We had overnight rain. The rain was quite light, in that we couldn’t even hear it on the roof of the van. It was, however long-lived, going on from about 02:00 until the so-called morning when a vestige of light can be seen around 08:00, in this barking time zone. Whereas when we arrived we had a splendid view of the hillside opposite, this morning we couldn’t tell that there was a hillside opposite.
We’d both had a very unsettled night. Francine woke me as soon as she realized it was raining ‘cos I’d left the chairs out. I went outside in not much to fold them up and put them under the van. It was a bit late, in truth, they were already wet.
There’s an irritating design “feature” with Frodo. Here’s what I think happens. Rain runs down the rear window and drips off the lower edge. Unfortunately what it drips onto is the very proud lower rear moulding, the full width of the van, containing the number plate and rear light clusters. The dripping is not consistent but it is constant. With our heads on pillows at the rear end of the van, after not very long this incessant dripping becomes like a Chinese water torture. In heavier rain that beats a tattoo on the roof, the dripping sound is somewhat masked but that was not the case last night.
This is not the first time this has happened, naturally, since rain in the UK is quite frequent. Previously, I thought that pitching Frodo slightly nose down would cause the water on the roof to run forward rather than overflowing the rear of the van eventually running down the window. At this site, levelling up when pitching was a bit of a challenge and I hadn’t thought about it, smiling with satisfaction as Frodo looked level in both axes. Whoops!
Assuming my assessment is correct, there might be another potential solution, which is to open the rear window wide enough for the drips to fall beyond the lower moulding. Sadly, with the bikes mounted on the back, rear window movement is very restricted. If I’m expecting rain, maybe I’ll dismount the bikes and try it.
Francine resorted to ear plugs and I got little more sleep. I could have stopped counting sheep and started counting drips but I decided that would be too masochistic.
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