General camp life

Clare here, just writing a little bit about camp life/ living in a motorhome in general whilst Ed has gone off for a bike ride. I know lots of you saw the van in various states of me packing, and some of you saw it fully loaded. Don't worry, I managed to fit in all my clothes that I wanted, and I even have 8 pairs of shoes!!! (That's if you can count hiking boots as shoes!!!). With the cupboards all packed to full capacity (photos to follow at some point) we are slowly but surely finding everything that we brought and occasionally the odd surprise too as Jasper and Maya did some of their own packing. This afternoon for example, they are playing in the sunshine with a box of lego that was smuggled in much to Ed's annoyance as it rattles on every bump we hit!!! I know where everything is as I packed it all, but Ed has absolutely NO idea and keeps opening cupboards for salt, pepper, cooking utensils, towels and being genuinely surprised by what falls out!!!

Daily chores have been allocated so that as a team we work together. In a small space we soon realised this is vital. We can't cook whilst the top bed is made up as the ladder is in the way and also we decided (health & safety) that it would be dangerous to move duvets with the gas flames on!!! I must confess that the jobs are rather gender stereotypical as Maya and I sort the bedding out and then Jasper and Ed do the "heavy work" and lift it up to the top bed out of the way for the day. There are other jobs that we take turns to do, such as the daily trip to the boulangerie for a fresh baguette, cooking, sweeping up (at least twice daily!!!) and also getting drinking water. Although we carry water on board, we don't have sterilising tablets to ensure it stays safe to drink after a few days, so we drink water from a bottle and only use the motorhome tap water for washing up. 

We have learnt quite quickly to use the on site facilities when and where possible, and within an hour of arriving here at Maisons Laffitte, we had set a load of washing off at the laverie. Thank goodness the washers are industrial style as it all fitted in, and itall came out very clean excepted for a pair of Ed's old shorts which now have a strange mark on them!!! We use site facilities for showers and washing up in order to save the precious resources that we are carrying. We will need our gas for hot water whilst free camping later on in the week.

So life is good, it hasn't taken too long to adjust but I think that's because we are quite savvy about saving energy at home anyway. And to date, the children haven't once asked about watching TV which is good because we don't have one!!! 

Bye for now,

Clare 

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