When we had to remove the mirror tiles to reduce the weight of our RV, many of the surfaces needed restoring. Easiest way, of course, is to paint them. So that’s what I start to do, bit by bit, as we travel. And of course, once I start painting, then everything gets the makeover treatment.

The main room

I choose a pale, dove-grey paint, which somehow looks pale blue in Georgie: I’ve genuinely no idea why, but I suspect it’s something to do with the filtering on the windows. Knowing that I’m clumsy, I also choose to do a distressed finish on all the woodwork, in order to minimise the inevitable scratches and knocks that will result from me living there.

I buy yards and yards of ticking, and cover all the pelmets in natty navy and cream stripes. This actually means that Steve spends an inordinate amount of time searching for the right size staples, but hey, those are the shops he likes. And I choose a dark grey paint to add as an accent colour, which comes out as a nice, deep navy, of course.

We sand and re-varnish the kitchen floor, and I paint all forty of the cupboard and drawer handles with the same grey paint (mainly because I’m too cheap to consider replacing all of them).

The bedroom

Before I can begin on the decorating, I have to solve a problem. We have something called an east-west bed, which means it goes sideways across the van instead of head on. This allows for much more room to get around the bed and a far, far superior wardrobe space. But it also means that the head of our bed is beneath a particular window, which doubles as our escape hatch should the van roll.

So we sit up in bed, watching Project Runway (don’t judge us), and lean on half a side pelmet, some crumpled blind, and a large metal handle each. Not comfortable and, in colder weather, bloody draughty. What to do?

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Remove the pelmets and blinds and insert a headboard, of course. If I get it right, it will fit the space, block out noise, light, and draughts, and still be easily removable in an emergency. I tell Steve to keep an eye out for some foam, and he discovers some thick, insulating stuff in a hardware store. I promptly dismantle all the existing window coverings.

We buy two 1×2 metre sheets, an inch thick, figuring that one on its own won’t be stiff enough to stay upright, but that if we put two together….you see my thinking here? While I consider how I’m going to fix them to the wall, I pin some temporary fabric around them (OK, a sheet), prop them up behind the pillows, and we go to bed.

Most of the night, the foam falls on my head.

The next day Pete (from the even bigger American RV nearby) says, ‘what you need is a sheet of hardboard that you could stick some foam-backed leatherette on. Put a shelf there,’ he says, pointing at the pillow end of my bed, ‘and sit it on top.’

SoI give it a good think, and although I can’t quite bring myself to embrace the leatherette, I reckon he’s got some good ideas that I can work around. We beggar off back to the hardware store and buy a sheet of hardboard and some other bits and bobs.

The board is cut to fit the space. It is not, however, cut to fit inside a Smart car.

We take the roof down, bend the passenger seat forward and cram it in. I ride all the way home, bent double, with a frozen hand sticking out the top of the van, holding on to the board because of the hurricane force winds that have suddenly shot up again.

And then comes the bit where I am really glad that we bought a new kitchen knife,and that I packed both my glue and staple guns and a sewing machine.

Long story, short: it takes me three days – THREE DAYS – because the window turns out to be slightly crooked. And – as I’m cutting one piece of foam to fit exactly inside the window, and another piece to fit outside it (stopping all the draughts and light) – this is a bit of a mission.

But they are finally cut, and I glue them onto the board. Then I glue the other piece of foam onto the other side to act as a soft surface to lean on, and staple-gun fabric all around.

Steve puts up the shelf for it to rest on, while I make pull-it-to-escape-handles, and stick loads of velcro on the back of the headboard, and on the corresponding parts of the wall. And it works a treat. Beryl reckons it looks like it’s always been there.

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The kitchen

I can’t be doing with wasted space, and there is a piece of kitchen cupboard that houses two American plug sockets. That will never be used. So in my head, they have to go in order to free up the space to be used for something else.

I persuade Steve to move the defunct plugs out of the way, and build me a small cubbyhole, big enough to house my cutlery tray. This sounds easy, but actually isn’t, especially in a vehicle that tends towards the slanty. But he does a fantastic job.

It may not look much to you and you may wonder why we bother, but when one’s entire kitchen is basically the size of two washing machines, then every bit of space counts. It’s a question of percentages.

I also wall-mount everything I can, and even ceiling-mount a drip-tray under one of the cupboards. This is a metal serviette holder that Steve fixes to the bottom of the cupboard above the sink. It holds the washing-up cloths and sponges, which now drip straight into the sink, and air-dry properly. They don’t have to be moved when we de-camp, and they don’t take up precious worktop space.

With some of the leftover ticking and some strong plastic bags, I spend another three days learning how to make spice racks, which I staple inside the kitchen cupboard doors.

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Outside

Now mostly I leave this part to Steve, but the inclement weather inspires me to come up with a BRILLIANT idea of my own (I don’t need to be modest – it really is brilliant). Sometimes our electric cable doesn’t quite reach to the electric point, so we have to use an extension. Common enough – you often see other peoples’ junctions wrapped in plastic bags and sitting off the ground on bricks, or hanging from trees. It can be quite tricky trying not to trip, or drive, over them.

I come up with a nifty and ultra cheap solution – I buy a big, lidded, plastic container from a Chinese shop, cut two small notches in it for the cables to feed in and out of, pop the junctions inside, and slam on the lid. Instantly waterproof, clearly visible, doesn’t matter if there’s a bit of a puddle. Eh voila.

Honestly, when I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll.

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