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

Scarlett the VW Scirocco now on Forza for Xbox One :-)

"Scarlett" the 1987 VW Scirocco was utilised many times to promote the work of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research and was expected to be doing so for many more years.

Sadly, as mentioned in previous posts, in April this year my poor car was written off by a rather large HGV which rear ended it causing significant and sadly, unrepairable damage.

Luckily, my brilliant friend Glen Place, has resurrected the old girl into a virtual life in the Forza Motorsport game on the Xbox One console 

And here she is 

My Leukaemia story has been published on the LLR Website :-)

Hi Folks.Hope you are all well and 2013 is being good to you so far!.

Just a quick heads up that a story that I submitted to the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research website has, much to my surprise!, been published :-0 !! lol.

If you haven't already seen it, here is the link:

http://leukaemialymphomaresearch.org.uk/people-personal-stories/patient-stories/andy-ward%E2%80%99s-story

Please tell me what you think. I appreciate the feedback :-)

Cheers.Andy

Fuel prices in Sleaford being debated on BBC Radio Lincolnshire.

Just listening to the comments being made about the over inflated price of fuel in Sleaford compared to the surrounding towns and villages.

I remember midway through the year filling up with Diesel at a JET petrol station in Grantham at a cost of £129.9 per litre whilst the cost in Sleaford was approx £136.9...a differential of 7 pence!.

Fuel costs in Sleaford have always been higher than the surrounding area since i have lived there.

Anyway, i now run my trusty 17 year old VW Golf on a mixture of diesel and veg oil....brings the average cost of fuel down to around £1.10 :-)

**Heads Up!
.
3 Ltrs of ASDA Veg oil is currently at £2.70...thats 90p a litre......will be popping along to my local branch soon to check out a few litres ;-)

at 0.90p for oil and £1.38 for diesel in a 50/50 mix it would make the average cost per litre only £1.14!....Nice :-)

Any rich people out there who want to save a Scirocco ?

.


I guess that it's not a surprising fact that due to increases in the cost of...well everything really !I have had to take the decision to retire the old Scirocco to the driveway whilst I consider my options.

Running 3 cars in the UK is not a very good way of saving money, and sadly there is no real recognition for some bloke who runs a car to promote a charity......not being an MP I can't claim "expenses" for such an extravagance! :-)

Insuring the Golf TD has just cost me £500. The wife's Skoda Roomster cost almost £300 and the Scirocco (limited to 3000 miles per year) cost £150 .So having to choose which car I was going to use as my daily came down not to preference, but economy, so the Golf TD which returns a good 55mpg has now stepped into the Scirocco's shoes as my daily commuting vehicle (the Scirocco was costing me £13 per day in fuel as it could ,at best,manage approx 35-37 per gallon.

To add insult to injury I now have the Scirocco on the drive without MOT or Road Tax as they both expired in December. And to add injury to insult and injury...she has developed something of a swimming pool in her rear footwell's which has resulted in me having to remove the seats and strip back the carpets!.....and the battery keeps going flat!.......

If anyone reading this post fancies helping me keep the old girl (25 in March) on the road to continue her work with Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, please make yourself known :-)

In my experience an unused car is so much more likely to have a major breakdown than a daily drive, and i would hate that to happen to a car that has become something of a minor celebrity in the VW world.

Now.....when is the lottery being drawn again?

.

We're going to the Sleaford Classic Car Show Today :-)....eventually!

Mini me,Scarlett and Myself are off to the Sleaford Classic Car show this morning. Starts at about 10:30, but we can start to get set up anytime after 8am, so i intend (if mini me actually decides to get out of bed today!) to arrive between 8:30 and 9am.......that's the plan!.

I have decided that to round off the year we will be trying to raise some funds for the "Help for Hero's" charity by collecting donations for them, and then at some point Nooky Nauyokas will pop down to us, shout at a few people (cos that's what he does!) then accept any donations and put them towards the money he is raising when he goes off on his (Mad?) walk across the Sahara later this month......only joking Nooky, hope that the walk goes well and that you and Liz have a great, if rather sweaty,time!.

Anyway, I hope to see some of you (my readers) there,so pop over and say hello...i don't bite!....much!. :-)

Cheers.Andy

Google Street View car spotted in Sleaford,Lincolnshire!

My Sister-in-law told me the other day that the Google Street View car had made an appearance in the close that she lives in in Sleaford Lincolnshire. Apparently it entered Cherry Close,turned around and then promptly left within a matter of seconds...then again, this is Sleaford, and if the Google crew want to get anywhere by car in this town they can't waste time hanging around.....i wonder if they got caught up in on of Sleaford's wonderful traffic jams ?

Whoops! there goes your no claims bonus!

OK, just thought i should add a little variety into the blog and so i present to you this little offering that i found today which highlights what happens when you lose concentration whilst driving!.I guess that we are all guilty of having a momentary lapse of concentration, but thankfully the results aren't normally as bad as shown in this video......so please, take care out there !

Chuggaboom....my "temporary" Scirocco

Imagine my delight after the disaster of the recent accident, when a member of the Scirocco Register offered to "give" me a car so that I could stay on the road whilst Scarlet is in the repair shop.

You know the old saying "you don't get anything for nowt", well i can categorically dispute that now...and with some degree of qualification, such as.......

No dashboard !

No headlining

No heater

No door panels

No stereo

No Petrol gauge 8-0

No temperature gauge

No centre console

and No sun visors !

Yes, you can certainly get a lot of Nowt for...well nowt really :-)

On the upside i can honestly say that i have not driven a car for a long time that makes me smile quite as much as this one.....and the looks on peoples faces as they stroll past..have a quick look...walk back..have a better look...comment to either themselves or anyone nearby (content of comments is currently unknown but probably includes several expletives !) then smile/laugh/point and go merrily on their way, is worth a million..erm..things !.

To give you a better idea i thought it pertinent to post a few piccies, as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words...most of them far to rude to post :-)...enjoy !

Of course the plus side is that if anything goes wrong on the inside of the car it's not very difficult to find, and you don't have to remove panels to work on them. To be honest most of the missing panels are safe and sound...in the garage or the "half Roc" trailer !

On a serious note though, can i just say a great big thank you to Rick for getting me out of a tight spot regarding transport after the accident by letting me have the car and delivering to me so quickly.....cheers mate ;-).

P.S. If anyone would like to buy Chuggaboom over the next week or so, she will be for sale as soon as Scarlet comes back from AW's.MOT only until 6th June,tax until September.£100 donated to one of our charities and she's yours ! :-)