Skeg Vegas Layby Flyby Baby!

In spite of an exhausting 10-hour return journey from the Scottish Highlands last Sunday, we were excited to be heading back on the road to our first ever Skeg Vegas VW Show just 5 days later.  In that time, we caught up on online orders and enquiries, unpacked the van from holiday and re-packed it for business, caught up with family, made a trophy for the show and shine and generally had a manic few days.

Loughborough Town Centre, Friday

Bright and early (ish) on Friday, we embarked upon what should have been a 3-hour trip to Revesby in Lincolnshire.  Unfortunately, it became apparent when directed to a dead end road in the middle of a wet and windswept Loughborough, that the sat nav needed a map update.  Our tech savvy son took over and allegedly found a much quicker route.  This ended in disaster when we took a short cut down the ominously named “Whale Bone Lane,” officially the most pot holed road in Britain (trust us, we’ve travelled over a fair few of them).  I’ll spare you the details, but the resulting flat tyre meant that we arrived on site at 5.30 pm – two and a half hours later than the set-up deadline.  Thankfully, the staff seemed friendly and laid back and we did not seem to be the only late arrivals.

Revesby Hall, Lincolnshire

Our arrival was equally as dramatic as our journey.  I literally stepped out of the van to stretch my ailing back and was greeted by a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder and it was back in the van to sit out the ensuing torrential downpour.  I must say, I found this all very fitting given our surroundings.  We were in the grounds of Revesby Hall, which was built in the mid nineteenth century in “Jacobethan” style (a fusion of Jacobean and Elizabethan styles of architecture) near the site of an old Cistercian Monastery.  It’s an incredible building and was the childhood home of Sir Joseph Banks, the famous botanist, who travelled with Captain Cook on his famous voyage of discovery to Australia.  It is now in some state of disrepair but is being gradually restored and unsurprisingly, given its long history, plays host to numerous paranormal nights.  The hall was perfectly visible – flanked by trees – in the neighbouring field complete with “Beware of the bull” signs. 

Eventually, the rain (and hail) subsided and we were able to set up without any further drama, unless you count the Monty Python knights, who interrupted their hunt for the Holy Grail to try on our handmade steam punk top hats for size!  

In search of the Holy Grail

Knight on horseback does Steam Punk

Old Ladies

Gumbys

We rarely embrace the fancy dress themes at shows – we’re time poor in the run-up to shows and it’s not really practical to erect gazebos and hang up clothing whilst dressed as a mermaid or Native American Indian.  However, by sheer coincidence, we realised that Caleb had inadvertently embraced the theme and was in fact dressed as a lumberjack!  

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay

We then headed for the entertainment tent and whiled away a couple of hours listening to the covers band, who had an interesting set list, including Electric Six’s “Gay Bar.” 

Saturday brought it’s own challenge – high winds.  These persisted for much of the day.  By midday, word from the Skeg Vegas merchandise stall was that a hurricane was about to hit Bedfordshire.  This was disconcerting for two reasons.  Firstly, the weather for our location continued to show “light winds” which was clearly nonsense as I spent the best part of 2 hours with one foot on our totem hat stand, arms outstretched, holding onto the gazebos.  Secondly, if the weather was already so far out, was the hurricane heading our way?  

Sidewalk Carve Longboards - made to order

We had agreed to display some beautiful, hand crafted long boards for Sidewalk Carve Longboards on our stand and so Caleb was tasked with ensuring they at least stayed upright and didn’t fly away across the Lincolnshire flat lands, never to be seen again.  We relied on passing trade and other stallholders to retrieve our hats, caps and assorted bits and pieces taken by the wind.

Splitty

Regardless of the adversity, we had a blast.  The relaxed pace of trade meant that we were able to take it in turns to have a wander, check out the stunning vehicle displays... 

Gertie Bob's gorgeous Bedford camper

VW Brazilian

...(including one of my favourites – Hayburner Vic’s Brazilian), chat to old friends and new, witness a modified wheelie bin challenge, listen to music and eat a little more leisurely than the usual bursts of mouth cramming. 

Cool Flo's Ant, struggling to keep control of our rat bike

We even managed to celebrate Cool Flo Ant’s birthday on Saturday night.  In fact Anthony modestly drew our attention to the fact that one of our weekend’s highlights was that we got to see him!  Another unexpected bonus was the night sky; layer upon layer of stars – a scene worthy of dark sky status.

Voodoo Street's winner

Sunday gave us the weather respite we needed - wall-to-wall sunshine, little in the way of breeze and brisk trade.  Gaz awarded our trophy to this ratty T25 and added our own rat bike to an impressive line-up of retro bicycles.  People were still buying off us as we were packing away and just as the last few boxes were being put into the van, we were treated to a Spitfire fly by.

Bicycle show 'n' shine

Lee and his partner in crime - nice cap!

After saying our goodbyes, we headed back towards the village of Old Somerby (the scene of our wheel change) to be reunited with our broken wheel, having now managed to free up space for the damn thing.  Again, a big thank-you to Sally.  If you ever read this blog, we hope that you are met with the same kindness you showed to us, in your hour of need. 

The weather gave us one last kicking and the motorway driving conditions were vile on the way home, so in a repeat of the previous Sunday’s experience, we arrived home late, knackered but buzzing and once again ignored the fatigue, had a couple of drinks and watched the late movie before hitting the sack. 

