First night away

I always like a deadline to work to and had one coming up, where I needed some accommodation after a "lad's night out" in Liverpool. The end of January is not exactly the ideal time, as I knew that I wouldn't have any insulation sorted out, but I decided to go for it anyway. 

I wanted to finish the deep clean before staying in the van, so hired a "Rug Doctor" machine and spent all day cleaning the carpets, upholstery and plastic trim. There were LOTS of tanks full of grimy black water that came out of everything, but it all looks much more presentable now, and definitely smells a lot nicer!!

The only bit that is really letting her down is the carpet in the back, which has some really deep staining. I may have another go at that sometime, or I may just get some other carpet to cover it (or I may just put up with it, which is probably the most likely for this year at least.)

I stripped out the "jockey seat" from row 2 and the nearside half seat from row 3, to make space for the future camper set up. I did advertise them on the forum but no takers so they ended up going to the tip 😒.

This was the bed set up for that first night. You can't see a carboard box under part of the bed which added a little support to the mattress in the gap alongside the row 3 seat. (I've since bought a couple of storage boxes which will fill that gap nicely for future trips.) 

I have bought a 3" thick foam roll-up mattress from IKEA, which sits on the folded down seats and then I had a double quilt wrapped around my sleeping bag. I had another sleeping bag in reserve and also took a thermos of hot water with me and filled up a hot water bottle from that as I turned in. 

So, I left Liverpool after the meal and drove for about an hour towards home, then parked up in some services on the A55. (This photo was taken the following morning.) These services don't have a limit on how long you can park as far as I can see, but what they do have is bloody great spotlights illuminating the car park! So I ended up parking on the access road to the petrol station which was fine.

I was toasty and didn't need the spare sleeping bag, but the light was a bit of an issue, as well as lots of condensation in the morning. I'll hopefully get the insulated window covers sorted before the next outing, which will address both of those problems. The bed was super comfy though and I drove home with a big smile on my face.

One slight disappointment was that I chose the stopover so that I wasn't too far from Conwy and could head to their parkrun on the Saturday morning on the way home. But when I woke, all of the local parkruns had been cancelled due to icy conditions. Shame, but I'll do it another time.