And while there is undoubtedly a security headache in Washington, I'd like you to spare a thought for the near impossibe task facing the police force in Kent.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
It's a big day.
Today, the world is watching America.
And while there is undoubtedly a security headache in Washington, I'd like you to spare a thought for the near impossibe task facing the police force in Kent.
And while there is undoubtedly a security headache in Washington, I'd like you to spare a thought for the near impossibe task facing the police force in Kent.
Friday, 16 January 2009
What's a Micro-Rally?
It could be a very small version of Scalextric, or, more unlikely, a gathering of more than one and less than three Airstreams.
We've met up with Andrew Ditton and his 532 in Sussex. Perhaps not hugely significant, relative to the huge meets in North America, but it's the first time since the gathering in August that we've managed to pitch next to another Airstream. And you have to admit that they look damned attractive together.
Which gets me thinking. I know there are other Airstreamers out there. I've met some. They really do exist. Wouldn't it be great if we got some more of them together? So if there are any Airstreamers out there who fancy a get-together, let me know. You can contact us through the "About Us" link on the right or leave a comment at the bottom of this post. I'm thinking of some time in the Spring, before it gets too busy everywhere. And not Easter weekend - that's just bonkers. Don't know where yet - that'll depend on numbers and how far they're all travelling. But let us know if you're interested.
Andrew will have to be there because we owe him a slap-up-feed.
We've met up with Andrew Ditton and his 532 in Sussex. Perhaps not hugely significant, relative to the huge meets in North America, but it's the first time since the gathering in August that we've managed to pitch next to another Airstream. And you have to admit that they look damned attractive together.
Which gets me thinking. I know there are other Airstreamers out there. I've met some. They really do exist. Wouldn't it be great if we got some more of them together? So if there are any Airstreamers out there who fancy a get-together, let me know. You can contact us through the "About Us" link on the right or leave a comment at the bottom of this post. I'm thinking of some time in the Spring, before it gets too busy everywhere. And not Easter weekend - that's just bonkers. Don't know where yet - that'll depend on numbers and how far they're all travelling. But let us know if you're interested.
Andrew will have to be there because we owe him a slap-up-feed.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
A funny thing happened on the way to the...
Shops.
There we were, a couple of weeks back, just minding our own business and wandering along the streets of Hastings Old Town. The first thing that happened (that is pertinent to this story, at least) was that we looked in the window of a little art gallery and saw a copy of the Airstream Europe brochure in a leaflet rack at the back of the shop!? We had to know, so we stuck our heads in and asked. It turned out that it was simply given to the owner by a friend who had a spare one. The owner liked them and kept it. Nothing too exciting there, but it was just the start of our Airstreamly serendipitous journey.
Only a handful of minutes later, I looked into the window of yet another art gallery (Hastings Old Town has a lot) and saw a familiar looking face.
“Is that so-and-so?” I asked Tracey.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ll go and ask.”
So, in she popped and asked. It turned out that I was right, and so-and-so turned out to be Andrew Ditton, Caravan magazine journalist and recent addition to the (unofficial and, as yet, non-existent) European Airstream Owners Club, having bought a 532 a few months ago. After a quick chat, we arranged to meet up later in the day and subsequently spent a very pleasant four hours nattering about caravans in general and Airstreams in particular into the small hours over a couple of bottles of red. Brilliant. We had such a great time that we’re meeting up in a couple of weeks in a caravan site on the Sussex coast. Two European Airstreams together! A micro-gathering! I know it’s unlikely (at such short notice), but if there are any other ‘Streamers out there who fancy a meet, drop me a line and I’ll send you the details.
Anyroadup, “where have you been for the last five months?” I hear you ask. “Why haven’t you posted anything here?”
Well, we haven’t had a huge amount of joy with the mobile broadband. It may be true that we chose the company that claims to have the best coverage, but they certainly haven’t covered any of the places we’ve been. While we’ve had some sort of signal at most places, more often than not it’s been slower than the dial-up connection we had ten years ago when we first got a computer. Sorry, but life’s too short to wait two hours to upload a photo. In fact, we’re still stuck in limbo, I’m just posting this (in the vain hope it doesn’t take forever) because
a) the reason above (about the possible gathering), and
b) because tomorrow marks the first anniversary of us picking up the trailer.
