left over from my birthday shopping splurge on top.

And in the wardrobe (this will never be needed for clothes), I have the extra things that I really don't need to use for a while.  

The rice, pasta, oats etc  to refill the jars on the shelf in the kitchen ... along with my coffee stash.  I have not gone mad on coffee, I bought these a long time ago when Nescafe my coffee of choice was on offer at £5 instead of it's usual £7.49 for the largest jar.  It meant I saved almost £10 every time I bought four jars ... so I did every time I went shopping until the offer ran out  🤣🤣

Hopefully just as I use the last of it the offer will be back ... fingers crossed!

So that's it the food sorted, no shopping needed this week as I have a bit of fresh stuff in the fridge and a packet of bread rolls in the freezer for quick lunches.

For Lee

The little bin inside the under-sink cupboard.

The caravan park's bins.  

Our trellis attached over the concrete wall hides the worst of it from view, and no we have had no problems with any smells even in the hottest of weather.

Something that has proved REALLY useful and that your parents might find handy, is this little hook over the cupboard door towel rail for the kitchen.  This is the hardest working door in the Van ... bin on the inside and towel rail on the outside 😃

Sue xx

Sorting Out the Food Stash - Part One

Behind closed doors ... you can hide a multitude of sins.

(The marks are on the camera lens not the door.)

This food cupboard at the Van is just over a foot wide and yet behind this innocent little door ...

... there's a chaos of food on two levels.

Neither of which are tidy and or that well organised.

Well things seem a little bit better when you get through to the back layers.

But these little 'step storage shelves' have been a bit of a disappointment to tell the truth.  I had high hopes when I bought them last year, but when they are in use although you can see more of the layers of things you have, you are actually losing valuable storage space underneath them.  Something in a small kitchen I that can ill afford to lose.

So now they have been removed.

This little cupboard held a lot!!

No wonder that I had kept putting off this job, I had a good look at everything, checking dates and condition.  

The only two things that were no good were these, somehow I had completely missed that the dates were well up before lockdown.  A check and sniff later and they were in the bin.

Then all that was left to do was to wash out the cupboard, and while it dried ...

... poke a certain little girl awake and go for a walk.

Sue xx