FULL-TIMERS DO IT 24/7
Weight watching, that is!
It is one of the fundamental requirements of full timing that every spare inch of space in the RV is utilised in order to make life as easy as possible for the 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year occupants whereas, of course, the manufacturer wants to hide as many spaces as possible to save costs on building furniture to the correct dimensions. One of the easiest means of detecting a full timer at an RV Show is to watch how he inspects the interior of cupboards and drawers – not for him a quick peek behind the door – no, no, way too easy - no, he wants to know what is behind the cupboard or under the drawer, what is behind or under that blank panel, or can he fit an extra shelf in that space beside the slide-out? And the answer is generally yes, he can fit an extra storage fitting of some kind or other - and therein lays the problem – extra weight!
The manufacturer tries to keep the weight of furniture and fittings down as low as possible in order to allow the owners to carry such mundane items as large American people, food, fuel and clothing and before you start shouting at me - I am not being racist in my use of language but it must be accepted that English RV full timers tend to be quite a lot lighter in stature than their American counterparts and tend to carry less heavy items of household requirements such as weatherproof TV sets for use on the patio, 6 burner barbecues and 4 seater swinging settees. It would be true to say that some of our more senior, experienced full timers do migrate to Spain every winter and do indeed carry such items for use on their beach side pitches but they also compensate for the extra weight by carrying less clothing - after all they are travelling toward perpetual sunshine, why do they need to carry heavy winter-weight clothing as well?
So having identified all the spare cubic inches of space here and there, along comes ‘Dicky-do-it-all’ and builds lots of lovely heavy hardwood cabinets to fill all of those empty spaces followed almost immediately by his partner ‘Wanda-nextra-cupboard’ who fills them to capacity with whatever she can lay her hands on. The outcome is obvious – the side-to-side balance, as well as the front-to-rear balance, of weight distribution is destroyed and the next time the RV is taken on the road, it will rock and roll for all it is worth! This usually prompts the owner to pose the question “Why?” on the major RV web-site forums that, in turn, elicit reams of expert opinions from very learned gentlemen on how to pump up one’s air bags, strengthen one’s roll bars or bury one’s head in the sand in the hope that the ‘grey-headed areas’ of the Law never catches up with one.
Recently much has been made of the ‘new’ theory where politicians are saying that you should counteract the effect of climate change by offsetting the amount of carbon ‘whatever-gas’ that you emit on a single journey by planting a forest in some unsuspecting area of the Country. I could actually sympathise with this theory if I didn’t know that a single cow can produce more climate changing gases from it’s rear end in one day than I can produce from my 6 litre engine in one week - or that the Tory Leader emitted more hot air (his plane didn’t do so badly, either) on his flight to the nether-regions to highlight climate change than my RV will emit in a life time, especially at today’s diesel prices! And as to the ‘new’ theory of ‘off-setting’, well Mo and I have been doing that for several years – not by planting trees but by weight watching - because less weight carried means less fuel burned means less gasses emitted.
Actually the truth of the matter lies much more in my mathematical theorem: (MW/SA=DT/2).
Educated people may scratch their heads at my theorem but the proof is in the cupboard, so to speak, as there are several interpretations of the answer. The most easy explanation by far is thus:-
MW equals ‘Mo’s wardrobe’ and SA equals ‘Space available’.
In this interpretation any normal red-blooded husband will be able to tell you, unequivocally, that MW will ALWAYS be larger than SA by at least a factor of 2.
DT equals ‘Dick’s tools’ and any normal wife will complain beyond any reasonable argument that her husband always carries twice as many tools than is necessary – or than he ever uses.
In other words, it doesn’t matter which RV you have, there will never be enough space available for your wife’s clothes and, if you have the temerity to mention this fact, you will be told in no uncertain terms that she will leave some of her clothes behind – only as long as you leave twice the equivalent volume in tools – as well as being told that “you are an absolutely uncaring menace who would only be satisfied when his wife appears in public in threadbare cast-offs”!
As with all of these in-house problems, there is an easy answer – ‘a bit of give-and-take’ – Mo will accept every bit of wardrobe space that I can give her and then take twice as much – and dare me to comment upon it. I will delve deep into my multifarious tool boxes in a vain attempt to try and identify which problem will occur next, an action that will, of course, decide which tools I need to carry on our next expedition. My problem is that (touch wood) I have not yet had any problems that require my very valuable toolbox contents other than the twitch of an occasional screwdriver or a squeeze of WD40.
Many moons ago we came to a very acceptable agreement, just like the politicians are now advocating, we agreed to ‘offset’ each and every purchase we make that would have any long-lasting effect on the RV. For example, we always go shopping together not only because we are a happily married couple but also because it ensures that neither of us can cheat and buy an extra heavy item of whatever without the contrasting ‘offset’. Should you be unfortunate enough to overhear our conversation on a shopping excursion, it might go something like – Mo: “I want that new jumper” – Dick: “You can have it, dear but it will cost you two spanners and a claw hammer”. Problem solved – no more need be said.
Telling “Porkies”. In a previous life, when I wore a military surveyor’s uniform a situation arose, the details of which I don’t need to go into other than to say it entailed some very senior Officers telling porky pies, fibs, little white lies – no matter what you call them, in the end they are downright untruths! During the last War there was a Ministry of ‘Disinformation’ formed, which as far as I am aware, is still in existence today – it’s purpose being to stop interested parties from finding the truth about a subject that the Government doesn’t want to be made public.
In order to be ‘legal’ full-timers - we also have had to learn to be economic with the truth – little things such as inventing a ‘bricks-and-mortar’ address for bureaucratic purposes and much other such red-tape nonsense, all of which is known about and accepted - even by the authorities demanding those requirements. Such is the state of affairs at present that my RV can be worth several different values and be any one of several different sizes depending upon whom I am talking to at the time. For instance, I was trying to get onto a site in the Southern Counties recently but was told that particular site could only accommodate a 34 footer so suddenly my 36ft Monaco became a 34ft and we fitted onto the site without any problems – in fact, we had space to spare but I didn’t dare tell the proprietor in case he threw me off! When talking to interested ‘sightseers’ the value of the RV immediately goes up by about half as much again as it is worth simply due to the fact we got it tax-free – but why should I admit to that – on the other hand when talking to the Insurance company it’s value goes straight down again because they add a surcharge for vehicles worth over £100 thousand pounds.
Mo and I have recently been heavily involved with several would-be full-timers who have had serious doubts about the authenticity of dimensions they have been quoted on the RV’s in which they are interested. I mention this simply because I have seen with my own eyes a vehicle that I am completely familiar with being shown as a 34 footer when I know absolutely inside out that it is a 36 footer! The moral to this story is simply this: Don’t give a fig for the dimensions you have been quoted by ANYBODY – take your tape measure along with you and believe only what you physically measure.
| 
