So what about Vanfest I hear you cry? There you both were slogging your guts out getting Eddy ready for Vanfest and then you tell us nothing about it you cry……
Ok …ok well I had other things on my mind didn’t I , with Boots coming to try us out … then Jockanese K….MBE sent one of his updates….I have rehearsing to do and I want to start getting fit again, maybe be a practicing martial artist again?
That’s after juggling home life with two kids and housework and still have a bit of quality time with Wifey……oh yes and there’s that work thing I turn up to once in a while, got to stick at that as the way the old spondoonys slip through me and Wifey’s fingers I need to do a bit more me thinks…….
Anyway I digress……….So its Friday night…(well it isn’t but I’m telling a story ain’t I) Rock star is picked up from school and off we set down the M4 towards Malvern …..after I have a last minute dash to get some Camping Gaz…I thought Home base so of I shot in the car which turned into Exorsett I mean ….ecsorsett…or maybe ..excerset…….a flippin missile!
The very nice lady in Home base informed me that Millets did them. So I’m now running to the car screamed around the one way ring road in Bracknell did some well dodgy parking in a service road in a bay reserved for taxis and legged it up the High Street wielding said empty canister of Camping Gaz like a raving loony before the shops shut. Hot flustered and sweaty I asked for a new bottle and the little spotty geek in Millets informed me they didn’t do it there……………and then at the end he said in his dweeby geeky anoraky voice
“ Ah now where do they do them…………………. Home base….? Maybe…………. Or………hmm…… Halfords? ……you could try ……………Focus?
“ Do you know they do the Gaz there ?”I say realising that we weren’t destined after all to eat cold beans on bread and butter all weekend
“No I’m not sure………..but you could try them…………I’m not sure if they do it though ( I could taste the cold baked beans again)………..the only shop I know that do it for sure is …the hardware store at Harmans Water shops ..........he definitely does them”
Resisting grabbing his weedy shoulders and shouting in his ear holes "why didn’t you tell me that from the start rather than having to listen to a talking Yellow pages of Bracknell Retail outlets!!!!!!!!!" I ran into the High street.......... and back to the shop again to pick up the empty Gaz Canister which I'd left behind ....back into the High Street and ran to the car hoping that the car wasn’t clamped To my surprise there was no clamp maybe all those angry cabbies behind my car shouting about some t0sser who can’t read put the clampers off …who knows. Off
I shot to Harman’s Water…….funny place…there is no water and who the s0dding hell is Harman anyway? I could have kissed the old lady in the shop as she exchanged my empty canister for a shiny new one.
So eventually we were on the road a quick stop off at Tescos to buy some porky pies and sausage rolls for the journey down and there we were Malvern bound!!!! Oh yes!...... there was the driver change…..the gear lever on Eddy has just been moved slightly during restorations and it was virtually impossible for me to get it into second gear. Wifey fearing the kids would learn some choice Maltese swearing she swapped over whilst I was getting the trough in.
We arrived at Vanfest in the dark…It was in full swing. On the mobi Heather from Berkshire bugs with who we were camping tried to explain where they were…now there is space for 15,000 vehicles to camp 10.000 of those are VW campervans it was like finding a needle in a haystack …….after ploughing through crowds and crowds of people who had already parked their trusty Vee Dubs up and were enjoying a Friday night’s funfair and disco and food and live music and as many VW busses they could feast their eyes on we found the camp site . There were multiple search lights beaming into the sky pumping music and lots of drink and dance all around us……..it was something else….we set up the awning got the kids to bed and Wifey and I cracked open a box of White Zinfandel (Auntie Jess would have been proud!) and proceeded to enjoy the company of an already on the way to getting hammered Ashley (VW mechanic, restorer Berkshire Bugs ownery type person) before the evening was out Wifey had kicked Ashley in the face multiple kicked Grant and managed to convince the rest we were in fact biscuit designers and between us drunk the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine…..
Then at about 0130 hours …in true Mr Benn style …as if by magic a little man appeared next to Maxine and in a squeaky voice which made me realise that this man was a spit for Lofty from it ain’t alf hot Mum (70s TV programme for those too young to remember…..must try and see it on DVD if you have no knowledge) anyway lofty proceeds to talk…whilst clutching his beer in a vice like grip in his right hand he says……(remember in a lofty accent) “Hello I’m mike …don’t laugh at me …I like talking to new people….I’m from Stoke on Trent and I’ve got a 23 window splitty and it’s ont cover of Volksworld next month” (this means a split screen VW camper van pre 1968 to be precise…with 23 windows and is going to be on the cover of a vw magazine ) I say to lofty “ Fudge me! Where the fudge did you come from?” or words to that effect...... he replies with a squint from behind his little glasses pushing his little belly out “from over there” and points to a few rows across and down. I explain to him that the only other person I know from Stoke on Trent is Robbie Williams he replies “Aye…Robbie’s a w&nker!”
This is where Wifey asked Lofty to see his bus………very worse for wear we went over to his bus with Dowey and Andrea the proud owners of the flaming turd….(.which is a brown splitty with a flame design over the front ) We ooo’d and aaaah’d at his bus (which in all fairness was very very nice) he explained we had to be quiet as his wife Tania was asleep inside……At this point I saw the glisten of devilment in wifey’s eyes as she went 0 to bitch in three seconds and instead of doing the right thing and dissuading her yours truly Dowey and Andi egged her on…..”I’d love to see the inside of your van and meet Tania” she said to him....We all convinced him that his sleeping wife would love to meet us at nearly 2 am in the morning……….It was like a scene out of little Britain …you know in the shop….Margaret ..MARGRET!….."Tania TANIA! Got some friends from Berkshire who’d like to meet you” She said “No thank you dear I would rather not “ except she said it in two words ….. ending in ….CK..OFF and starting in FU…We ran into the night clutching our sides as Lofty was left to pacify a now raging Tania…we never did meet her…..or him again come to think of it…We struggled into Eddy and crashed Out….
Saturday morning and Wifey was last to wake up in the Big Brother Van…..she greeted us with last night’s wine ……. fighting to resurface …..wouldn’t move from inside the camper which meant cooking breakfast was out of the question so off I trotted with the kids and we went French and got Croissants eventually wifey came back to normality at about 4 pm despite Ashley shouting across “come on get out of bed you lazy cow!”
So the rest of the weekend was endless Vee dubbing ..show and shine…..music entertainment ….a jolly good time was had by all ..we arrived back late Sunday night with lots of tales of wine, fire jugglers , people riding uni cycles , two metre long skateboards……a barbecue on a back of a kiddies trike that some dread locked white dudes were peddling along with this inferno trailing behind them…(for our Maltese viewers) looking like Larry ix-Xadin riding out of hell!!! (little monkey who rode a trike on Maltese children’s telly in the 80s) Endless stalls of everything you need for the van and loads of things you don’t but just have to buy anyway……like the Radio flyer….it’s a little red cart great for towing the kids round in ……….look it up online they’re great and every vee dub family with kids has to have one they have a kind of cult status now……..…I’m off got to plan our next trip…Brighton Breeze………
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