Witch o't Woods

Tag: spiders

Home Improvements and Adventure Packing

Last weekend, I finally bought the paint for Noah’s new front wing, which was damaged a few weeks ago when the gate blew into it while I was driving through.
I’d already sourced a new wing a few weeks back at the painful price of £119.00. I was initially quoted £90 when I called up to enquire, but when I arrived to pick it up, the price had jumped for some reason.

With few options nearby, I decided to just pay the money for an easy life. It was annoying because the man behind the counter was also rude. I would have preferred to give my money to anyone else but him.
But I really wanted to get started on the fix, and it felt like a lot of effort to source a different panel, so I paid the extra money.
The place I bought it was called Mount Panels over in Leeds, and although they were rude and gave me an initial false quote, the panel is perfectly fine.

The new panel. Apologies for the poor picture quality. New panels come ready coated in black primer.

I sourced paint from a shop called Soll in Kirkstall. The guy there was really friendly and helpful. He asked for my fuel cap cover so that he could match the paint to my van exactly, and the paint was ready in under an hour.

My dad gave me some lessons in spraying because he’s done this many times before. I can’t afford to spend too much on this, so we’ve had to opt for spray cans over a spray gun.

Dad giving me spraying lessons. This is the back of the panel. Apparently if you don’t spray this side too then it’ll rust really quickly.

I went for paint with lacquer included, hoping it would make the job quicker and easier, but it hasn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped. I could have done with one more can of paint, as the finish is not brilliant. I need to sand the whole thing down with fine wet and dry sandpaper, then buy a tin of spray lacquer to go over the top.

Part of the issue was how sunny it was on the day we sprayed the panel. There’s a slight orange peel effect in places, which is apparently where the paint is drying as it comes out of the can. Very annoying, but I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy job, and it’s also a bit of a learning curve, so I expected a couple of issues along the way.

After consulting YouTube, I now have a clear idea of how to fix it, so I’ll pick up some lacquer when I next have time to work on it and have another go.

In the meantime, Dad used a piece of wood and a hammer to beat the dinted panel back into place so that I can at least open the driver door properly. It’s made things easier for now, which is good because I won’t have time to work on the repair this weekend due to the walking adventure and family plans when I return.

Still looks rubbish, but at least I can open the door now.

In between waiting for the paint layers to dry, I removed the awful blue stripes, which I’ve wanted to get rid of since buying Noah almost a year ago.
I have nothing against stripes per se, but they were not to my taste. They were also not applied very neatly, which meant bits were coming unstuck, and there were places where they hadn’t been trimmed very well, and even some rips which had been stuck back together overlapping. It just looked cheap and nasty.

Noah with his blue stripes

I removed the top stripes a couple of months back. These went along the roof’s edge and down the front of the doors to meet the stripes on the front wings. It took me ages to clean off the sticky residue they left behind, so I’ve been procrastinating over removing the rest of them.

While watching a random van conversion video on YouTube recently, I found a product that made the job much easier. It’s called G&T Glue and Tar Remover by Car-Chem, and it just melts the glue in under a minute. It was still a grim job to wipe off the jellified glue after it had melted, but it was much faster, and I got all of the stripes and glue removed in one afternoon.

Glue and Tar remover by Car-Chem

Noah now looks very neat with just his black stripes on either side. I plan to get a couple of nice campervan stickers from Etsy, but first, the whole exterior needs a proper cleanup. There are a few chips in the paint, which I need to learn how to repair. There are also marks on the side panels from where the old business stickers were when Noah was a plumbing van. The paint, in general, just needs brightening and polishing.
I’ll have to consult YouTube again for lessons. What would I do without it?

No more blue stripes

I plan to get Noah looking nice and neat inside and out by the end of summer and then post him online for sale in the spring of next year. Spring is the best time to sell a campervan because that’s when everyone starts thinking about camping and enjoying the sun.

Overall, I’m enjoying my home improvements and learning how to fix things rather than paying others to fix them. It’s quite satisfying when a job is finally completed, and Noah is a little more improved.

