I hear you cry!
One of the things that's been a problem with Dai is where the heck I can put a rubbish bin. Last year I ended up with just a bin bag stuck in the back cupboard, OK but far from ideal. The problem is the very limited space. If I hadn't done the mains electrics it would have been easier but that was an essential job in my view.
Taking advantage of some slightly nicer weather this weekend I did a quick trawl of the local caravan shops in Wellingborough and Rushden. I wasn't after much (so wasn't disappointed)! I did finally find a nice slimline rubbish bin though. It's designed to hang on a cupboard or wall with a bracket that it will lift off but a bit of experimenting and I found it actually sits nicely against the coolbox. The bracket is only on with sticky-fixers at the moment but I'm not averse to dropping a couple of self-tappers into the sides of the box. It's not going to hold a lot, but ideal for the bits of kitchen roll and tissue, etc. More disappointing was the cheap LED battery lights I bought. I really want some additional lighting over the table and seats but I tried one of these last night and a glow-worm would be more effective. They cost very little though and I'm not surprised. I'll keep thinking on that one but at the moment I'm struggling to work out how to get a power feed to the relevant place without dismantling half the interior.
Another job I'd got on the list was improving the charging provision for phones, etc. I haven't finished this (partly because it's now raining) but the prep work is done. I found a panel mount USB charger and "lighter" socket combo on the 'net recently. The USB has a 1A and a 2.1A output, so will power just about anything and the separate socket is ideal for things like the camera battery charger. I'm part way through mounting these in the spare seat locker so I can leave things concealed on charge. I will bring one of the USB outputs to the area by the seats though so I can plug the mobile in when I'm in bed. Just to complicate the job slightly more I'm installing a switch so that these sockets can run only when the engine is running or be switched to the leisure battery. I could run them permanently from the leisure battery but the USB would drain it slightly so I decided to cover all bases.
Another recent acquisition was a rechargeable LED torch which also functions as a USB stand-by power supply - useful if it's pub o'clock and the phone (or Kindle) battery is dying. That will stay plugged in to the charger in the locker normally so always be ready for use.
The final purchase of the weekend may seem strange - a hot water bottle. We've found on the yacht that they're ideal for warming the bed when it's cold and as I only have limited heating on mains electric I thought it would be a good idea. Whether it will ever be used is another matter but at £1.99 (reduced from £2.99) in the cheap stores I reckoned it's worth a try.
