Yes, friends, we have another trial and tribulations post today. “Why?” you ask? Because it rained yesterday and into last night. Most people generally dislike the rain, but people whose roofs leak dislike the rain even more.
The morning had dawned cloudy, a light smattering of rain here and there, but still very warm. My winter wardrobe was doing me no favours, so I headed to a thrift store to find myself some light cotton items. While I was happily trying on a nice green dress and completely oblivious to what was happening outside, the rain came.
And the rain did not come in a half-hearted drizzle, no. The parking lot had inch-deep puddles of water. The raindrops were the kind that you can feel hitting you, the kind that splashes into the puddles. I held my purchases over my head and ran. I made it into the van and for a moment or two, all was good.
Then I heard it. The drip.
This drip was different from the drumming of the raindrops on the roof. This drip was inside the van. I found it at the back of the van; dripping from above the rear door onto the back of the bed. I grabbed a bowl and set it up underneath. Then I jumped out to see if I could spot where it was coming from. Honestly, there’s a bunch of places it could be getting in.
Back inside the van, I sat on the bench seat, feeling a little down and staring miserably out the front window. Wait! What was that? That drip wasn’t outside the van! This drip was falling from above the windscreen straight onto the screen for the sound system! I grabbed an empty tin from the bin and balanced it on the dashboard.
Then I went hunting. I found a couple more drips, one above the windscreen and dripping down into the passenger footwell, the other from the corner of the skylight above the driver’s seat. Neither of these was dripping on anything overly important, so they got left for a while.
I returned to my seat on the bench, and started to Google parking lots, then having a look on Google street view to see if they were undercover. They were not. I considered how I would repair these leaks. Anything I put on will need a clean, dry surface to bond to, so not a solution for right now. I could wait out the rain and just keep emptying the drip pots, but it didn’t look like it was going to stop for a while.
Eventually, I hit on an idea. A solution. A genius idea, if I do say so myself. My idea was this; if I can’t find a cover to park under, why not bring the cover to me? So I Googled where I could buy a tarp. I went and bought a tarp and in a brief respite from the rain, I stretched it over Charlie and used bungee cords to hold it down.
Success!
The tarp was 16 feet long and just about covered everywhere that water was getting in. I returned inside the van and used a piece of toilet paper to mop up the last of the drips. (vanlife is so glamorous)
I was just settling down to eating my supper when the rain returned. I looked up, victorious, and cried aloud in jubilation! The drips were not dripping! I had won!
For the evening at least, I had won the battle, if not the war. The next morning I returned to the hardware store to buy something to stop the drips. I shall update you on this at a later date.
