Details of this post will be posted once i have finished lunch...and work, for the day ...stay tuned :-)
Ok...i'm now back (just a few days between the first entry on this post and now!).Sooo....camping.
Well, this refers to the little "jolly jape" that Rachel,Andy Jr (mini me) and myself had the other weekend (15th August).This was the day of the 2nd National Volkswagen Scirocco Register's Annual Meeting at RAF Cosford in Staffordshire.
Myself and the 2 kids mad enough to go along with my mad idea (as named earlier....good choice Lauren!) set off at approx 6:30 pm on the Friday night and set sail..sorry, made tracks....towards a campsite named "The White Pump Farm" which is situated approx 7 miles away from Cosford.We Arrived at around 9:20 PM after making a few detours .Newark upon Trent (to pick up some stickers and a flag....cheers Biff!) and the Maplins store at Mansfield (to purchase a new Inverter...my last one blew up when I attempted to run a stupidly large amount of fairy lights during the towing of Santa's sleigh around Mansfield Woodhouse last year!).
After these stops (and another just over the road from Maplins at Burger King), we made the rather uneventful trip into Staffordhire, the only real upset for me was taking a wrong turn and ending up on the M6 Toll Road.......£8.40 for 12 miles...what a load of boll**s that was...robbing gits!.
Obviously when we arrived at the site, everyone else was already set up, and drinking beer in a large gazebo (is that how you spell it?),so without further adoo we got to work (i say "we", i mean "i"!) pitching the tents, which is great fun in the dark and lead to a few balls ups as i got my poles well and truly mixed up!.
Anyway, after a little help from the guys (Paul and Glen) the camp was established and the eating of a ceremonial plate of Spam and beans took place, courtesy of my mate Glen who had decided to remind me of the wonderful fare we had consumed during our little Scirocco 2 Morocco trip last year....oh how the memories came flooding back...a culinary time machine it was indeed.....and a bit cold by the time i got to eat it !.
After a few obligatory games of "pitch black football" with Andy Jr, we joined the gang and settled down to watch Glen's latest edit of his S2M video diary.Sadly I had offered to bring my laptop to run it on, and due to a lack of memory (the laptop, not me!), and an awful lot of what i am told is called in IT circles as "a load of crap on yer desktop" the laptop refused all efforts to get it to play the epic video, and so, after much heckling by the assembled crowd, we gave in and resumed another game of "pitch black football" and drank copious amounts of Carlsberg before retiring to the comfort (?) of my pop up tent.
Saturday morning saw us all up with the lark (he was late up too!), and after a coffee and more football (this time we could see it!), myself and Glen set off in advance of the main crowd to set up the venue in preparation for their arrival later in the morning.
Having booked in to RAF Cosford, and been advised by a fella in a bright yellow vest that we needed to buy a £3 parking ticket (not mentioned in advance..free last year!) we got Glens spanking new "pop up" gazeebo out and with very little effort we had it up and to this we then attached the new Scirocco Register National Meet flag.....lovely!.
The rest of the gang arrived at about 11am, and was parked in a very arty fashion by Mr Place who had decided that the method of parking last year had been something short of "photogenic", so he choreographed the position of each Roc as it arrived, and the result was a lot more arty than last years effort...well done Glen :-).
We had noted when we arrived at Cosford earlier that the wind was getting a little blustery, and had resolved to attach guy lines to the Gazebo if it picked up any more. Sadly the first thing to be "picked up" was Glens gazebo, and after tumbling several yards down the line of cars it came to rest "legless" (like a few folk the night before!) in a crumpled heap...and the flag pole attached to it was twisted and snapped also....bugger !
After putting away the remains of the gazebo, tie wrapping the flag pole and trying to see the funny side, we carried on with the meet,had some breakfast,took in a tour of the fantastic museum and a trip in its flight simulator and then at around 3.30pm we set off back to the campsite via the local SPAR shop.
Paul (from Northern Ireland) suggested that perhaps pizza seemed a good idea instead of the planned BBQ, and after a trip to Dominoe's Pizza in a place (can't remember it's name...sorry!), we returned to the site for a great evening of food,beer and car repairs......yes, car repairs!.Well come on now, no "proper" gathering of enthusiasts with old cars would be complete without the mandatory "urgent fix", and this came along in the form of a broken exhaust pipe which was eventually rectified by (amongst others!) our resident mechanic and all round nice bloke "Sander" from Holland.....nice work matey :-)
The night concluded with "pitch black swingball" which is only slightly more dangerous than football, and a game of "catch the flashing light up ball before it goes out and smacks you on the nose" ...ball. Andrew Jr mastered the art of opening both bottled and canned beer for peoples amusement, and at around 1am after he had finally run out of steam we headed off to our tents and a bloody good nights rest.
I woke at approx 7;30am, and after a trip to the porta loo (or the "Turdis" as it became known) I began the task of packing the odds and sods that we had brought with us.
We left at 9.30 after saying our farewells to the gang, and departed for the 2 and a half hour trip back to sunny Lincolnshire.
Roll on next year :-)
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