Safety Tips for New Caravanners

Do you believe in co-incidence?  Try this. Early last week,  I was asked to prepare a guest blog for moneysupermarket.com which you can read here suggesting ways of getting started without breaking the bank.  Out of the blue, last Saturday, my son asked me to go with him to look at a caravan as his first buy.  Result - information exactly as required for the blog based on helping my lad and his lady to buy and equip their first caravan - an elderly Elddis.

My son was once Chairman of the Centre's Teenage Committee so I did not have to give him my usual safety lecture - he was well aware of potential dangers, but here are the points we both agreed that everyone should think about:

1. Make sure your car is able to tow the caravan of your dreams - and revise your ideas if it is not gutsy enough for the job.  The simple rule is the caravan, when loaded, should not exceed 85% of the kerb weight of the car.
2. Check your licence - if you passed your driving test after 1997 you are limited in what you are allowed to tow.  There are training centres (usually the people who teach lorry and coach driving) and test centres around if your licence does not cover you.
3. Fit a stabiliser, and use it every trip.  No matter how well you think you have loaded your caravan, gusty conditions or the 'envelope' from an HGV can and will cause the caravan to 'wobble' and a 'wobble' can soon become a full blown 'snake' if not damped by the stabiliser.  There are plenty for sale secondhand, just check out the on-line auction sites.
4. Never, never, never ever carry a gas bottle inside the caravan, and never travel with the gas bottle on its site - no matter if you think you have got it safely in some sort of frame.  See information from Calor Gas on using and transporting gas.  Essentially the valve is designed for gas, not liquid.  Laying on its side the liquid gas can leak from the cylinder and lay on the floor.  You work out what happens next.  It is not pretty.
5. Don't overload the caravan when travelling.  The manufacturer's payload is there for a reason.  You do not need to weigh every item, just be sensible.  If there are four of you, you need four plates, not forty four.  
6. Pack the caravan carefully.  You will need some noseweight, but once you have put your gas cylinders in the gas locker that is it - don't be tempted to create a mobile garden shed in the locker.  Put heavy objects low down near the axle(s) and lighter ones in the overhead lockers.  Take care when you open the lockers - the contents may move during the journey.

OK moan over, but please, stay safe and enjoy your caravan.  It will give you the freedom to take off at the weekend as well as providing a base for longer summer holidays.

Can you live without electricity?

Helping a new to caravanning couple equip their first ever caravan this weekend lead me to thinking how things have changed over the years - especially the priority equipment.  Their number one must have??? A mains hook up lead, of course.

So started an interesting debate.  On my left, the diehard traditionalists who believe that mains power to a caravan is a sacrilege and on my right the new caravanners and those of us who have the latest models that really are not designed to run on gas and 12V alone for more than a couple of nights in an emergency.

Which side of the fence do I sit on?  Problem here, I love rallying, but at this time of the year, I really do not relish pitching up without power, as the battery just won't stay up for the whole weekend, and you can't read in the dark.  We understand the issues of power consumption and have been caravanning for over 20 years, but still can't eake out the power in the winter months.  Once the days are a couple of hours longer than the nights and the solar panel can keep the battery topped up successfully, things change and mains power is no longer a priority.

The problem with the latest caravans is that so much power consumption is hidden - the loo flush needs the battery, the cooker will only ignite if your battery  is supplying power, the water heater and fridge both rely on battery for their electronic circuits, add the gas fire (electronic controls again) any lighting you may need and all those telltale lights in various hues and you can almost hear the power being sucked out of that battery.

So purchase number one - a new 110 amp hour leisure battery, rapidly followed by the mains hook up cable, after all the battery will need charging even if they are not using 240V all the time.  Don't make the mistake of buying a vehicle battery, they are not designed to take the long slow drain. 

Next came the lecture on Ohms law - volts times amps is watts, and Wardens' Law - patience diminishes in direct proportion to the number of callouts to reset the trip, exponentially rising in the rain, cold and hours of darkness.

The point is that you have to consider all that 'hidden' power usage before working out what is left from your 10amp supply on site.  The first piece of equipment to be switched on is the fridge.  Once the water has been connected, on goes the water heater.  If it is chilly, or the caravan has been standing for a while, the heater will go on, possibly with the fan to blow warm air into the washroom.  

You have an absolute maximum of 2400 watts, assuming a full 240 volt supply.  The heater alone can consume 2000 of those volts leaving just 400 for the fridge and water heater.  No wonder the trips are tripped so often.

The solution is simple - just keep doing the maths.  Turn the room heater down to 500 watts.  Do you need to leave the water heater on?  With the room heater down to 500 watts and the fridge still running, you have somewhere between 1800 and 2000 watts left.  That domestic kettle needs 3000 watts - oops tripped again.

Suitably chastised, the domestic electric kettle was consigned to the boot, and a shopping trip for a low wattage kettle was scheduled.  Other power saving ideas then started to surface.

