When the weather is crap drink tea and think

It's freezing cold, wet and stormy so rather than spend an evening freezing my bits off I'm back to thinking and planning - I do a lot of it.

Window blinds

Elmer came with funky electrically operated curtains which have zero thermal insulation properties and offer limited privacy so they're coming out in favour of home made insulated window panels.

Now I'm not bothered about blackout but I'm heading to the Arctic in June, which reminds me of a story.

In 2010, my friends Alan & Karen Hill and I went on our motorbikes to Nordkapp. In fact my trip is part of a promise I made to myself that I would repeat the journey because I found the high Arctic so enthralling. Our plan was to head north from Oslo as fast as we could through Sweden (higher speed limits) to get to Norkapp in 4 days. When we arrived there we came across a couple of guys on their BMW GS's (like mine) who had ridden up from Ankara, Turkey and had got so confused by the almost constant, then continuous daylight that they'd not slept for 10 days.

They could not believe that we had no problems with the 24 hour daylight until we explained that in Scotland in June/July it was light for as much as 18 hours a day, especially in good weather so we were used to it. In fact, we have all got in from school/work and had a wee snooze then woken up with a start to see the clock reading 9:00 and having no idea if it was 9pm or 9am and we'd slept in!

Yup I was a tellytubby on a 2009 BMW 1200GS A

Norkapp ... note the time

It was freezing .. well, it was midnight

At Norkapp, in glorious sunshine, at midnight, in 2deg C

 For more photos of that trip take a look at my Flickr album CLICK HERE

Where was I? Oh yes, window blinds .... I've ordered some aluminium wrapped bubblewrap insulation which I'll cut to shape and glue on to some old sleeping bags to make window blinds which will be held in using ingenious plastic clips (more on that when I've thought it through). Cost per blind will be about £5 each and I'll need 5 for the back and 3 for the front. Simple, cheap  and hopefully effective.

Kitchen

I have about 7 or 8 Camping Gaz canisters left from the 12 I bought 10 years ago, thinking I would go through 4 or 5 on the bike trip (I used 1.5). The stove top I have clips on to the cylinder and is not that stable so I've bought a couple of small but stable stoves that have a remote connector and these will sit inside the drawer which I'll line with aluminium to prevent the wood going on fire.

Heating

Not decided if I need it. I'm not planning any trips where I won't have electric hookup for a 2kw oil filled radiator before summer comes and surely Elmer won't be colder than a tent so a couple of good sleeping bags/blankets will do just fine.

Power

 This is something I have lots of experience with from setting up BIG electric winches on my 4x4 competition vehicles.
Elmer came with two 120Ah batteries as standard and with all my lighting (like I'll need much in the Arctic) being led, my phone/laptop etc all being battery powered and mostly charged while driving, I'm not sure I'll need much in the way of auxiliary/leisure power. I have three 22Ah batteries I use to run the ignition on my veteran car which as very small and I could take them connected to a voltage sensing relay as a 'twin battery' set up. Again, the total cost of that would be about £25 plus dipping into my stock of bits left over from previous projects

Storage

The more I look at what I have, the more I think I have oodles of storage space. I'm quite an efficient traveller, 25 years on motorbikes has taught me how to travel light and I think the 3 biggest items will be my portable fridge, portapotti and clothes. I have a 'thing' for storage boxes so I've been thinking about how to use the space effectively and may come up with a way of having things boxed up so I'm not just flinging everything willy-nilly.

Part of that game is to work out how to store all things you need the most in the easiest to access places and the stuff you hope you'll never need (like tools, first aid kit, imodium, shotgun) where you have to unload everything go get at them. I'm pretty good at that part but I have set myself a challenge of having a completely clear sitting/dining area so I don't have play campervan chess each time I stop for a cuppa.

Ah well, work beckons. I need a decent lottery win so I can tell everyone to bugger off.

Later.