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

I just took a look at Vanshack’s website and noticed a new message on the home page:

Consider this an open apology to all type 4 owners who might want to use their services - it was my bus that made them stop servicing type 4 engines!

It took a while to get the old girl out for a proper weekend away. Sure, since
bringing the bus back from Aus we’ve taken her to various places in the UK
but we’ve only slept in the van once (in Brighton) and never at a Volkswagen
do. This weekend marked a milestone then.

We travelled up the motorway (M4, M24, M1, map fans) from Swindon to Redbourne
for VW Action’s BeetleMania event, a 60s-themed event that looked promising.
The weather looked like it would be sunny, the theme of the party should stop
too many chav-like attendees turning up and I knew at least a few people before
coming up there.

The weather was a slight disappointment. The sun, or what there was of it,
dipped out of sight and was replaced with a biting cold. Even with a diesel
heater at our disposal to pump warm air into the van (Eberspacher D1LC), the
night looked like it would be a cold one. Never mind, a bit of dancing about
to the old skool rave tunes helped take my mind of things (I say dance it was
more of an animated nod and foot-tap - I never can quite let go when I know
I’m being watched by the other [more sensible] half!).

Saturday day revealed that there had been a few more vehicles (and people)
arrive during the night, but it was certainly not busting at the seams; it
was not as busy show as I imagined it would be. Perhaps the cold weather was
to blame; perhaps it was the fact that there are so many VW shows to pick and
chose from (there’s another VW Action event next week); perhaps people wanted
to stay home and watch Dr Who instead?

The Fab Beatles played a blinder in the afternoon, and again in the evening.
It’s amazing how many hits they had and how you can sing along to even the
least known of their songs. The Rolling Clones (no prizes for guessing who
they were a tribute band for) were also pretty good, with ‘Mick’ doing the
whole impression - the singing, the strutting and the accent/voice (between
songs). Also making an impression on the Saturday night were fellow Swindonites
(a.k.a. Zwindon Luftschule) who were all togged up in monks’ robes and wearing
Bob Monkhouse masks, a sight that must have been slightly unnerving to some
people in various states of inebriation (and other intoxicants).

My overall feeling about BeetleMania was that it was fun, could have been
improved with a bit of sun and was lacking a little in the traders’ department.
I had hoped to pick something up to spoil Ethel with and managed to get a …
wait for it, wait for it - rubber grommet for the lock barrel on the sliding
door. Woohoo, let’s go crazy!

Another strange phenomenon was recognising other people’s VZi usernames and
feeling too conscious to say hello. Why? Because maybe that would pander to
their egos (for those that have them - that’s not a blanket statement!),
maybe they’d think that I’m some kind of fan-boy, or even find that they don’t
wanna know because they don’t know me (if this seems odd, you can blame the tone
of some VZi threads for making it feel like sometimes it’s not as inclusive
or all-embracing as it should)?

Whatever, I did feel that the ‘gang’ thing was magnified at the event, not
defused (in case you’re not sure what I’m on about, just read any of the old
posts on VZi - the whole ‘gangs are elitist’ posts come around regular as clockwork).
The little enclosures were no longer virtual, and it felt, to me at least,
that you couldn’t just join in with other gangs. Heck, I even felt like an
outsider camping up with the other Swindon lot because I hadn’t been party
to the whole ‘Monkmen’ brotherhood thing (that and the fact that I was there
with my partner while it was an all-lads-together event for the rest of them).
Then again, as has been pointed out in responses on VZi in the past, we’re
all part of a gang anyway - the VW Owners’ gang, and it’s one that I’m happy
to be part of.

Or maybe I should have written this post when I hadn’t had a bad day at work ;-p

I have no idea which VW do I’ll make it to next - there’s so much upheaval
in my life at the moment as I move house, try to get a new house with Manda
and try to sort out wedding plans, try to resolve some issues at work that
I really don’t know what’s coming up next. Whatever happens, I’ll do my best
to enjoy it. A cooler full of beer and a heater blowing over my cold tootsies
and I’ll be sorted

• View the photos from BeetleMania here

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.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. It’s a little story about me, my van and the youth of today (and now I know I’m starting to sound like my parents).