Yes indeedy, it’s been a year! And what a year it’s been. The world is a different place now. A global recession has appeared out of the blue, we have a new President of the USA, and with the demise of Woollies, the high street is never going to be the same again.
We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for when we set off last January, but it has, quite simply, been the best year of our lives. We’ve seen more of this country than we thought possible. We’ve been to a handful places that we really liked, and more than a few places that we never need to set foot in again.
I don’t think that there’s any point in trying to fill you in on the last five months of travel, since it wouldn’t be that relevant or interesting, and most of it would read like a miserable weather report... It rained. A lot. In fact, for the whole of August it rained every day. I tried to convince Tracey that we needed to head South. Very South. Like South America. The Atacama Desert in particular. It hardly rained there at all between 1570 and 1971, and some river beds have been dry for 120,000 years. I’d have been happy if it lasted three days.
The weather more-or-less continued the same, while we more-or-less continued Eastward along the South coast. I think we’ve seen every major town (and many small ones) between Land’s End and Dungeness. To be honest, most of them weren’t worth the effort.
I was all up for heading for Spain for the winter, but the Pound decided to make a nose-dive against all other currencies (with the possible exception of the Zimbabwean Dollar), so that put paid to that idea. And finally, with the arrival of December, the rain stopped.
So, we’re still here in the UK. We’re still slowly wending our way around the country looking for the right place to stop. And we’re still blissfully happy.
Finally, then, I’d just like to say a quick Thank You or two. Firstly, to our parents, who have been incredibly helpful and supportive all year and, along with my brother and a couple of good friends, have dedicated a large percentage of their attic space to store all our “stuff”. Secondly, to the many people who have left encouraging comments on this blog. The counter on the site reads close to 5,000 hits, while the underlying total of all visits is over twice that. Staggering. When I started the blog, I just thought it might be a couple of friends and family might be interested, not the entire world. Thirdly, we couldn't have done this without the fantastic support from the team at Airstream Europe. They have always been there and always happy to help, no matter how trivial the matter. Fantastic.
Finally, I'd just like to thank Tracey for thinking that the crazy idea I came up with nearly a year and a half ago, was actually a good one. This has been the best year ever.
Stay tuned... The show isn't over until the silver trailer stops...
There we were, a couple of weeks back, just minding our own business and wandering along the streets of Hastings Old Town. The first thing that happened (that is pertinent to this story, at least) was that we looked in the window of a little art gallery and saw a copy of the Airstream Europe brochure in a leaflet rack at the back of the shop!? We had to know, so we stuck our heads in and asked. It turned out that it was simply given to the owner by a friend who had a spare one. The owner liked them and kept it. Nothing too exciting there, but it was just the start of our Airstreamly serendipitous journey.
Only a handful of minutes later, I looked into the window of yet another art gallery (Hastings Old Town has a lot) and saw a familiar looking face.
“Is that so-and-so?” I asked Tracey.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ll go and ask.”
So, in she popped and asked. It turned out that I was right, and so-and-so turned out to be Andrew Ditton, Caravan magazine journalist and recent addition to the (unofficial and, as yet, non-existent) European Airstream Owners Club, having bought a 532 a few months ago. After a quick chat, we arranged to meet up later in the day and subsequently spent a very pleasant four hours nattering about caravans in general and Airstreams in particular into the small hours over a couple of bottles of red. Brilliant. We had such a great time that we’re meeting up in a couple of weeks in a caravan site on the Sussex coast. Two European Airstreams together! A micro-gathering! I know it’s unlikely (at such short notice), but if there are any other ‘Streamers out there who fancy a meet, drop me a line and I’ll send you the details.
Anyroadup, “where have you been for the last five months?” I hear you ask. “Why haven’t you posted anything here?”