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

I can only apologise to those of you who take some interest in where we are and what we are doing.  My blog entries have been pretty irregular for some time now.  I could offer you a raft of excuses.  For example, our propensity to book trade shows late in the day.  This effectively means that we semi-unpack the van late on Sunday night, gather our thoughts and brace ourselves for yet another Trump headline on Monday morning (or any given day for that matter), muddle through to mid week catching up on online orders, fielding enquiries, etc. before setting ourselves some impossible challenge (usually in the form of new stock), which we then attempt to turn around in time for the coming weekend.  By the time I’m in a position to update the blog, the next show has arrived and the moment has passed.

I could also blame a whole host of other things, but this time, in a typically British manner, I blame the weather.  The heat wave we had (remember?), meant that I ventured outside and whenever I venture outside for prolonged periods, I discover that we actually live on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.  

In short, I’ve been “on some shit” in the garden.  (Trust me, that’s the best phrase to describe the job, which confronted me. Here's the link. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20some%20shit )

I will endeavour to give you a potted history of our recent shows.  Gaz has a 1964 Mini Cooper.  Given that we sponsor the annual Mini and VW Bus Meet in our hometown, it made sense that both the Mini and the T4 make an appearance on our stand.  The main stumbling block was the fact that the Mini has been languishing in a relative’s garage for 17 years, playing winter host to Fred, the tortoise and somewhere along the way picking up a new furry occupant – a mouse.  But Gaz was on a mission.

Cleared of mouse droppings and boxes of long forgotten keepsakes (including a remote controlled skateboarder straight out of the 80s and a wooden Woodpecker cigarette dispenser), Gaz grabbed the toolbox and WD40 and set to work.

  

Unfortunately, the gods had other ideas and progress was slow to say the least.  The inaccessible fuel filter within the petrol tank was blocked and by Friday, the engine was sparking but still not drawing fuel. 

Knackered, jaded, beaten; all words, which could have described Gaz on Saturday morning as he left to set up.  All that hard work for sweet FA.

By the time I arrived to help set up, I was greeted by two familiar faces, Ben and Cerys, a couple we met at Dubs on the Wye.  Ben’s a VW enthusiast and Cerys is a Mini owner.  They had decided to take a punt on the show, breaking up their journey with an overnight stay in Shrewsbury and, luckily for us, Ben had brought along his heavy duty Towing Dolly, which he insisted on hitching up to our Golf to collect the Mini.  What a star!

Within 30 seconds of the Mini’s arrival on site, a tearful Gaz (bless) had had an offer on it and was soon surrounded by a dozen men - all staring, prodding the engine and offering advice on what to do next.

Having built the 1 litre race engine from scratch in his youth, we are thankful that Gaz had the foresight to retain most of the original parts, as the consensus was to return it to its original 1964 Cooper engine. 

The thing all classic motoring enthusiasts have in common is passion and a desire to see their favourite rides on the road.  That is why one parts dealer, throughout the day, systematically boxed up all the requisite parts for our Mini (worth just shy of £100) and allowed Gaz to buy them from him for 30 quid!  Talk about good karma!

Cookie

Setting up at leisure only 5 minutes drive from home is always a pleasure and I don’t think the stand has ever looked more organised.  We also managed to squeeze in a couple of cheeky drinks with this man, better known as “Cookie” from E4’s Tattoo Artist of the Year, and his lovely family.  The creative juices were flowing on Saturday evening, so all we can say is watch this space…

Next up was Camper Jam, which is always one of the highlights of the calendar.  We managed to launch a new T-shirt design with hours to spare before the start of the show.  Talk about hot off the press!

Camper Jam was hot - very hot - and very busy.  In it’s 10^th year, it was a great show and we had great neighbours on both sides, which included one fireman aka Brutebox Baz, four labradors (one who uses Jedi mind tricks to secure pork scratchings) and two "Happy Campers" from the Republic of Ireland.  

We also had the luxury of chilling around the campfire with our super organised friends on Saturday evening.  By “super organised,” I mean they brought the wherewithal to mix lip-numbing cocktails.  The only downside was our first experience of theft at a VW show.  Someone stole a rat from our rat bike.  No biggy, just disappointing.

Campfire and cocktails

Since then we have been posting out pre-orders of Vdubs in the Valley show tees and working on re-stocking an early Voodoo Street design, which seems to be suddenly in demand.

In our down time, we’ve made our first visit to Nozstock Festival, in deepest Herefordshire, notable for 3 reasons:-

1.  Excellent music, including Remi Harris (a leader on the Gypsy Jazz scene and highly rated by Jamie Cullum) and up and coming band and Nozstock regulars, The Stiff Joints.

2.  A fireworks display with a distinctly pagan feel.

3.  We managed to get Bez from Happy Mondays, to wear one of our bucket hats on stage.

Bez doing his thing

We also squeezed in the Camper & Bus Show at Eastnor Castle last weekend and decanted the 9 gallons of water, which fell on Saturday night from the top of our gazebos into saucepans.  It didn’t spoil our fun.  Gaz, on his own on Friday night, spent the evening with Retro Classic Clothing’s Adam and co. and on Saturday night, we whiled away a few hours (and a few cans) in the company of Simon and Celia (and family).  Thanks for your company and the amazing brownie Celia – we were fighting over it!

   

Pictured above, is Nala, Celia's canine niece, in her Voodoo Street bandana.

Getting ready for the Soap Box Derby at Eastnor

I will be updating our web store very soon, but with Skeg Vegas looming, it’s possible that we will need to re-stock before then, so bear with us. 

We’re excited about our first visit to Skeg Vegas.  It’s the furthest we will have travelled to a show and therefore we will all be shoe horned into the van, but we’ve heard many positive stories and have high hopes.  Maybe see some of you there!