VW Whitenoise 2013

Earlier in the year we had hoped to go to Whitenoise to camp after a day visit last year but as we ended up with weddings booked in this weekend we were back to a day visit.  Plans for this were also cut short when our hirer's needed to return Delia earlier than expected due to work commitments.

So it was a late set off and we didn't arrive on site till nearly 2pm.  Now given that the show wraps up at about 4pm after the Show N Shine prizes are announced I was a bit miffed that there was no reduction on the entrance fee of £10 per adult & £3 per child.  With only two hours of the show left £36 entry is a bit steep!

Other than that gripe though, I really enjoyed the afternoon.  I would of liked longer to look round the stalls particularly the second hand ones as I love mooching round vintage bits that I really don't need but always end up wanting.  Sadly by the time we got to that part most had already packed up.  However we still found plenty to look at & buy!

 

Spotted this gorgeous 1950's vintage caravan but sadly it was a bit too expensive for me, it was up for £2100 & needed quite a bit of work.

We did however get this for my daughter, really I wanted it for myself but couldn't justify another bike as I already have plenty!  We've been telling her for years to get a bike to make getting around easier but she's always deemed them too uncool but this one changed her mind....

Patina Ride From Type Two Detectives

Show N Shine at Whitenoise was packed, but sadly I didn't get as long as I'd of liked to see all the vehicles properly and I left Dan on photographic duties but here's a few 

Dotty The Dormobile - she had sparkly cream paintwork!

More photos on the facebook page here.

Kerry x

Classic Camper Show & Vintage Fair

As we knew we had no work today, we'd roughly planned a trip over to the Classic Campervan Show & Vintage Fair at Langford Museum of Power.  

Dan's dad was visiting for the day, so for once we didn't rush to get out by a certain time, we just went when we felt like it and arrived at around 11.30.  

As this wasn't a full on VW show I had no idea whether there would be many campers there but it was a pretty good turnout, mostly VW's but also a group from the Classic Campervan Club.

We had a mooch around the vintage stalls, something I love doing.

I was made up with my one purchase of the day, a fantastic 70's style lounger....

It's already been tested out in the garden and I'm now thinking I need to get my swing chair recovered in matching fabric (with the obligatory white tassels that swing chairs used to have!)

We bumped into our friend 'Alice'....

She is one cool dog, who also has a very cool ride..... 

We tried to keep out of the heat with mixed success...

It was incredibly hot and there was very little shade so I didn't spend as much time looking at the campers on display as I normally would but I did manage to get snaps of some of them.  It was mostly bays & it was good to see they appeared to be family campers that are used for exactly what they were designed for rather than the 'show n shine' ones that tend to be on display at the big shows.  Not to say that these ones weren't lovely and shiny because they definitely were.

There was a few nice splits as well....

including of course our Nigella, it was so nice to over hear some lovely comments on her when people stopped to look, not realising we were with her.  I chuckled when several people commented on what a pretty girly camper she was, as I always think of Nigella as Dan's camper out of all of them.

We popped in to the Museum which is not really my thing, lots of mechanical engineering models etc but my father in law seemed to think it was pretty good (I'm guessing it's a blokes thing?!?)

We headed off home for a barbecue around 3pm as my head just couldn't take any more sun but it was a nice relaxed day, the bands were good but quite loud & I'm a bit puzzled that one of them had a song about date rape, sung very loudly out to the family crowd, bit odd (I think I must be getting old as I longed for something quieter and lots of shade)  

I've put a few more pictures up on our facebook page here

Kerry x

Matilda The Pug

For the last couple of years our oldest daughter has been more than a little bit obsessed by Pugs.  She had cushions, phone covers, calendars and anything else except the actual Pug.

We already have our Agent P who is a gorgeous laid back ex racing greyhound.  We rehomed 'Perry' as she's affectionately known at the same time we bought our first camper, so she's been with the Custard's right from the off.

As some of you might already know greyhounds make excellent pets as they are very gentle souls who love cuddles and only need two short (20 minute) walks a day and will spend the rest of the time snoozing on the sofa.  For a good few months now we've been thinking of getting a 'friend' for Perry and I'd been looking at so many beautiful dogs that needed rehoming particularly from Clarks Farm Greyhound Rescue as this is where we got our Agent P from,  however our daughter had other plans.

She really wanted a Pug of her own but the price had always been a major hurdle, so when she found out Dan worked with someone who's wife Julie rehomes ex breeding Pugs, her dreams gained momentum but several months later no Pugs had come up, so she'd just about given up hope of owning her own and I was trying to persuade her to get a greyhound instead.

Zac, a 10yr old Greyhound who is still looking for a home of his own..

Then early one Monday morning Dan received an urgent message that Julie had 'Matilda' a four year old ex breeding Pug that desperately needed a home but if we wanted her it we had to make a decision fairly quickly as she had to collect her by the end of the week.  Our concern was not taking on another dog as we've always had dogs and they've always been rescue ones so we were confident we would cope with any issues, however we weren't so sure Perry would accept Matilda as she is quite unsure of other dogs and doesn't know how to play with them.  Julie was more than happy to take Matilda on herself if Perry and her didn't settle so it was all agreed, Sunday we would have a new member of the Custard crew.

She's a funny looking thing, a bit over weight and due to having too many puppies she's definitely got some 'udder' issues but she is cute and does make us laugh.  My daughter is besotted with her and Perry while not 'besotted' has accepted her and reluctantly lets Tilly (as we call her) onto her bed.  I wouldn't say their mates but things are going well.

