Scirocco 2 Morocco 10 years on. Scarlett Mk3...The new chapter begins :-)

Obviously anyone who has been following my blog over the last 10 years must be aware of the disaster which befell my Mk2 Scirocco Scala "Scarlett".

After my brilliant car was fatally damaged by a 42 ton lorry on the A17 in 2014 I was left, after a messy and financially crippling court case, with not only no car, but with a £2000 legal bill and permanent Tinnitus. The other driver had a much better legal team than me and on the day the judge decided to award fault to both parties....although the 3 versions of the other drivers statement should have made him question what ACTUALLY happened on that cold February morning !!

Anyway. I digress.

This post is to let you know that I AM BACK !

Gone is the Ford Focus ST which i owned for around 2 and a half years primarily due to my long term good friend David who, Observing my predicament and being a very kind fella, offered to sell me the ST for a bargain price......a very welcome and generous gesture being as i had spent the last 2 years feeling incredibly stressed and ultimately humiliated and financially ruined by a system that appears to hold such things as the truth as being incidental to the facts !.....i'm off   again aren't I lol :-)

So. Ladies and Gentlemen. Can i now then present to you Scarlett Mk3 (She's a Mk3 Scirocco so hence the label!)

This cracking motor is an October 2008 Scirocco 2.0ltr TSI GT which is finished in Salsa Red, which is not such a dissimilar colour to my previous Mk2 (Paprika Red)....which is a nod to the old girl of course :-)

Of course this year (September) marks 10 years since I and my excellent friend Glen Place set off on our Scirocco 2 Morocco adventure.....and on our return to the UK we were invited to attend the launch of the New Scirocco Mk3 at Heron VW in Newark upon Trent. If i remember correctly Glen was unable to make it up to my neck of the woods but myself and my son attended with Scarlett and her half Roc trailer.....so the fact i now own a Scirocco from that particular moment in time seems somehow fitting as a continuation of my love of these cars.


So....here she is.

Scarlett Mk3......

Of course the Registration is quite poignant as this is actually my 6th Scirocco (S6) (6 and a half if you count the trailer!) and its a Volks Wagen Scirocco (VWS)... nice :-)

So far the car has been fantastic, and i hope to be showing her at the Scirocco Register National Meeting in August 2018.....alongside Glens newly refurbished 1988 Scala.....should be EPIC :-)

So. How is MY Leukaemia doing these days ?

Well I am glad to report that so far it is behaving itself ! :-). August 15th  this year marks 11 years since my CLL diagnosis at Grantham Hospital during what i had believed to be a "routine" appointment!!

In the last 11 years I have gone from blood tests and prods every 3 moths to blood tests and check-ups every 12 months. As an added bonus I am now under the excellent care of Mr Tim Moorby,of the resident Haematology Consultants at the hospital I have worked at now for almost 21 years....so getting to my appointments is a relatively straight forward affair :-).

In the old days a decade or so ago I had to make my way to Grantham to see a random consultant {never quite sure who I would be seen by!) and the blood results would take between 7 to 10 days before they arrived at my GP surgery.....awaiting the results was a very stressful situation believe me !

So. I will be 51 in May, diagnosed in 2006 aged 40....now 11 years on...hopefully this little resume will give a bit of encouragement to anyone who is newly diagnosed.....i wish i could have read something like this early on in my journey because fear (and insomnia) had to be the worst aspects in the early years.

As my good friend (Sadly now departed ) Geoff Brocklebank told me in the dark weeks after my shock discovery..." You are more likely to die with CLL than from it".....that simple sentence was like an epiphany to me...and gave me the strength and drive to get my head in order...and to get involved in things such as this Blog. Thanks Geoff....you are sadly missed my friend, but you gave me the inspiration to get off my sorry ass and do something useful with my (new, post CLL) life  :-)

Until next time.

Andy

Hi Honey...I'm Home ........but not a very happy camper.

Well......I am back :-)

No doubt many of my regular readers will be wondering what on earth happened to this blog shortly after my court case regarding the RTA in April 2014. The truth is, after the catastrophic outcome of my claim , which was rejected due to a very good Barrister on the defences side, and ...well lets say, not such a good one on mine!!

