2013 Round Up Part Two.....(Better Late Than Never)

Nigella was out on wedding duty a lot, and Delia & Floyd were kept busy on self drive hires but managed to squeeze in a quick day trip to the Classic Campershow at Langford Museum of Power.

It was a scorching day & I had a headache from hell, but other than that it was a good day, nice and chilled.  There's a full write up here and photos here

The very gorgeous Alice....

August was just CRAZY busy, a mad whirl of self drive hires for the bays and weddings for the splits.  Each time the campers go out, there is a lot of work involved, it's not just a full valet inside and out, they also have to be maintained mechanically, anything broken needs fixing.  The stress of trying to get a broken camper mended in time for the next hire is awful.  During the busy summer season this involves A LOT of late nights at the barn trying to get the campers sorted, long days checking in and out the campers and add in the fact the kids are off school and no child care, it is a very tiring time of year.

Amongst all that work we did manage a few day trips out....first to VW Sweetcorn which was held locally at Barleylands.   This was a good day out, mostly as it was so local.  It wasn't massive but there was plenty of campers and other VW's to look at.  I also bought myself a cart, I thought it would be handy to put the pug in for Busfest, as she gets tired quickly, however she clearly hated going in it!

 

More photos here.

Just to show it's not all shows,

The girls fueling up before going off to weddings

Happy Hirer's

We made a flying visit to Whitenoise, more here

Bought this cool bike

Finally at the end of the month we actually managed a proper holiday, a full three days away in a camper.  We loaded up Floyd with bikes, dogs, kids and had a fantastic time.  We headed to north Norfolk, and then traveled back along the coast down to Southwold.  We would of loved to have stayed longer but work called.

We had planned a trip to Busfest at the start of the month, the idea was handovers in the afternoon.  Then load up Nigella, pick kids up from school and hit the road.  We should of known that would never happen....Mrs Beeton decided to throw a major strop, I'd got her out the barn fine, hirer's turn up and she refused to start.  We though it was a dodgy battery so swapped that over and off they went.  They got a couple of miles down the road, parked up and then she refused to start again.  The hirer's were not very impressed and left Mrs Beeton were she was and went home.  We hastily got over there and collected her before someone else did!  By the time all this was sorted it was too late to set off...cue some very disappointed kids.

All of the above led to a very early start on Saturday morning, I think poor Nigella was a little overloaded...

We finally arrived on site and had a really good weekend, well worth going and definitely on our list for this year.  I took loads of photos and they can be viewed here

Nigella was still busy on wedding duty...

Delia, Floyd & Mrs Beeton all had plenty of self drive holidays to keep them and us busy.  We managed to also pop over to Spike's Open Day, photos here.

This was still really busy with both self drive hires and weddings.

Nigella & myself at a wedding fair

This was also the month our daughter passed her driving test, I put it down to all the practice she'd had moving the campers round the yard.

Campers aside, something much more exciting happened, Perry & myself won first prize at the local greyhound show

Perry The Dragon

Little Tilly got third place with her unicorn.

Tilly not looking very impressed :)

This was a quieter month when everything calmed down, still a couple of hires and weddings.

I took the decision to actually take the campers off self drive until March so December meant just a few weddings and lots of time to spend on the family.  We did celebrate our 2nd Birthday on the 31st of this month so I thought I'd share the status I put on our facebook page that day.

Custard Campers

December 31, 2013

Today is Custard Camper's official 2nd Birthday!!!
New Years Eve 2011 marked Delia's first trip out on hire, now two years on we've bought another 4 campers, sold one, restored one, replaced 3 engines, been to over 40 weddings, had well over 100 different self drive hires.

We've had delighted customers, cross customers, breakdowns, returning customers, good days, bad days and more stress than you can ever imagine!

We've moved house, upset our new neighbours with our campers, found better premises, met some really lovely people who have supported our business, met some not so lovely people who have let us down badly, but you live and learn, some lessons have been expensive some have been tough but you know what we're still here, more determined than ever.

2014 is going to see Custard Campers go from strength to strength, we will busier than ever with both weddings and self drive adventures and we'd love you to join us on this beautiful campervan ride.

Dublove and a fantastic 2014 to you all

Kerry & Dan x