… so don’t go telling me how gosh-darn jolly good it was otherwise I’ll use much stronger language in my reply! Seriously, though, this was the year that I really should have been there but forces conspired against me. Why should have I been there? Because:

1. I own a Volkswagen. And it’s a van/bus/[your pet term of choice here]
2. I haven’t been to nearly enough shows this year - Bristol Volksfest was basically it! (I can’t count Wroughton Classic - that was a stone’s throw away for me)
3. A book called Campervan Crazy was launched there on which Manda (the wife) appears - front cover, no less, and which features a piece that I wrote for the book, along with a two-page spread inside the book (p132). It even includes a full-page photo I took back at an early Bug Jam (or was it Beetle Bash?) of Dubhenge that includes me brother
4. A design that I did for the Vanfest printed programme - one that I knocked together, to be honest, based on some photos taken at earlier shows - ended up being chosen as the winner by the organisers. So, not only was the bus on the front cover of the book to be launched at the show, it was also on the front of the programme handed out to everyone on their way in … but not me. (I also missed out on the opportunity of free camping all weekend and entry to the show - a tidy little saving I never made use of)

So, why wasn’t I there? Because:

1. People insist on having weddings. 3 in one month for me - 4 in a 6-week stretch. Crazy … Anyway, that took care of my Friday and Saturday.
2. People insist on having birthdays. It was the wife’s in the previous week and the Sunday evening was reserved for her folks to buy her dinner somewhere out of town.
3. Volkswagens insist on having ‘issues’. In the week before Vanfest, the alternator went and needed fixing. I managed to get the van on the Friday night - so I was in time for the show - but with just a small window of opportunity on that Sunday I didn’t think it was worth it.

So, did I miss much then?

If you’re an avid VW fan and like nothing better than driving your air-cooled
bus or bug up to a show, I may have just the thing for you … if you are also
a Mac owner! I’ve been adding all the VW events that I know about to a calendar in
iCal and have now shared this calendar. When I update the calendar, anyone who
has subscribed to that calendar will get the updates too (when they fire up iCal).

More info about it can be found here: VW events calendar

Update: I’ve now added a page so that you can tell me about VW events that you want added:

Add an event to the VW event calendar »

Some time ago I wrote an article that was featured in Camper & Commercial magazine. At the end of it I wrote:

"Now, we’re getting settled in again in the UK and finding all manner of jobs that need doing on the van. She’s a rust-free Aussie battler, for sure, but she’s not show car material. She won’t win any prizes for now, unless there’s one for ‘Biggest Holiday Souvenir’. "

The funny thing is that this weekend just gone, Ethel was a show vehicle - and the reason for it was because she was a holiday souvenir. OK, well that’s not how they labelled it: I had taken the van up to Vanfest (who, incidentally, have possibly the worst VW web site in the world) in Malvern to park up in the "Well-Travelled Bus" category. Look, people actually looking at my van at a show! Actually, they’re looking at the map of the route we took around Australia rather than the van. Still counts though, doesn’t it?

I’d like to say that Vanfest was a great show but I can’t say that with hand on heart because, as I discovered, there’s a problem with exhibiting like this - you don’t get see much of the show. Sure, I wandered around the trade stands picking up some goodies for the van, but other than that I really didn’t see that many buses at the show (I hardly even took that many pictures at Vanfest, which is unusual for me). Admittedly I was only there for the day (no overnight camping) and also spent half the morning wrestling with door fittings (I’d started to strip down the cab door to replace the window winder mechanism only to discover that it was far from an easy procedure, and was made all the more horrible by the sheer volume of Waxoyl that I had previously sprayed inside the door cavity. Maybe next year I’ll make a weekend of it. And when/if I do, I’ll drive up there on a decent set of tyres that aren’t likely to blow out and cause a nasty accident en-route!

How’s that for a shocker?

Had some fantastic weather for this year’s Beachbuggin’ event down in Southsea (Portsmouth). No time for a write-up right now, but here are some photos to be getting on with for now :

» Photos from Beachbuggin 2005, Southsea

If I can be arsed to get around to it, I might actually write up something half decent about the BeetleMania event I went to this weekend. Too many jobs to do, too little time. We’ll see. To summarise - it was fun, it was the first time since Aus that we’d camped in the van for longer than an evening and the first time that we’ve camped overnight at a VW event. I realise now that we weren’t as organised as we could be, but that all comes with practice. In the meantime, though, here are a few photos from BeetleMania that I took (although I was being a bit lazy on that front, it has to be said.

Here’s a little video of the VolksWorld Show that I put together. By little, what I really mean is ‘rather big’ - it’s a 33mb Quicktime movie clip, so don’t start downloading unless you have both the bandwidth and the Quicktime player to view it on. If you have both, and have some time on your hands, I think you’ll find it well worth downloading and saving to your hard drive. Enjoy!

Originally posted at VolksZone forum, duplicated here for the benefit of any Googlers out there (who are not likely to find the thread on Volkszone) - a list of all the photo galleries that I am aware of from the VolksWorld Show 2005 at Sandown Park, Surrey

• My gallery on VW Kombi.com (this site, folks)
• Porky’s gallery
• nose-down.de gallery
• Spiny’s gallery
• Herts VW Club
• Speedman’s gallery
• Mistereck’s gallery
• Slimboy Fats (zero people in the way) shots
• Pre 67’s gallery
• Nathan’s Fotopic gallery
• KGMunkey’s gallery
• Enough’s Enough
• Retro Rides gallery
• Type2 Ireland gallery

We took our Ethel out for a run to the south coast today. We hadn’t intended
to make it all the way to the coast, but we ended up at Boscombe Pier a few
miles down the road in Bournemouth. Why? Turns out that the Christchurch
Classics show was cancelled at the very last minute, and I hadn’t been
aware of it. The organisers had tried to let everyone know, but a handful still
turned up (like me). The problem was that the usual venue, Homefield School
in Winkton, had been forced to close down - it
was a private school that had gone into receivership late Friday afternoon. Bad luck or what?!

So, Boscombe Pier was a hastily arranged alternative to the school, and given
that most people had managed to be notified of the cancellation, only a handful
of (mostly) locals turned up - a far cry from the 200 or so that usually attend
the Christchurch Classics show. Still, it was good to have a chat with some
other VW owners and to have a look at how everyone has theirs set up. At some
point, the interior
of our van will be completely removed and I’ll rebuild a new interior,
one that is a little more flexible/adaptable than it currently is. You can’t
beat sticking your nose inside other people’s vans for getting ideas.

Anyway, enough of the wittering on, here are some photos (or check the photos section for more):

There may only be a handful of buses, but that’s better than nothing. For once,
Ethel is part of ‘a gang’.

George (wearing jean jacket) painted his old bus with chalkboard paint and
then wrote in chalk ‘Feel free to write or draw on me’, and many people had
a go at transforming the bus into a cliché hippy bus. Note - this lady didn’t draw
the flames designs!

Sorry, George, but I can’t see this paint job making it on to Pimp My Ride
(unless it was the ‘before’ rather than the ‘after’!)

l-r: Paul, Joe and George sitting in the back of Paul’s old splittie.

Passing through Salisbury, I spotted another splittie being put to good use!