Before......

This weekend sees major changes in Brian's appearance.

The first will be that he will be going over to the garage to be lifted, and to have his new wheels put on.

These......





... will be his new boots, and they will be the right load-bearing, the right PCD, the right everything.

He's being lifted because currently he is lowered at the front, and not at the back, which means he's right on the bottom if his leaf springs at the front. This is far from ideal on Norfolk roads, nor yet on town roads with their accursed speed bumps designed to stop joy racers in a gti..... ;-). Hopefully this will make him a more comfortable ride, as well as getting rid of the 'falling forward' feeling that one gets if one sits in the back!

The third big change will be his curtains.

Currently we have these....





..... which will replace these.....





.... a particularly offensive chav-tastic Burberryesque check!

They are not lined, nor yet fitted neatly. The rest of this post should show the reasons why these need changing....




The main van section.







Back window. The new curtains will be a pair as well.





See? Burberry check does not match Brian's 'fun bus' feel. His idea, not ours!




Roof lights. Also hideous.

The new curtains are also blackout lined, which will be lovely, and the red interior means that it should have a very cosy feel.

Obviously I'll be putting up photos as he's done, but this is his before post.

One day I'll explain why he's a fun bus, but not today lol! Today it's just exciting thinking about all the changes ahead!

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A fine day out.

Yesterday rocked.
It just did.
We spent the day in Brian, starting with a trip to collect our small companion for the day. He's 3, (4 in 1,2,3,4 weeks!) and fabulous company. He's at the why stage though.
We went over to Holbeach Hurn first of all, to drop these off.




The most clever Sarah of vw camper curtains sews from a busy workshop in the quiet countryside and spent time checking exactly what we wanted, how we wanted it, and how it was going to be.




She provided the small companion with paper and pencil for drawing, and she and J went to measure up the Brian.




I was in the workshop with the small companion, so there weren't many pictures, but what we do know is that the front curtain template that Sarah had from other bays doesn't fit the Brian! Oh, and the dormobile roof measures oddly so that it can't be mirrored both sides. Nothing is ever simple.....
On the other hand, we are leaving Brian's fabric with someone that we trust, whose work we have seen, whose price was jolly reasonable and who reckons we can have it in time for Dubfreeze!
(Oh, we aren't going to Dubfreeze to camp anymore. Brian is being raised and having his new wheels done on the Saturday! Proper post to come, obviously!)
Anyway, back to the day.
The small companions parents arrived at this point with the medium and larger versions, as well as the tiny version, and we bimbled up to Tattersall Lakes. The weather was gorgeous, but cold, and the small companion's mother joined us in Brian, and we followed his father up to the lakes.




Brian behaved beautifully, and the small companion had many questions that involved his speed, his bumpiness, his noises, and why we had a blanket in the car.
We had a pub lunch (very nice!) and looked around the park. It seems lovely!




We'll be spending some time there over the summer I think. We drove around different sites, looking at pitches and static vans and the small companion commented and questioned everything.
More importantly, the lady showing us around had never been in a camper. The clue came when she looked at Brian and said "Do you want to come in my car or......?" and when J said "We can take Brian if you want to come with us?" she was very happy! She loved his look, his belts, his sound, his feel, everything. Brian stuck a smile on her face and shared the VW love!
Then we headed back to the home of the small companion for an Indian and a film before driving home.
Fabulous. Cold, but fabulous. And that's an issue when you have a small companion who is vaguely blue around the edges because of the cold. According to the garage man (who will have his own post later!) Brian has some heat direction bits missing possibly, but when he's up on the ramp for his wheels we're going to have a look all over him. I don't mind cold, our boys are older so are fine with extra clothes, but I feel bad for the small companion. He didn't complain at all though! (Too busy with the why!
But why did yesterday rock? Well, aside from a whole day with the small companion, and wonderful friends, and delicious lunch, and moving forward with the next step of Brian's development, there was just a whole feeling of rightness. Brian was out, doing what we got him for, being comfortable (ish), being gorgeous, being the fun bus that he seems to want to be. We were in and out of him all day, he started first turn of the key every time apart from the last (but he was so cold!) and if we'd have taken the kettle and milk, it would have been a perfect day!
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It's curtains for Brian!

Gosh. I know. Comedy genius! Yesterday, thanks to a fabulous UPS chap who went above and beyond the call of duty, we received the curtains for Brian. The more eagle eyed reader will notice that the picture above shows a duvet cover. Indeed so! This is because we are taking the 3 double duvet sets we ordered to the talented Sarah at vwcampercurtains to have them transformed into curtains. She's just up the road from us and has been very helpful and approachable when we've seen her at shows, so that's why she's got the job lol!




Three double duvets gives us 6m by 2m of material, plus pillows. That should be plenty, according to Sarah's flier.
We've looked at lots of fabric, both IRL and on-line and never really found what we wanted. We liked the hibiscus stuff, but Brian doesn't want to be a surf bus. He wants to be a fun bus! We thought about plain curtains once we saw how busy his door cards were, but again it just didn't feel right. Then J saw this on eBay, and Bob was our uncle.
The duvet covers came from eBay, a shop called curtainlining_uk and the service was fantastic. Ordered on Sunday, here on Tuesday. The email communication when I wanted to double check the order was swift and efficient as well! I've been having a poke around the shop and I'll definitely be ordering from there again.
The duvet covers are double sided, with one comic strip side in colour, and one in red and black.