Found this little guy on my van while I was removing the stickers. I’ve never seen a green spider before, but apparently he’s a Cucumber Spider and they’re quite common in the UK.

However, the work will be put on hold for a week or so. I head to Redcar with my sister tonight, where we’ll begin our two-and-a-half-day walk along the coast. We’re very excited to be doing our first camping walk. I think I’ve packed everything I need, but I’m sure I’ll have forgotten something.

I got a great deal on a hiking tent from Mountain Warehouse. I decided to have a go at putting it up immediately after collecting it. I was at my mum’s house at the time, so it went up in her back garden.
It’s not the most spacious of tents, but it’s very light, which is the most important thing, and it was also easy to put up.

It has doors on both sides, which makes for a great through-wind. This is good, because the temperature inside felt like 100 degrees within two minutes of putting it up…

Mum did all of my washing for me while I was there. She’s such a good egg. Washing is always a pain when living the van life. Usually, I have to go to a laundrette or book into a campsite with washing facilities to get the job done, so the laundrette of mum is very welcome!
We had cups of tea and admired the tent from the patio while my clothes dried.

Admiring the tent. Also using the tent as a cardigan dry rack.

My sister also came over, and we decided to tackle the issue of the security tag on my walking rucksack.
I bought it from Go Outdoors a couple of months back and then realised they hadn’t removed the security tag before I left the store. I don’t remember the alarm going off, but I was concerned that it would set off other alarms if I went in and out of stores while on the walk. Also, I didn’t want people to see the tag and think I’d stolen my walking bag.

At this point, I had no idea where the receipt was, and I didn’t fancy trying to convince the checkout assistant that I hadn’t stolen the bag, so I again turned to my good friend YouTube for advice.
We were assured that the tags are easy to remove with just a couple of forks and some light pressure. We also needed to cover the whole thing in a plastic bag because the tag contained dye capsules designed to explode if the tag is tampered with.
I’d imagined masses of dye exploding into my eyes as I tried to prise the thing off, but then I watched a video of one exploding and realised it was only a tiny bit of dye and would probably not blind me.

Two forks, a garden fork, a hammer, and two screwdrivers later, we finally succeeded in removing the tag. Without breaking the dye capsules, which was a nice achievement.
I would not recommend this method, though. It was a lot of faff. It’s definitely better to check your items for security tags before leaving the store!

The little dye capsules look really cool. I didn’t want to throw them away, but also had no idea what I’d do with them if I kept them.

My bag feels quite heavy now that it’s packed, and my back is about to have a rude awakening. The last time I carried a pack like this was when I went on a month-long trip to Hawaii. That was back in 2018, and I’m nowhere near as fit as I was then. The pack is a bit lighter than that one was, though, and I’ve been doing a lot more walking this year to build the strength in my injured leg, so hopefully, I’ll manage okay.
My walking boots are rubbing on one of my ankle scars, so I’ve packed my trainers just in case it gets bad.
I’m looking forward to the trip and will be recording the route on the All Trails app, so I’ll share the map next week.

Wish me luck!

Fox
xx

June 17, 2025
Grumpy Spiders and a Power Upgrade

Great things have been achieved this week!

The Big May Clean is almost complete.
It’s taken longer than anticipated, but I’m on the home run!

All but the highest Alien Spiders have been evicted, and the Juicy Window Spiders are grumpily rebuilding their webs after I cleaned the windows.

Just one of many pans of dust and dirt removed from the cottage. I really don’t know how it all gets in.

For anyone wondering, the Alien Spiders are those weird, uppity-legged ones with rice-shaped bodies and hair-thin legs. I think they’re called Basement Spiders?
They started appearing inside the cottage a few years ago and quickly took over, killing all of the juicy spiders and not even earning their keep by catching flies.
They catch the poor juicy spiders, wrap them into a ball, and lay their eggs in them. Then they sit in the corners, holding their dead eggspider ball until it hatches, and the cycle continues.