Tilly hasn't come out in the campers yet but hopefully she'll love them as much as we do otherwise it's going to be a bit awkward to be a custard dog!

Kerry x

Engine Rebuilds, Weddings, & Late Nights

We went in to the season with a pretty busy diary for our Delia, she duly set off on a weeks holiday to the Lake District and came back with some happy campers aboard...

What more could we need to get us back in the full time swing of it but sadly Delia then had other plans, she set off down to Cornwall but then had some niggling starter motor issues and ended the week with her engine completely giving up the fight.  Regular followers of our page will know we invested heavily in having large parts of her engine rebuilt (twice!)  The first time we were badly let down by the mechanic we were using who took much longer than promised and didn't complete the job in the end for reasons that we haven't managed to fathom, oh well we thought (well they weren't quite the words I used..) but onward and upward we thought and paid someone else to sort out the mess.  The job was done properly this time but only a couple of hires later the engine had died, which no one could of foreseen.  We bit the bullet and bought a new reconditioned engine and had that refitted. 

We're happy to report Delia now has been back out on the road and has 'ran in' her new engine on a trip to Glastonbury.  Her hirer's loved her and I feel relieved that our Delia is happy and working hard once more.

I think our Delia's being drinking while partying on at Glastobury......

I'm fairly confident that any camper hire company will have similar tales to tell as these campers are classic vehicles after all and they have to work exceptionally hard.  I'm not about to shout from the roof tops about problems we sometimes have but I'm happy to be able to say that when we hit a problem we work incredibly hard to resolve the issue and offer alternative campers etc whenever possible to try to minimise any inconvenience to our customers.

Floyd has been a star so far this season and has stepped in on a couple of occasions to take on some of Delia's hires when she was poorly.  Now he's got all his new upholstery he is a very smart looking camper, and I always think he's got an exceptionally smiley face.  If Floyd was a person he'd be the one always cheerful and happy to lend a hand I think.

We've been busy with weddings this year mainly in Nigella but Mrs Beeton has also been out on a couple and we received some lovely feedback on her...

"Hi!

Me and adam just want to say a huge thank you for making our wedding day so perfect and fun! We loved the camper to pieces and dan made the trip easy going and relaxing.

Thank you so much again!

Rebecca jenkins ... Now hilton lol x"

So now we're heading full steam into the silly season for camper hire, lots of campers to wash, maintain and get out on hire = lots of late nights at the barn.   It's once again a case of juggling work with the kids and all the normal dull stuff that needs doing, like the weekly shop etc.  One day I will get more organised but until then we'll keep muddling through like we always do and hopefully we are instilling a strong work ethic in the younger custards!

Right Dan's home from the barn so I'm going to wrap this up now but I will be back very soon as I have lots of new blog posts to share.

Don't forget if you need vw camper hire in Essex or London then the Custard's could be just who you need ;)

Kerry x

Alive & V Dubbin 2013

So last weekend found us heading off to Alive & V Dubbin at Jimmy's Farm just outside Ipswich.  I'd been looking forward to it all week, anticipating sitting in the sunshine while the kids rode round on their bikes etc etc, alas the weather forecast said different, but Saturday wasn't too bad in the morning.

We had planned to take the lovely Nigella but then as Mrs Beeton was just sitting around with no date we thought why not take her along for the ride.  Bikes duly loaded onto the roof rack, sleeping bags & tents packed (I know with two campers we didn't really need tents but the kids wanted to sleep in their own ones this time), we hit the A12 in convoy, always good fun.

By the time we stopped at Tesco's just near the site to pick up some supplies (aka Beer) the weather had turned distinctly chilly, not a good sign.  Our spirits were lifted when we were sat waiting for the lights to change at the roundabout and who should pass us but our very own Floyd out on his weekend hire.

A quick chase after him for a beep and a wave and in doing so I managed to completely miss the turning so we took a rather long detour but arrived on site eventually.  The camping area was already rammed so they were letting people set up in the car park so we duly took our space and set up the tents.  My plans of eating al fresco were ditched by the cold winter so we all crammed into Nigella for our picnic.

How to wind your little sister up...nick her bike!

I then spent a cold hour traipsing up and down the camping area photographing every classic dub I could.  I took literally hundreds of photos so if you were there look for yours here and feel free to tag, share and copy.  If you weren't there go take and look and see what you missed!

Eventually we headed back to Nigella to warm up.  Agent P especially was feeling the chill and spent the whole weekend wearing her pj's and had to snuggle under her sleeping bag to warm up.

Sunday dawned overcast and drizzle threatening but undetered the camping stove came out and I cooked up bacon butties (a camping treat as I'm a veggie so I very rarely cook meat for the rest of the family) and I insisted we sat outside and ate like your meant to do when camping!

We had already decided to play in by ear and if it was still freezing we'd pack up and go home, so we packed down the tents etc and went for a wander.  The Show N Shine was filling up so we decided to join in and put both Nigella & Mrs Beeton in, I'm glad we did as although they're not show winners we did overhear some lovely comments from people looking at them.

The Show N Shine as usual had some gorgeous vehicles, this was my favourite 

but there was so many to choose from including some lovely beetles;

This one won Best In Show

So despite the dull weather we had a good weekend catching up with friends, meeting new people and potential customers and just enjoying time as a family.

Don't forget loads more pictures here !!!

and if you need  campervan hire in Essex or camper hire in London than look no further than Custard Campers

Kerry x