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