I’d never disliked an insect until I met this kind. I think it’s the fact that they kill the poor juicy spiders who do nothing to deserve it.
So now, every time I spot one of these guys, I evict them immediately.

However, even with a ladder, the eaves are too high for me to reach. This gives the Alien Spiders a place of safety, and so naturally, it’s absolutely covered in their webs.
I plan to devise a long stick with some kind of duster on the end to clean up the webs—another task on the great cottage to-do list.

I found this giant Juicy Spider out in the porch, eating an Alien Spider. How the tables have turned!!

Anyway, the bulk of the dust and alien spiders have now been removed, and the cottage is starting to feel like her old self again. I even picked a small selection of wildflowers from the garden to brighten the place up.

My dad came over on Friday afternoon and cut the grass while I finished things off in the cottage. Then we cooked some burgers and sausages on a small disposable BBQ I found in the outhouse. I don’t remember buying it, but it must be left over from a camping trip, as cottage BBQs have traditionally been done over a garden fire.

We cracked open a nice bottle of dessert wine, which we picked up at the Camping and Caravanning Club show earlier this year. It was the perfect amount of food and drink, and it felt good to sit out in the garden with the freshly cut grass, listening to the birdsong.

Dad brought along a new lamp, which he also bought at the Camping and Caravanning Club Show. It’s similar to my paraffin lamp but runs on gas.

I spent Saturday upgrading the leisure battery in my campervan.
Since I bought this van last year, I’ve struggled with a measly 80-ah lead acid battery paired with my Anker 500wh portable power bank, which I use to power my laptop while working.

However, with the arrival of warm weather and the removal of winter electric hook-ups, the camper fridge has frequently complained that there’s not enough power in the lead acid battery, even when the sun has been shining on the solar panel all day.
It also complains on cloudy days because I have to charge the Anker battery using the 12v socket.

Since arriving back at the cottage, I’ve been using the 50-watt solar panel, which used to live on my car, to power the Anker battery on sunny days, which has helped a bit. But it hasn’t resolved the issue with the fridge on hot days, and I still struggle for power on overcast days.

This problem has meant that I’ve had to prioritise all of the leisure battery power for the fridge and occasionally charging the Anker battery, not even using my diesel heater on cold days as the fan takes a surprising amount of power while it’s running.

But no more! On Monday, I finally ordered a brand new 150-ah lithium battery, which should give me roughly three times the power of the old battery.
It should also recharge faster on sunny days, so this should end my power struggles.

The battery arrived the day after I ordered it, which was much faster than I’d expected. I went with an Eco Tree Lithium battery, after spending some time reading reviews on the internet.
The battery charge was half full when it arrived, so I dragged out the generator and charged it fully before the installation. I’d already anticipated the need for this and had ordered a plug-in Victron charger to do the job.

Charging up the battery before installation.

In the few hours it took to charge, I moved all the connection wires and the solar charge controller to the back of the van.
The new battery is too big to fit under the driver’s seat where the old battery lived. Because I plan to take it with me when I upgrade the van, I’ve just installed it underneath the rock n roll bed in the back for now.

Before disconnecting the solar charge controller, I had to climb onto the campervan roof to cover the solar panel with a blanket, as disconnecting a live solar panel is dangerous.

Doesn’t the solar panel look cosy?

After that, it was just a case of disconnecting the charger wires from the old battery, unthreading the cables from behind the cupboards (the solar wires come in at the back of the van, and so they’d been threaded through to the front), and connecting up the cables again at the other end.

The new battery has much thicker cables going to the fuse box, so I can use things like my 12v cooking pot and 12v iron without the risk of pulling too much current through the cables.
My dad showed me how to apply the lugs needed to connect either end of the cable. It was fun to learn, as I’ve previously only used the small wire crimping tools, and this time, we had to use the big hydraulic ones.
I’m lucky that my dad is a trained electrical engineer and has also renovated a house or two, so he usually has the tools I need.