Caravan dealers often have low wattage toasters in their accessory shops.  You don't need a domestic sized vacuum cleaner for a caravan, try one of the battery operated types (G-Tech do a fantastic powered sweeper which is charged from the mains then works for weeks in the caravan).

We got around to cooking, where the two sides polarised once again.  Electric slow cooker -v- casserole in the gas oven.  The slow cooker is very low wattage and can safely be left on whilst away from the caravan.  At this time of year though, a casserole in the oven will keep the caravan warm without needing the heater.

Then of course we started on the comparative costs of running on bottled gas or the electric hook up.  Another can of worms opened.

Thankfully we all agreed that the discussion needed another glass of wine, or possibly a beer. 

Improving mealsinfields

The major overhaul of mealsinfields is now in progress.  On Friday last week we agreed some major changes with the website designers, Devmac of Burton on Trent, which will make the website easier to use for everyone.  The changes need some serious programming so please bear with us for a couple of months whilst we make sure that everything is ready and that all the recipes and all the information on where to stop, shop and dine are properly migrated to the new system.

What can you expect?  Here is a short list of the most important changes - many of which are in response to your requests.

1. As soon as you recommend a business to be included in the Where to pages, brief details will be added automatically.
2. Businesses will be able to access and amend their own personal pages as often as they like.
3. You will be able to search for a business in a particular county, matching your criteria. No more trolling through a long, long list to get what you want.
4. You will be able to add recipes yourself straight from the website - no more e-mails to me and a delay whilst I add the recipe for you.
5. You will be able to add photos of the finished dishes when submitting your recipe.
6. We are adding a printer friendly version of the recipes so you will be able to print without copying and pasting.

In the meantime, we still want your recipes and your recommendations of new businesses to add to the website.  We will add all the businesses, but may hold some of the recipes over for the launch of the new look meals in fields.

Please bear with us.  This is a massive project as there is so much data to move.  Don't worry, you will not lose the website - we will simply replace the old with the new.  The old version will keep working until we have everything in place ready to make the switch.

We will keep you posted on progress, but expect to see a new and exciting website in the early Summer.

A Big Thank you to Kelly from Food Matters

Kelly has kindly added five recipes this month, suitable for cooking on a BBQ.  They are all low fat recipes with loads of taste.  She has used Tabasco sauce and Dijon mustard, both of which come in small sizes suitable for storing in the caravan.  These meals look so tempting, I think they will be on my menu at home, especially when the weather improves and we can eat in the garden in the evening.  Once again, thank you Kelly.  A new recipe is published each month on http://www.foodmatters.co.uk/

Coeliac Awareness Week - 14 - 20 May

Did you know that one in every hundred people has coeliac disease?  It is a condition which affects the immune system and has no cure, but is managed by diet.  Details of the disease and its management can be found on http://www.coeliac.org.uk.

It strikes me that feeding yourself or your family with a gluten free diet should not be too difficult.  Choose recipes which are not based on bread, cakes, pastry or pasta and you really do not have a problem in knowing what is safe to eat.  Check out our recipe section and you will find plenty of really filling meals using fresh local produce which do not contain gluten.

I have been asked if I can put an icon against each recipe to denote whether or not it contains gluten.  I have thought long and hard about this, and decided that it is not really necessary, as any sufferer already knows the foods to avoid, or has a supplier of gluten-free products to replace the usual pastas and breads.

The really big problem has to be in finding places to eat out who really do understand the issues of cross-contamination and take them seriously.  It is one thing to say that a particular dish is gluten-free, but if the restaurant also produces dishes using 'ordinary' bread or pastry products, it is all too easy for cross-contamination to occur.  Restaurant owners and chefs can contact Caroline Benjamin on info@fatc.co.uk  who runs awareness training courses which cover issues of cross-contamination in the kitchen and in the serving area.

Take the time to find out more about this very serious condition and how to ensure that you do not inadvertently harm anyone when you are entertaining.

Food Allergies

Maybe its because it is April, but I fear that many people are making light of a real problem that affects more of the population than you may care to realise.

In yesterday's Daily Telegraph they published 'gluten free recipes' as if making a risotto with rice was a new idea, or that rice ever did contain gluten in the first place.  It is starch that washes off rice when cooked - not gluten.  The theme continued using normal everyday ingredients - so why the issue?

Everyone with any form of food allergy knows how to avoid those foods that give them the problem.  Like millions of others, I am allergic to nickel.  It is found in tea, legumous vegetables, tomatoes, onions, pears, brown rice, cereals, and absolutely anything preserved in a tin - shall I go on or do you get the picture?

The problem is getting other people to understand that your "diet" is not dangerous for you, and adding just a little bit of the forbidden foods could cause serious complications.  In my case it is just a very nasty excema, but for others the practice of 'just try one Brussels sprout' could kill.

So my plea for the day is please, get to understand what it is that affects your friends and family, learn to prepare meals that are safe for them, and stop trying to make them eat something that perceived wisdom says is good for you - like crusty brown bread and salad!