Nuisance - but alright in the end

 Got to the caravan this morning with the intention of steam cleaning the headboard and mattress.  The mattress is covered with a valanced sheet - clearly original, as it matches the headboard - and we hadn't actually lifted it and looked at the mattress, nor sat on the bed.  Husband had prodded it and said it felt lumpy.  We'd decided we would take a chance and not buy a new bed, just steam clean it and have bought a thick deep mattress topper to go on it.  Well, on lifting the valance and examining the mattress and bed (it's a divan) this morning, we found it's knackered - the mattress is horribly lumpy and the divan base underneath is broken, it's collapsed in two places.  How the previous owners had been sleeping on it I really don't know.  On mentioning it to our caravan neighbours this morning, they said 'oh yes, Phil always said they needed a new bed, he was too tight to buy one though!'.  Huh, wish they'd mentioned it to us (or we'd actually checked the bed) before, it's a bit last minute.  So we've now had to buy a new bed, it's coming Friday.  Well, we're collecting it on Friday, husband is insistent we can transport it to the caravan on top of the roof racks on our (little) car....I hope he's right!!  Bit of a nuisance, and another expense, but I'm not sorry really, I wasn't too happy about sleeping on a very old second hand bed.  And it does mean I don't have to deep clean the old mattress, and we can just chuck it and the base out in the garden, leaving a completely empty room to decorate, which will make things easier.

Oh and when we came to put up at the kitchen window the new Venetian blind that we'd found in the wardrobe, it turns out it was actually an old and broken blind, that for some inexplicable reason the previous owners had put back inside the packet and shoved in the wardrobe, rather than throwing it away.  So we also had to go and buy a new blind.  Luckily, we found one 50% off in a sale in Dunelm this morning.

We're going to have to get Shaun, the man with a van, to come back again and get rid of yet more rubbish - the old bed for a start, and the blinds from nearly all the windows, as most of them are broken (fortunately, the nets and curtains I've bought in replacement were all a bargain price).  There's also several more bags of garden rubbish.  

I'm glad we set a budget right at the start for all this caravan work, we're getting close to the top of that budget now.  But, fingers crossed and barring any more last minute surprises, we shouldn't need to spend much more.  We have the gas man's bill to pay (he's coming back on Wednesday to fit the new part), but that's already taken into account.

We're intending to spend all day tomorrow and Wednesday at the van, husband finishing off the few remaining bits in the kitchen and me decorating the bedroom.  I'm just painting it, no wallpaper, so it should be easy enough, it's the same dove grey satin emulsion we've used in the lounge and it dries very quickly, with no smell.  Then Thursday and Friday it's just a case of taking the rest of the stuff we need over there, plus the new bed of course, putting up the curtains and making the bed, and then we should be staying there for the weekend!