Enlightenment ...

We are a family of sickies at the moment, which makes coping with our current living arrangement a bit trickier.  Although there was a rainbow and blue sky for a brief period this morning, much of the day has been cold and wet - which hasn't increased our motivation!

I spent some time outside late this afternoon, putting an easy meal into one of my thermal cookers and dealing with some washing-up.  You can see my current (hah!) plug-in hotplates in one of the pics at left.

Yep, I paid full-price for a brand-new Kmart set and they are working well.

There has been a lot of wind today, so the gazebo has stayed in it's low setting.  I can stand beneath it but don't always remember to duck under the roof struts when moving about!

I spoke of some of the difficulties of cheffing al fresco here.  These pics might give you a bit more idea of the open-air nature of my "kitchen" and "dining room".

During the past month, we've bought some neat 12-volt lights.  Nick has rigged them so we have three set-up under the gazebo - two over the table and one where I generally cook.  (The kitchen sink table is under the van's outside light).  There is another light strip inside the tent.  We even have light switches - how cool is that?!

When we initially moved into the van a bit over seven months ago, we used a couple of cheap 24-volt plug-in lights (from a car accessories retailer), to light the tent and gazebo.  Those lights have gone by the wayside so for a while we were using a torch in the tent and nothing under the gazebo.  In discussing a much better system, we decided we'd rather invest in something that would be useful for "proper camping".

We were very pleased when 4WD Supa Centre had an extra-good sale on their Camp Light Kit.  The lights run from our wonderful Thumper and everyone really appreciates being able to see properly.  (Once a week we take the Thumper for a run in Elmer to re-charge).