It's lovely, and so very Brian! Obviously I'll update the blog as his curtains progress!
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Campermart.... Hmmmm...

Yesterday we went to campermart. It was J, the 11yr old boy, the 9 yr old boy, and I. And the ages matter, later in the post......




It was ..... Ok. Just ok really. It wasn't brilliant and it was no DubFreeze but it was ok.

Parts of it were lovely. Beautiful. Stunning.













But those pictures are it. There were 12 VW on display in the hall, 1 more by the band, the steering chaps had their blue bay there, and that was about it. Hmmmm.

There seemed to be lots if clothing and bags and accessory stalls more than anything else, although the helpful Megabug were there, even if they didn't have the 2 things we asked for. It's understandable - packing for a show into a limited space means you can't take everything.

And then we went into the second hall, and that's when things got a little trippy.





The BMX tricks I could just about understand. The bikes are not an uncommon sight at shows where there is camping.




The trick-cyclists were very good - hence the poor pictures!




The ice-sculpting? Well, ok, it's winter, it was a VW theme, it's a tenuous link, but it's there.





The chap worked fairly quickly as well.




The Picard into Yoda graffiti artists? Well, um, they were certainly talented, the chap next to this one was spray painting a portrait from a photograph, with tone and so on and she looked very good.





But the roller derby tournament? You see, there the organisers of campermart lost me completely. There were about 20 teams I think, and they had great names, lots of Lycra, and did a lot of shoving. However, it felt like it was a space filler.

The main cause of the lack of direction for this section of the show was that Tattoo Freeze was in the next hall. We could have gone through for an extra £10 per adult, but didn't. It just seemed that the Tattoo Freeze people, gorgeous though lots of them were, had kind of bled through into campermart. The stalls on this side of the second hall were that way inclined - great, but not camper related!

So.

It was £3.50 to park, £10 each for J and I, kids go free.

There were a couple of lovely campers, a couple of parts stalls, a lot of jumpers and bags and garden planters, and general "we'll slap a splitty on it and flog it" type merchandise.

There was BMX, roller derby and tattoo's. Oh, and body painting. Don't get me started on walking around a corner to find 2 ladies having their fronts decorated, albeit beautifully, but onto their whole fronts. Yes. Did I mention the age of my boys......

Will we go again? I don't know. It was an hours drive, it was expensive for what it was, and it wasn't a buying extravaganza as advertised. It was just ..... Ok.

So probably not for a couple of years.

(I've just been informed that the 9 yr old wants to go again. For artistic reasons.....)

Road trip!

Well, not much of a one to be honest, but it was good to get Brian off the drive!

We went to glorious Sunny Hunny for breakfast.

I had the small breakfast.



Yes. That's the small one! If you're heading to Hunstanton then I recommend the Tamworth Tearooms.

The view was good.....





But much improved after J decided to move Brian to where we could see him.



However it was a windy day, so the drive back was eventful. I've tried a couple of videos to capture the ambiance of Brian on a windy day.

Hopefully you'll get the sense of Brian barrelling along at just under 60mph, which seems to be his favourite speed, and the level of noise! The sound of tin rattling comes from under my seat where the cooker is and is the surround for the hob itself.

And now I shall go and finish the second of the beanie hats!

New wheels are here!

To be fair to Retrodubs, they arrived on Wednesday this week, but it's been a REALLY long week for lots of non-Brian related reasons. Suffice it to say that the wheels were the high point!

We had finally made a decision from the choices available and ordered them on the Friday (see previous post) and had been told Tuesday or Wednesday, it would depend when the Lovely Justin could get the tyres fitted.

Tuesday came and went, and Wednesday dawned bright and fair. I phoned the Lovely Justin at lunchtime to say that there were no wheels as yet. He informed me that they were coming by NightFreight, and they would be with us that day. There was no tracker number (NightFreight don't do them) but he said that if there were no wheels by late afternoon then he would phone the courier and sort it out.

They arrived around 4, if memory serves me right, and I received an excited text from J to show me.





Swiftly, we were home and eager to unpack them. (Sharp eyes readers may see Brian's fridge in the background!)




The wheels were individually wrapped in bin bags, well taped, and with thick cardboard over the wheels.





When fully put together they look like this, but they aren't going on Brian just yet. He's being booked into the garage in Swaffham to have his front end raised first, and the whole lot put on together.

The wheels were these and the tyre package can be found here.  The tyres are appropriately load bearing as well, which is a very good thing.

Lovely!

1 down, 4 to come........

I'll do a proper photo post with proper links when the new wheels arrive, but they are finally ordered from Lovely Justin at Retrodubs. They will be gloss black with polished rims. Mmmmm! Retrodubs also do a tyre package available when you purchase 4 wheels, and so we took advantage of that and the whole lot was £543!

The customer service from Lovely Justin was also fantastic. I emailed them in the evening, around 7ish, because I couldn't get the payment to go through. PayPal was messing about. I had an email back by 8pm, solving the issue and clarifying what vehicle I wanted wheels for so they could make sure the right nuts were sent, and generally being professional and great!

I ordered on Thursday night, and phoned to pay over the phone at Friday lunchtime. I've been told that the wheels, complete with tyres, should be with us Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how soon they can do the tyres. Again, that's a good bit of customer service. The tyres are the correct ones for the van, load bearing to the right level.

We've also picked up 1 wheel today, £5 from eBay, for the spare, hence the title of this post - 1 down, 4 to come!



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