Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire had pretensions of being a lady, but was caught out by her slightly sordid past.

Our Blanche has no such pretensions, only the grubby history.

For those who may have missed the fact, Blanche is our rented campervan. She was apparently a 'working girl' in Japan - no, not a geisha, but some kind of van used by a small business. The Japanese apparently dump all their vehicles over about six years old because of the costs of passing the equivalent of an MOT after that age increase dramatically. Many of them, like Blanche, end up in New Zealand and Australia.

So, what is she like?

Well, she's a Mazda petrol automatic van - sorry, we can't remember the engine size, but given the lethargic way she goes uphill, it's not that powerful. I don't mind the automatic gears, though Katy feels restricted in how she can drive. Blanche also feels a little skittery around corners and especially so in high winds. This wouldn't be much of a worry were it not for the fact that New Zealand appears to be the windiest place on Earth.

Another similarity with her film character is that Blanche drinks too much - we only get about 30mpg out of her, unfortunately.

Blanche is about 4m long and just under 2m wide. We could do with a bit more space, but although not beggars, we couldn't afford to be too choosy. She's not big enough to stand up in, unlike some of the more expensive vans; on the other hand, we can at least sit up in her, unlike the really cheap rubbish vans which only have room to sleep in.

As far as equipment goes, Blanche is pretty well stacked.

She has a two-ring bottled gas stove, electrical power, a fridge which works off the mains when parked and off the cigarette lighter when moving, a foldaway table, a sofa-bed, water container and a small amount of storage. The rental company also supplied bedding, a bare minimum of pots, pans, crockery, cutlery etc, plus an awning and camping chairs and a table for outside use.

We've bought a few extra items such as storage trays (actually cat litter trays as they fitted perfectly) to go under the sofabed, and essentials such as plastic wine glasses.

We get on fine with Blanche in the main, though bedtimes are a bit of a struggle. We have to put all our rucksacks full of clothes etc into the front seats and pack away everything else. Then one of us has to get outside the van while the other pulls the sofa out into a bed. Only then can we get the bedding out of its large sack and make the bed.

That is followed by us getting undressed while sitting, with me banging my head against the roof. Katy, of course, has no such problem. In the morning, the whole process is reversed.

And we are paying good money to do this for a total of around 171 days!

Richard