A couple of weeks ago, I was at home when I had a knock on the door. It was an unfamiliar face - a neighbour whom I didn’t know. He lives a few doors up and we’ve never met but he seemed to know that I was the owner of the yellow Kombi parked out on the street. He told me that he’d just seen some kids messing with the van (this was about 2pm on a Saturday) but he thinks they just took the dustcaps.

“The little shits,” thought I.

“I’ve seen them walk up the alleyway up the street - one of them is wearing a red jacket,” the neighbour told me.

So, I quickly formed a plan of action - follow these lads from a distance, as discretely as I can and see where they end up. Once they get home I’ll knock on the door, ask to speak to the parents and say “Your son just stole my dustcaps, I want them back and if there is any subsequent damage to my vehicle, I will be coming straight back here.” That was the plan - I didn’t want to challenge them directly as I would have no comeback if they did decide to put a window through on the van at a later date.

So I went out the house, up the street, did a quick about-turn and back to the van to get my 6-cell Mag-Lite. Just in case they turned out to be little shits who wanted to have a pop. Then I carried on and into the alley. At this point I spotted the lad with the red coat, halfway up this alleyway with steep steps, throwing something at the building next to the alleyway. He was trying to get something in the gutter. Probably all 4 of my VW-branded dustcaps that they’d so nicely removed from my van. Realising that the lads were not not exactly hurrying, I slowed down and started inspecting the ground, looking to see if I could find the dustcaps.

Soon enough, the lads - and at this point I should mention that they looked particularly chavvy - disappeared around the corner of the alleyway into the next street. I continued following, slowly. As I rounded the corner I watched them go into a house that had previously been some kind of cemetery groundskeeper’s abode (an almost church-like building). I had suspicions - this didn’t look like a normal house, so I knocked on the door of a house opposite and asked the people there what sort of place it was. I was told that it was a hostel for ‘troubled kids’ (insert your own translation here) but that there was a warden on duty who could sort out any problems.

I headed over, stuck my head through the open door and asked someone inside if the warden was about. She’d nipped off to the shops, I was told, so I decided to sit outside and wait until she reappeared. Another lad returned from an afternoon’s ‘prowling’ and saw me sat there. With my 6-cell Mag-Lite. I can only imagine the conversation that took place inside but he must have thought I was there to give someone a battering. Next minute three lads are outside and asking me why I’m there.

“I’m waiting for the warden to come back.”

“Well, you can’t wait here.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t, you better move on mate, you can’t wait here.”

“Yes I can. I’m perfectly within my rights to wait here.”

“What do you want the warden for? Has someone robbed you or sumfin?”

“Yeah,” I reply, thinking that that person was almost certainly him.

“So go report it to the police then. Don’t wait here.”

“I just wanna speak to the warden.”

We go around in circles like this for a while, and he’s getting more agitated. Meanwhile someone else comments on the torch and asks what I intended to do with it. Before long, all three are giving me verbal so I decide to get up and leave. I’d rather wait somewhere else in peace than sit there being given the third degree. As I get up, it’s clear that they’ve got a victory - I’m retreating. The verbal gets stronger, one of them telling me to “Fuck off, you little shit.” [I’m bigger than any one of them, but hey ho] culminating in a threat that if they see me again that one of them will stab me. Over dustcaps, remember.

The upshot of all this? Well, I no longer park my van on the street near my house because I am sure that they associate my visit with their stealing the dustcaps, and as such my vehicle is ‘marked’. I haven’t gone back to the hostel ‘cos frankly I can’t be bothered with the hassle. Meanwhile, these lads have got away with it again (I’m sure that this wasn’t the first time they’ve stolen or verbally abused people - heck, they’re not in a hostel for their flower-arranging abilities!). My feeling now is one of anger - at myself for not standing up to them and at them for being little shits who do this kind of thing for fun. But I’m also relieved (even if that does contradict what I just said) that I *didn’t* take any action - because it was only over a set of dustcaps, and seeing as I ‘came strong’, what with the 6-cell Mag-Lite, if I did give them a battering it would be me in prison and them still out on the streets, laughing their arses off because they got away with it again. Who’d be the sucker then?

