Blustery Busfest: The Premier Experience

Brooding skies

With the horrendous news footage of Hurricane Irma fresh in our minds and a pretty iffy UK forecast in prospect, I was feeling quite relieved that we had taken the decision to book into Malvern’s Premier Inn for the weekend of Busfest.  

After the school run on Friday, we headed over to Malvern to join Gaz.  Thankfully, we dodged any thunder and lightning.  I must have been really awful in a previous life.  I hate driving when there is lightning.  I duck every time there is a flash, just as though I am anticipating being struck down by a thunder bolt.  Not the best approach when in charge of a moving vehicle.

Makeshift Flag

Under any other circumstances, it’s hard not to relax, driving along the Worcester Road - the vantage point being the stunning peaks of the Malvern hills.  However, Busfest is the world’s biggest VW Transporter show and attracts visitors from all over the globe.  You usually hit the ground running, fueled by adrenaline, conversation and coffee, until it’s time to pack away and then the wave of tiredness hits...  

Fortunately for Gaz, Friday had been a slow and steady day for trade, as the masses were busy arriving on site and keen to set up before the weather turned moody.

I had a walk around and caught up with Anna (IseaSurf).  We talked screen printing, coastal living and sinus infections (hope you’re feeling better Anna!)  

Of course, I didn’t leave empty handed and purchased a pair of funky mermaid leggings (third from right).  That’s the beauty of the festival season.  Even if you forget your suitcase, you can always pull together an individual outfit for a reasonable price.  

We spent the evening catching up with friends, but this time, when the air temperature became distinctly autumnal, we headed off to our luxury hideaway – a trading estate in Malvern.  Doesn’t sound very glam does it?  But it was quiet and the beds really are as comfy as Lenny Henry says in the adverts. 

Malvern digs

So, somewhat refreshed and distinctly perkier that we might usually be early on a Saturday morning, we headed back to the showground for an exceptional day’s trading.  Our neighbours, Retro Classic Clothing, had kept an eye on our stand during our brief morning absence as we were en route to the site.  It also gave them chance to exact revenge on Gaz (more on that later) after he initiated what I can only describe as “Sticker Slap Guerilla Warfare.”  In short, Gaz was slowly but surely re-branding their stand as Voodoo Street by covering every available surface with our promotional stickers.

We met the hardcore VW festival-goers and regular Voodoo Street visitors (always a pleasure), but also, being Busfest, encountered people from all over the world.  One of my favourite moments was during an unintentional music-off with the stand opposite.  We had Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart blasting our of our BruteBox; the opposition something very different.  They cranked up their volume a little more than was necessary, much to the irritation of one German visitor, who was clearly enjoying our song choice.  He was moved to poke his head through our gazebo to announce, in heavily accented English: “I love ze Joy Division!” and like the scene out of Sparticus, prompted several other voices to echo his sentiment. 

The Invisible Man

Gaz also had a bizarre exchange with a Mexican, who promised him that when he returned to Mexico, “You and I will do good things with Voodoo Street.”

By Saturday evening, we were fit to drop.  Gaz doesn't sleep well at the best of times (I on the other hand am usually out as soon as my head hits the pillow).  A visit to our neighbours camping pitch (complete with inflatable sofas) and another quick catch up with friends and we were off to enjoy the spoils of our visit to Morrisons (wine, cheese, vintage cider, crisps, brownies) and sit back for a night of terrible Saturday night TV in our hotel room.  How rock and roll are we?  If I could have, I would have thrown the TV out of the window, but we were on the ground floor, and the windows don't open.

Sunday morning was slow to start, a lot of day visitors being put off by the weather.  Caleb and I bailed at around 2 pm, personally escorted off site by one of the stewards.  Gaz held the fort until closing time. 

After we’d caught up on online orders and enquiries, we were enjoying a couple of drinks, when, in the midst of a conversation about the weekend, Gaz spotted that Retro Classic Clothing had sticker slapped his trainers.  He was so dog tired, he only spotted their handywork after he’d paraded around our local supermarket in them.  You guys!!!

Next weekend it’s Vdubs in the Valley and we are praying to the sun gods that the weather improves.  I’m hoping that it’s not a bad omen that Gaz’s offer of a fresh, hot pasty to a homeless person today was met with: “I can’t eat steak and ale.”  Until next time!

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. 

Sails and Splitties

After several long months in the wilderness, we both decided on Thursday last week that we really fancied doing a show.  We put it to our Facebook followers and had several suggestions, but one in particular caught our eye: Avoncroft Aircooled – a one day show taking place at Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings. 

   

I had vague recollections of going there as a kid; notably being frightened to death by one of the costumed staff warning me that “The whiter your bread, the sooner you’re dead,” when teaching us about the flour milling process.  To this day, I have residual guilt whenever I choose white over brown. 

Still, all I could really remember of the place was the windmill, so the prospect of being able to explore everything the museum had to offer in between trading, seemed like a fine plan.  A quick glance at the forecast suggested warm, dry weather until 8 pm, so plenty of time for us to pack up and head home before the rain.  Gaz made the call and we were booked in and ready to go. 

Typically, we can’t go anywhere without producing a souvenir sticker and so here’s the first ever show sticker produced for Avoncroft Aircooled.  Note the FLAT 4 number plate – a little nod to the organisers.

After a relatively dry Eurovision party on Saturday night (early start), we awoke to glorious sunshine.

On arrival, we were greeted by friendly staff and directed to an idyllic setting in amongst the trees, just in front of the Mission Church, a Victorian “tin chapel” rescued from Bringsty, Herefordshire.

The Mission Church and Wedding Bus

The whole vibe was low key and chilled out.  We took limited stock and downsized for the day.  After an initial downpour, the sun returned and the numerous green spaces were awash with picnics and ball games.

The Voodoo Street Stand

In readiness for this year’s Star Wars themed Vdubs in the Valley, we took along some flyers to help promote the show and our Steampunk Boba Fett helmet, which I could have sold several times over!  Coincidentally our neighbour was trading under the name OB1.

Trade was steady and we were the sole provider of music, courtesy of our BruteBox.  I recently replaced my phone and stupidly omitted to download the vast majority of my music to enable me to play it offline.  The one album I had remembered to download was the new Blondie album, Pollinator, so apologies to any visitors who can’t stand Blondie (can’t imagine there are many), but it’s all I had!!

The Privy

During one of our trading lulls, Cal and I discovered this 3 seater privy.  It was probably up there with some of the nicer festival toilets!

Ye Olde Festival Toilet

A must was a visit to the iconic post mill windmill, perched at the edge of the site, overlooking a sea of campervans.  Visitors to the museum and VDubbers mingled in the sunshine.  One elderly museum visitor made the priceless comment on a rat look split screen:  "There's one that they're going to do up!"

View from the Windmill

The 19^th century post mill – one of only three surviving examples in 

the Midlands – was rescued from Danzey Green near Tanworth-in-

Arden in 1969 and reconstructed at Avoncroft.

Having undergone an extensive programme of structural repairs over

many years, disaster struck the windmill in January 2012 when high

winds brought down one of the sails and damaged the supporting round 

house.  The sail was broken beyond repair and a new one had to be 

manufactured to replace it.  However, by October 2013 the work was 

completed and the windmill was restored to full working order.

Splitscreens were out in force

Spot the little rat skeleton on the roof rack!

One of the first to grab a show sticker was the owner of this cool rat look bus.

The day flew by and punctuated by a little Mobile BeerBuz cider 

(thanks Gaz and Hayley), left us with a rosy glow and a desire to do it 

all again next year – a perfect start to the outdoor show season.