Van improvement days always leave the van in complete carnage. Here’s a picture of what happens when you have to reach the little nooks and crannies for wiring purposes!

It was hard work, but I’m already enjoying the benefits.
Last night, I made some prawn ramen by sticking everything in the 12v cooking pot and leaving it to slowly cook as I tidied up the mess in the van. So easy and delicious!
Today, I’m charging the Anker battery using the 12v socket, and the fridge is happily chugging along without complaint. Blissful harmony is restored to the van!

I’ve yet to try out the little 12v iron I found on eBay a few weeks ago.
Not only will it help me to look neater by not wearing crinkled clothing, but it’ll also help with my sewing projects.
I’ve been unable to complete many sewing projects since I moved off the winter electric hook-up. An iron is necessary to press the seams, but even my travel iron needs too much power for the Anker battery to manage.
I already have a few sewing projects in mind, so it’ll be nice to start them once the main jobs are finished in the cottage and the van.

It’s a relief to resolve the electricity problem finally.
I’m now in a position where I shouldn’t need to worry about saving power to ensure I can run my work laptop and fridge, even if there are a few overcast days in a row.
Later down the line, if it turns out 150-ah is not quite enough to run all of my things, I know that I can easily buy a second battery and wire it in series without making any more changes to the existing cable setup.

After all the hard work this week, I’ve decided that today will be a lazy day. The weather outside is windy and overcast, but I’m cosy indoors, napping, reading, and writing this blog post.
The perfect end to a busy week.

Toasting the feet.

I hope you’re all enjoying your Sunday, too.

Fox
xx

May 18, 2025
A bit of a backstory

I mostly live the Vanlife in my trusty campervan, Noah. Noah is a short-wheelbase Ford Transit Custom with a pop-top roof and very little storage space. I love him dearly and have just spent a wonderfully cosy winter travelling around different campsites in the UK.

I bought Noah in the middle of last year after recovering from a serious climbing accident, which left me unable to walk for over a year. By the time I could walk again, I had massively itchy feet and wanted to spend as much time outdoors as possible.

Before my accident, I lived between my off-grid cottage, which I rent from a lovely farming family in Ripon, and various accommodations mostly found on Spareroom.com.
The rented rooms mostly came about because while the cottage is fantastic in the summer – peaceful, surrounded by nature, off the beaten track – life is not so comfortable in the winter.

Made of stone, she holds no heat, and the two fires struggle to heat even a small area of the living space in the depths of winter.
She’s also at the bottom of a sloping field, which becomes very boggy in the wet months, making it impossible for even a 4×4 vehicle to get up and down, never mind a little campervan. (Or the estate car, which I had before Noah).

Being unable to drive in and out means ferrying shopping and other supplies from the top of the field by wheelbarrow. (Whoever invented the wheelbarrow was an absolute genius).
There’s no running water either, so drinking water must be carried in, along with food and other essentials.
Between the biting cold and the difficulties getting in and out, the cottage becomes a difficult living option in the winter.

However, rather than this being a downside of cottage living, I see it as a benefit. I used my winters as an opportunity to try living in different areas of the UK. As a result, I’m well-travelled and have met some wonderful people along the way.

At the time of my accident, I lived in a gorgeous old house in Spennymoor, just on the outskirts of Durham. I loved my room, with its enormous old fireplace big enough to step into, my Bedknobs and Broomsticks style brass bed, and the amazing picture window which opened up like a door into the walled back garden, enabling me to climb directly out, or on sunny days have it wide open and feel like I was out in the garden while still being in my room.

Alas, after the accident, I had to move, as I was wheelchair bound and there were too many tight spaces and steps for me to manage.
I was also unable to return to the cottage, as her access is definitely not wheelchair friendly.

However, after leaving the hospital, I was lucky enough to find a lady in Darlington who was looking for someone to live in her house and take care of it while she lived with her mother, who was sick and recovering from an illness.
Technically a lodger, I paid a very reasonable fee for a room in the house, but had the whole place to myself for the entire year and a half I lived there.

