As we wrote the blog post a couple of days ago, we had been aware that there had been a little bit of rain overnight. OK, that’s maybe an understatement – there had been torrential downpours and we had been mere inches away from it striking the roof of Bertha as we slept over the cab. We had noted that the carpet in the middle of Bertha was a little damp in the morning, but it wasn’t until later that we noted the drips coming from the edge of one of the skylights. Great. Oh, and the damp in the top rear corner was even damper, and when we took off the rear window blind we found yet more rotten timber and some useless bathroom sealant that had probably worn away years ago. Time to set our master craftsman brother-in-law to work with a tarpaulin to try to keep the rear corner dry!

The rain was incessant, so we focussed on finishing the floor; cutting the polystyrene sheets to size and fitting the top layer of plywood. I’ll admit that I (Steve) had a little bit of a meltdown (to rival those of our nearly 3 year old neice!) with regards to the finish of the floor. I wanted it to be perfect, but trying to marry up old and new wood has left the new floor slightly bowed and I should have put an extra batten across, but it’s a vast improvement on what was there previously!

We also took time to check out our Paloma boiler which had been leaking water when we turned on the fresh water pump, so we unscrewed it, took it off the wall and found that our predictions were correct. There was a classic freeze split in the copper pipe. At least that should be fixable some other time with some solder and plumber’s putty.

By this time the rain had stopped and the tarpaulin which was rigged over the rear corner had kept the outside dry enough to seal. We let our brother-in-law have first dibs at using the nasty Sikaflex; he re-did some a couple of the seams that had been too high for us to reach last time, then I hopped onto the roof to remove the bathroom sealant around the skylight and replace it with the proper stuff. Whilst I was up there I also did a bit of a patch job on one of the connection points of the roof cage that was looking a little exposed.

All too soon it was time to head back to our London lives and say farewell to Bertha for another couple of months, but not until we’d had a photo taken with our Lego alter egos!

After two and a half months away from Bertha, we were excited to see her again this weekend. When we last saw her, she was very damp and a little unhappy, so we patched her up and left her with a heater and dehumidifier inside to see if we could dry her out and cheer her up. When we arrived on Friday night, we were very pleased to see that the floor was indeed dry, but still very rotten. There was just a little damp patch on a batten in the top rear corner that we’ll have to attend to at some point soon.

First job on Saturday morning was ripping up the floor and removing the top layer of plywood on the walls. As there’s not really space for two of us to work with sharp tools in that little corner, Kiri set to it carefully with a chisel whilst I had a look at replacing the lighting above the bench. Our previous lighting above the bench consisted of some rather dated plastic spotlights, so I unscrewed those, wired in a new switch and an adhesive strip of 12v LED lights. These look more stylish, whilst using less power. Simples!

It took most of Saturday and Sunday to remove the whole section of flooring that was rotten, cutting through the top layer of plywood, the polystyrene and battens below, then what remained of the de-laminated plywood underneath. Whilst Kiri and I hacked away at gently removed the floor, our brother-in-law skilfully replaced the some rotten wood around the step to get into the motorhome, and the fold-out step which had clearly passed its heyday! Finally, we were left with a clean hole where a rotten floor had once been:

A trip to Homebase on bank holiday Monday is not the most pleasant of experiences, but it was necessary in order to get exterior plywood for the new floor, which was duly coated with timber care before we cut it to size and laid it. With holes needed in the floor for the fresh water inlet and table base, we did some precision measuring and some not-so-precise drilling. Add a few battens to the top, and we’re vaguely water-tight – just some polystyrene and a top level of ply still needed.

It’s a big psychological boost to know that we have a solid floor once again in the rear – all of the other jobs (replacing the rear walls, fixing the leak in the boiler, replacing the gas system, fitting a solar panel, fitting a bike rack, making new curtains, re-upholstering the cushions, etc)…hmmm, I was going to say that they will seem minor in comparison, but actually there’s still a lot of work to do!

What’s the difference between a motorhome and a canal boat? It turns out, not much! Over the bank holiday weekend we joined 4 good friends on a narrowboat (why do I want to call it a longboat…?) on the Trent and Mersey canal. Whilst giving us a glimpse of a slower way of living, it also was good to draw parallels between portable life on water and portable life on the road.

Obviously the major similarity is the rationing of utilities – you have to carry all of the fuel and water that you are to use. In a canal boat, weight isn’t too much of an issue, so there were 3 large gas canisters, 4 large batteries, a diesel tank that could last for two weeks and a fresh water tank that filled most of the bottom of the boat. So, scale is different, but there’s still the idea that you’ve got finite resource – for example the engine has to run in order to charge the leisure batteries so electricity is a finite resource and if you leave the tap running, you’re going to run out of drinking water at some point.

As for choosing where to stop for the night, it’s a case of always noting possible spots in case the planned mooring point isn’t reachable. One of the less attractive sides of both canal boating and motorhoming is the removal of human waste – fortunately the waste tanks in the hired boat were large enough to last without us having to “pump out”. Getting into the mindset of using public toilets where possible was good training though.

All of this is focussing on the practical side of things though – it’s the lifestyle that’s one of the most beautiful things. Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

Life is a journey, not a destination

With the canal boat we started and ended the weekend in the same place – there was no destination that we were aiming for and we were able to spend time appreciating the journey. I guess it’s a similar thing with motorhoming – you have the flexibility that comes with travelling with your home on your back. Whilst it’s necessary to occasionally top up with those things that are finite resources, for the main part, spontaneity is king. That’s one of the things we’re really looking forward to in our trip around Europe.

We’ve put a couple of photos from our canal boating weekend on our Flickr account (flickr.com/lightbulbheaduk).

To end, we’ll briefly go back to the question asked at the beginning of this post and give another answer – there is one very big difference – you’re not likely to sink in a motorhome!