It irritates me that I felt intimidated by this bunch of (probably) 15-year-olds. While I might have been able to take one of them on, it’s not really in my nature. Sitting there with the torch, I realised how pointless bringing it along was. I don’t have the inclination to use it. And there’s the difference - these lads might not be physically overbearing, and they might be more mouthy than anything, but the three of them could quite easily turn on me, pack animal style, and leave me looking ragged. So, yeah, I was intimidated by a bunch of spotty chavs who really deserve to get a good beating one day (it won’t be from me though - but I’m sure their time will come).

What would you have done?

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

Driving a Volkswagen Camper all around Australia (or a large part of it), covering 18,500 km in the process, shipping it 14,575 km from Perth (Western Australia) to Southampton and then around the UK without a single scratch in the process. And then scraping a car in the ridiculously over-crowded car park at work. No damage to Ethel, though - just a touch of blue on the rear bumper that has already been sprayed over (like it never happened). The little KIA car that I brushed up against was also not dented - thankfully the plastic bumper gave way (or flexed) in the face of Ethel’s metallic behind, so it’ll only be a touch-up job for now. Annoying, all the same.

Go on, you know you want to …

I’ve set up a shop on Cafepress.com with my favourite photo of Ethel on T-shirts, mugs and a rather fetching messenger bag.

So, roll up folks, buy your VW/volkswagen clothing and other schtick here!

Note: I’m not doing this for the profit - setting up a shop on Cafepress will hardly make me a bean - I just kinda like the idea of seeing someone with an Ethel shirt on!

Well, it’s been a while since I updated the Kombi blog, but there’s not been a huge amount happening. Well, not anything obvious, at least. There haven’t been any shows to attend since the last aborted botch of a show (which turned out to be a handful of people down Boscombe pier, not that it was anyone’s fault). But the VW show season is starting to pick up. This weekend is Volksworld, and I’m hoping to attend if I can, but already have something else planned that weekend. Whenever the next show is, I can at least roll up in a little more comfort than previously, and here’s why - I have a heater!

Going anywhere in the van before always had a down side, and that was the cold. Cold toes, cold nose, cold hands - anything that either wasn’t wrapped up or was facing a jet of cold air turned to ice. It made any journey uncomfortable, and replacing the existing heater - or rather non-existent heateing parts - of the van was not really an option. You see, the placement of the engine right at the back and the length of the tubing from the rear of the van to the front of the vehicle doesn’t make for great (guaranteed) heating in these old vans. And the other thing to bear in mind is that it only works when the engine is running. So, I have got myself an Eberspacher D1LC diesel heater. Imagine a jet engine scaled down and you are getting close. This little baby should keep the van toasty warm in future, regardless of whether the engine is running. Now I just need to get the darn thing plummed in and wired up!

Ethel (for that is her name, dear forgetful or first-time readers) has had a couple of cosmetic changes of note in the last couple of months. Firstly, the roo bars came off, and with it the spare tyre (please don’t let me run over any nails!). It was immediately clear how much that extra steel over the front affected steering; without the roo bars I noticed a marked improvement in handling. I just gotta make sure that I don’t hit any ‘roos now. I also removed the silly little fold-down step at the side and some other metallic ‘cruft’ underneath the van that did little but add to the weight and fuel consumption. Little changes all add up.

In February, Ethel got some new curtains that my sister made. These have all been fitted to the ridiculously small curtain tracking that has probably been there for the whole of the van’s life. They’re looking good, although when closed up there are a few little gaps of light that creep in (need to get big sis to add a touch more material for absolute privacy, methinks!).

Finally, over the last couple of days Ethel got a new smile. Well, a white bumper, at least (looks a bit like a smile to me!), front and back. The bumpers were a bit scratched up and I’ve seen how easily these things can rot out without a bit of care. The problem with Ethel, though, is that her colour is an Aussie one that can’t easily be matched here in the UK, so I couldn’t guarantee an exact match for the bumper, hence I opted for white. It will makes sense in the long run as any further dings and scratches will be easy to cover up and, if I’m honest, they help to balance out the van as a whole (the white pop-top and air scoops).

Ethel’s new ‘pearly-whites’

So, that’s Ethel’s recent work. We took her out this weekend to the Cotswolds, and you can see her new flash of white in these pictures. I don’t think that there’ll be any other major changes in the immediate future, but who knows what little goodies I might pick up at one of the shows this year? So tempting …

Note: All my van pictures will, at some point, also make it onto my Flickr site.