I don't want to go into detail on here, but suffice to say the fact that the shock outcome has cost me dearly. Not only have i lost over £6500 in damages, had to endure almost 2 years of stress and financial hardship, but i lost the most wonderful car I think I will ever own....Scarlett the Scirocco :-(

The Ultimate indignity arrived recently. A bill from my "No win,No Fee" legal team...for almost £2800 !!

For what I ask?

Anyway. I won't be talking about this right now except to say that i am taking legal advice from the Legal Ombudsman and a firm of solicitors i have contacted who are very interested in carrying out a review of the entire case ....lets see what they make of the numerous points that I feel need clarification !

The bottom line?

I have a badly damaged Mk2 called Scarlett still sat on my drive and another road worthy Scirocco of the same year,colour and age awaiting transformation to become Scarlett's heir and successor .

I am bruised, battered and angry...but hey, In August I have been living with cancer for 10 years, so life NEEDS to go on and I need to get myself back on track.....I will let the legal experts do their job and hopefully get a few answers as to how this sorry state of affairs came to be .....

Scirocco 2 Morocco.......much more than just a Car !!

A bit of time off from the blog.

As you will have noticed if you are a regular S2M reader, I have not been doing much blogging recently.

This is due to several reasons, amongst which is my decision to spend more quality time with my family and to try and put some of the not so good aspects of my life into order.

I hope that you will bear with me at this time, and that you will pay an occasional visit to the site just in case I find sudden inspiration and get my finger to the keyboard once more.

Take care. Andy

Scirocco 2 Morocco make an appearance in April's Top Gear Magazine !

Hoorraaahhhh!......At last, after many failed attempts at getting a mention in a national motoring magazine we have succeeded :-).

My co-pilot Glen sent me a text on Friday night saying that he had been made aware of a picture of us and the Scirocco which has been published in the most recent edition (April) of the Top Gear Magazine.Apparently he had emailed them a few snaps some time back, and against all the odds they decided to publish one.

Ok, so it is only a small picture on page 12, but the fact is that we can now honestly tell people that we have appeared in Top Gear......it's nice to be able to tell them we have appeared ON Top Gear but hey, you never know,perhaps one day we might even manage that.....well after Misters Clarkson,Hammond and May grow tired of driving supercars and decide to turn their attention to much more interesting stuff :-)......this may be of course be a long way off in the future !

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The story of how Scarlet the Scirocco came to be a charity fundraiser...

The following link will give you an idea about the story of how Scarlet the "Scirocco (Almost) to Morocco" car, almost ended up in a scrap yard, but instead she was given a second chance by someone's kind donation.....an analogy of many peoples fight with Leukaemia really ! :-).

The car was given to us in June 2007 by a fella named Steve who lived in Leicester. Funnily enough (or strangely enough perhaps!),Steve's daughter had suffered from, but beaten,Leukaemia many years before, and thus it came to pass that one afternoon in 2007 I went over to Leicester and took possession of what is now perhaps the best known Scirocco in history !

Now, a potted history of the story so far......

2007 Challenge was "Roc Around the Clock".This was completed and raised over £1500 for Leukaemia Research.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRPFa_lTvck (this video shows the car as it was when donated to my care in June 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xfu5Irn_V4&feature=related (Documents a few jobs on the exterior to get hr looking a little nicer!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuzcanWJiTw&feature=related (Interior cleaned and graphics applied to car)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ib8loKeTE&feature=channel (The 24 hour challenge video.35 hospitals visited and photographed in 24 hours..on a bank holiday!)

The 2008 challenge was a little more ambitious !

For a start we had a car and a trailer (made from second Scirocco!). And this time we aimed to get to Africa !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHztZv-zurE (An overview of the challenge and recap of the previous one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp_ho8KYwgY (Rob Sissons from BBC East Midlands Today comes to do an interview!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEjAFjryZdc (Visit to BBC Radio Nottingham on the John Holmes show)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsKjXdiJOEM&feature=channel (A trailer (no punn intenede!) for the forthcoming video documenting our little trip !

And now in 2010 we are off again, but this time we are going to do some promotion for the Leukaemia Research Charity to document their change of name to Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research and also to celerate their 50th anniversary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQD1hLcc7c&feature=channel (the owners club video to promote the 2010 meeting event at RAF Cosford in July)

Not bad for a car destined for the scrap heap :-)