It was the perfect space for my recovery. Set back into a small newbuild estate, it had good bus links into town but was quiet enough that I could take myself out on daily wheelchair ‘rolls’ without being in too much danger of getting squashed by traffic.
Being in a wheelchair for six months gave me a whole new appreciation for people who spend their lives in one. Britain seems like quite a wheelchair-friendly, accessible place until you experience wheelchair living firsthand.

By the time my leg bones had (finally) decided to stick back together, I was desperate to get back out and start driving again. Those first few weeks back in my car were nerve-wracking, but I pushed through and didn’t let the anxiety take over.
After a few weeks back behind the wheel, I started to get the vanlife itch again.

I’d already lived the vanlife for two years, between 2016 to 2018, the same year I started renting the cottage.
It ended abruptly when I returned from work one day to find my van, Gomez, nowhere to be seen, and I never saw him again.
The police were less than useless, logging the case and then closing it immediately unless ‘something came up’.
They refused to even check the nearby security cameras, which could have easily given them ‘something’ to go on.

I was sad about losing my van, which I’d lovingly converted into a comfortable living space.
Still, I accepted the loss and decided that perhaps the universe was nudging me towards a different path.

I’d been considering selling Gomez and swapping him out for a 4×4, which would be more suitable for cottage life, and so after the theft, I bought an old Nissan X-trail.
Unfortunately, that vehicle was an absolute nightmare of intermittent, untraceable faults, which caused it to limp along at 30 miles per hour regularly, sometimes even on the motorway, and always when it was most inconvenient. In the end, I replaced it with a trusty Ford Focus Estate, whom I named Egg because he was a good egg, and I was so relieved after having such a rotten egg before him.

I never imagined I’d go back to vanlife after suffering that loss, but after being cooped up for so long, the thought of living in a van, with the outside world on my doorstep, was starting to appeal again.
And so along came Noah, and I’m so glad I decided to try again because so far, I’ve had a fantastic time.

Now, summer has arrived again, and after two years away, I’ve finally returned to the cottage.
I did manage a couple of trips down with my dad during my recovery, once in the wheelchair and then later with my crutch. But otherwise, I’ve barely seen her.

My dad, bless him, has regularly visited to keep the lawn in check and let some fresh air into the place. I suspect he’s starting to fall in love with her, just as I have.
Thanks to his efforts, she’s looking less dishevelled from the outside than I’d expected.

Inside is a different story.

The mice have had a whale of a time.
They ate the bird nuts. They ate the chair legs. They even ate an entire box of tealights, leaving only the metal dishes behind.
I imagine they had a bellyache after that one.
I also found little nests everywhere. In my oven glove, behind a sofa cushion, in the back of a drawer.

Yes, those mice lived their best lives while I was away.

Luckily, they moved out in the spring, leaving their discarded winter homes for me to clean up. Thank you, mice.
I can imagine them practically rolling out of the cottage, fat, contented, and ready for a lovely summer.

The spiders haven’t been doing too badly for themselves either. A carpet of webbing covers the eves, and in every corner, at least three spiders sit, staring at me in the hope that if they sit still enough, I won’t notice and evict them. They hope in vain.
Although I do like to allow the fat juicy ones to stay in the kitchen window, as they’re very good at catching the giant bluebottles, who love to zoom in and buzz around loudly when the front door is kept open on dry days.
Thanks to the efforts of the window spiders, all is usually quiet again by teatime.

Everywhere is a layer of dust, and the fires are cold, damp and reluctant to be awakened from their damp slumber.
I’m calling this month ‘The Big May Clean’. Since it may take all month to set things in order.

Still, it’s nice to finally be back. There was a deep feeling of calm, groundedness as I opened the big oak door and stepped inside, breathing in the ‘cottage smell’ for the first time in far too long.

I’m looking forward to enjoying another glorious off-grid summer.

Fox
xx

May 11, 2025