Our gas bottle ran out yesterday morning as I was in the midst of boiling a kettle and cooking some scrambled eggs on the two rings of our campervan cooker.
It’s the first time that’s happened while we’ve been away and I’ve often wondered how easy it would be to get it refilled. Not easy is the short answer, particularly as we’re set up here for the week, can’t be bothered to move the van with the awning out on one side and the tent attached to the other.
When the gas ran out I thought my first job would be to disconnect the gas bottle. It took me a good half-an-hour to remember that the threads of gas appliances go the other way so I was tightening rather than loosening as I tried to disconnect.
After some research it seems that there’s nowhere locally you can buy a new bottle or get one refilled so we’re having to improvise.
We’ve got a plug-in electric grill ideal for cooking bacon and burgers which enabled me to finish cooking the half-scrambled eggs. That’s no good though for boiling a kettle which has left us in full crisis mode because we can’t make ourselves the all-important Englishman’s morning cup of tea.
Next time we’ll make sure we’ve either got one of those mini camping gas stoves and/or a little plug-in kettle so we can always do ourselves a brew. We’ll also buy a different kind of gas bottle with a gauge that tells you how much gas is left. Live and learn.
Relief! We’ve just discovered there’s a microwave on site so tea will be possible though it’s not the same as it seems impossible to properly boil water in a microwave. It will do though.
So far on this one week trip to our nearest neighbouring country this is the third mini-disaster to have befallen us. Our debit cards failed to work at a toll station forcing us to press the emergency call button at the non-attended toll.
As the queue embarrassingly backed up behind us we at first heard an automated French message and started to believe we’d be forever stuck at the Montsoreau toll booth.
Eventually, miraculously, we got some English speaking assistance on the line and we were free to go. It’s good to know that this will happen eventually.
We’ve also had some problems with our water hose leaking and just now a button we use to switch on all the lights inside the campervan has got stuck. It’s now permanently depressed, I know how it feels!