I've decided to try and sort the electrics in the trailer tent out. At the moment we have a standard EHU cable which clips to one of the poles in the awning which is fine but we end up with lots of things balanced on top of it while they charge up. So I thought it would be useful to have power in the trailer tent itself where there are flat surfaces to put things on.

I've thought about adding caravan style 12v electrics before but never really got around to it. I had another look into it to see how complicated it would be. The answer is very complicated and expensive. You need a leisure battery, charging circuits. fuses a transformer and lots more. It's all wired together in a complicated fashion and would require lots of drilling and boxing in and so on. Basically a lot of hassle to get a few extra charging points. Yes we would have power when we're not on a hook up but that's not that often tbh and we can live without.

So I started thinking of simpler means of getting some sockets to the trailer. The simplest option is a long extension obviously. The problem with this is the cable would have to be run under the trailer when we set up which is a faff. I could clip the cable to the underside of the bed but then I have to cope with the folding mechanism. Instead I have opted to split the cable into 3. the middle section will be clipped to the underside of the bed, then they'll be a short section with a 4-way socket that plugs into one end and a longer section with a 3-pin plug on that plugs onto the other end. To split the cable I'm using kettle lead plugs and sockets (like on the back of a PC). We'll then have a 4-way socket in the trailer capable of 5A (due to the fuse, the cable and plugs are 10A) for charging stuff and some lights.

As far as charging goes most of our gadgets these days charge from a USB socket. They all come with their own 3-pin adapters but that's a lot of adapters to carry around so I have got a 4 port USB travel mains adapter from Maplin (it was £6 but has gone back up to £23 now). Now all we need is a spare charging cable for each gadget, which we have in the car already.

The only thing to sort now is some lights. We could go for basic utility 'workshop' type lights but I think something a little more funky might be fun. We'll have to see.