Personal Blogs

Sometimes just when things seem to be getting worse with ever increasing momentum there suddenly appears light at the end of the tunnel, and by light I mean literally. Living off grid and relying on the sun and the wind can be hit and miss at this time of year. There are not many hours of daylight and it has been so flat calm that the wind turbine has failed to charge the batteries for some time. We had checked the voltage and it was dire, we had to resort to head torches to read, and candle light for just general background light, and charging the laptop has meant making trips to very patient friends houses to plug in and recharge. Its amazing how resourceful living off grid can make a person, and early nights are a blessing because hot water bottles and a decent duvet can do for a person what any amount of stoking the burner can't do if there is no wind to draw through. A very good friend has offered to supply us with a generator for the purpose of recharging the battery bank and for that we are very grateful. Isn't it amazing though that as soon as we were about to succumb the wind returned and for now our battery bank is charging nicely till the next time. At the end of the day a caravan is only a tin rectangular box, and was designed for summer living, not all year round. But with thoughtful placing of furniture we have managed to increase the thermal mass around the exterior walls and now it is much warmer than in some of the previous years. I have to admit though that the winter with all the snow did take us down to -8 inside in the bedroom, but that was after a weekend away and the fire hadn't been lit. We keep the burner in constantly at this time of year, feeding it before retiring to bed so that there is some heat in the morning. We double up on curtains as the windows are the single glazed variety, and as it gets colder, they are often left closed in the rooms we aren't spending much time in. Last year we used the silver insulator/reflector for behind radiators as insulation between the glass and the curtains, it worked remarkably well. What makes me laugh is that we can be really cold inside and then we go out and it actually feels warmer outside, I guess this is the refrigerator effect. On those days we open the doors and let the warmer fresh air in for a while. But its not so bad at the moment and its nearly Christmas. The little Christmas tree is up and lit with an Array of battery operated led lights, which is good as my battery running low and I'm going to have to log off, good evening folks, love and light. Emma