Throughout the weekend at Vdubs in the Valley, Gaz made
utterances about trading for a third weekend in a row in deepest
Gloucestershire. Baking hot and barely
coping with demand, my back suffering from too many nights on a camp bed and
too many hours on my feet, I chose to ignore these utterances, preferring to
reserve judgment on this one.
Come Monday morning, the situation had changed
somewhat. Not only had Gaz committed to
doing the show – at Berkeley Castle – but we were also now sponsoring the event
by producing the official show sticker.
I disappeared upstairs to unpack our weekend travel case and
was taken aback. It literally smelled of
hay. In fact, it also contained copious
amounts of hay, stuck to socks and just about everything else! Living out of a suitcase on the Vdub scene
ain’t all glamour let me tell you! My
back had now properly seized up and I was wearing a groove in the rug pacing up
and down every 15 minutes, trying in vain to loosen up. As the show was a one-day event, it was
decided that Gaz would go it alone. For
my part, determined to fix my ailing spine, I ordered a used copy of “The
Permanent Pain Cure” by Ming Chew, as recommended by a friend.
The early part of the week was therefore spent designing
said show sticker and working on some faithful replica stickers of a now
obsolete mountain bike, Mountain Cycle’s San Andreas – a favour for a friend,
who is generously gifting them to a true San Andreas enthusiast for his 50th
birthday.
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| The Workshop |
Wednesday was a day reserved for fixing up the Golf. An oil leak and squeaking suspension were
driving us insane. This was long
overdue.
In need of some exercise, we decided to drive up together
and hot foot it back along the canal or “cut” as it’s known in this part of the
world.
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| Always time to photograph a cool ride |
With our weekends spent largely in rural surroundings, it
made a refreshing change to re-visit the local heritage we take for granted and
so I thought I would share a little of our surroundings with you.
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| Heading towards the Red House Glass Cone and Glass Quarter along newly gravelled towpath |
The 15-minute drive to the repair workshop took us up a road
you could legitimately call “Exhaust Alley,” a featureless urban B road flanked
by boxy new builds and post war housing estates. The route back however, took in interesting and varied terrain.
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| Picturesque former public house, now private residence, stone's throw from Exhaust Alley |
We walked along canal towpaths running adjacent-to-but-a-comfortable-distance-from
Exhaust Alley....
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| Boat Yard |
...through the once world renowned glass quarter, famed for its cameo glass and cut crystal...
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| One of 4 remaining cones beside Stourbridge 16 lock flight, the Red House Glass Cone Museum offers up glass blowing demonstrations and exploration of its underground tunnels. There were once over 20 glassworks in this area. |
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| Work in progess. Former Glassworks currently being converted into apartments. |
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| A narrow boat passing through a lock |
through fields overlooking Millionaires’ Row,
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| This is part of one street, just a few minutes from our home with the highest concentration of millionaires outside of London. Spot the swimming pool. NB. Nothing like our house. |
culminating in woodland we are lucky to have direct access to from our back garden,
although for how much longer is uncertain, as the attached Estate property –
an equestrian facility - is now on the market for a cool £1.9m....
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| The Gate House to the Estate |
and rumours are
flying that our precious woods have been sold separately. We’ll see…
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| Our Woods |
The remainder of the week was a blur of deliveries, promo
and labelling of stock. (I am loving our fully quilted, herringbone weave newsboy caps).
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| WANTED: STOCK RAIDER |
The obligatory
show weather warning for Saturday night persuaded Gaz to delay set up until
early Sunday morning and true to his word, I heard the front door shut at 6.00
am.
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| Gaz making his presence felt at Berkeley Castle |
Gaz, left to his own devices, is nothing if not industrious,
as regular customers Simon Flack and the lilac-locked Celia, will testify. Short of an extra pair of hands, he thought
nothing of asking them to organise shout-outs over the loud speaker to alert
visitors to our stand, which they did, without complaint and were on hand to provide
moral support throughout the day.
Cheers guys!
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| Simon and Celia, unofficial Voodoo Street hustlers ;-) |
By 7pm he was back in the fold and updating me on the
amazing 86 year-old stunt driver Dick Sheppard, a Berkeley local and Italian
Job stunt driver. Dick, who has also
worked on “Thunderball” and “Diamonds are Forever,” has crashed over 1,000 cars
and aside from a hip replacement, seems to have miraculously avoided
arthritis.
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| Year 2 Berkeley Selfie with Dick Sheppard |
So, as I type on this rainy Monday afternoon, the postman
has just delivered my book, hopefully containing the secret to achieving a
spine as flexible as Dick’s! Wish me
luck!