Well, we haven’t had a huge amount of joy with the mobile broadband. It may be true that we chose the company that claims to have the best coverage, but they certainly haven’t covered any of the places we’ve been. While we’ve had some sort of signal at most places, more often than not it’s been slower than the dial-up connection we had ten years ago when we first got a computer. Sorry, but life’s too short to wait two hours to upload a photo. In fact, we’re still stuck in limbo, I’m just posting this (in the vain hope it doesn’t take forever) because
a) the reason above (about the possible gathering), and
b) because tomorrow marks the first anniversary of us picking up the trailer.
Yes indeedy, it’s been a year! And what a year it’s been. The world is a different place now. A global recession has appeared out of the blue, we have a new President of the USA, and with the demise of Woollies, the high street is never going to be the same again.
We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for when we set off last January, but it has, quite simply, been the best year of our lives. We’ve seen more of this country than we thought possible. We’ve been to a handful places that we really liked, and more than a few places that we never need to set foot in again.
I don’t think that there’s any point in trying to fill you in on the last five months of travel, since it wouldn’t be that relevant or interesting, and most of it would read like a miserable weather report... It rained. A lot. In fact, for the whole of August it rained every day. I tried to convince Tracey that we needed to head South. Very South. Like South America. The Atacama Desert in particular. It hardly rained there at all between 1570 and 1971, and some river beds have been dry for 120,000 years. I’d have been happy if it lasted three days.
The weather more-or-less continued the same, while we more-or-less continued Eastward along the South coast. I think we’ve seen every major town (and many small ones) between Land’s End and Dungeness. To be honest, most of them weren’t worth the effort.
I was all up for heading for Spain for the winter, but the Pound decided to make a nose-dive against all other currencies (with the possible exception of the Zimbabwean Dollar), so that put paid to that idea. And finally, with the arrival of December, the rain stopped.
So, we’re still here in the UK. We’re still slowly wending our way around the country looking for the right place to stop. And we’re still blissfully happy.
Finally, then, I’d just like to say a quick Thank You or two. Firstly, to our parents, who have been incredibly helpful and supportive all year and, along with my brother and a couple of good friends, have dedicated a large percentage of their attic space to store all our “stuff”. Secondly, to the many people who have left encouraging comments on this blog. The counter on the site reads close to 5,000 hits, while the underlying total of all visits is over twice that. Staggering. When I started the blog, I just thought it might be a couple of friends and family might be interested, not the entire world. Thirdly, we couldn't have done this without the fantastic support from the team at Airstream Europe. They have always been there and always happy to help, no matter how trivial the matter. Fantastic.
Finally, I'd just like to thank Tracey for thinking that the crazy idea I came up with nearly a year and a half ago, was actually a good one. This has been the best year ever.
Stay tuned... The show isn't over until the silver trailer stops...
Sunday, 10 August 2008
The Big Chill
Last weekend we took ourselves and our Airstream to The Big Chill music festival at Eastnor in Herefordshire.
We arrived mid-afternoon on Thursday so that we could hopefully get a good pitch and start the ‘chilling’ as soon as possible. Of course we soon realised that we don’t need a festival to chill when we are living and travelling in an Airstream. Our life is currently one big chill.
The getting a good pitch theory was pretty dumb because you just got directed to the next place in line, regardless of whether you were in a large travel trailer, a camper van, converted bus or tee-pee. So we made the best we could of being sideways on a hill and having to hurry ourselves into our little spot while other vehicles were rapidly surrounding us and cramping our manoeuvrability. And what’s the problem with sloping sideways? Little things like the bathroom door slamming, disorientation if you change direction suddenly, water not running out of the shower or kitchen sink and, if you fry two eggs at once they merge as one inseparable conjoined twin yolk. Maybe that’s a bonus.
We were soon visited by some new friends who we had met the previous weekend at the Game Fair / first gathering of new European Airstreams. They were there in their 684 International. We also spotted a couple of vintage models, but we were completely outnumbered by VW campervans and some very creatively converted buses and vans.
As we were settling in the text messages started arriving thick and fast as we tried to communicate with some old friends from London. They were camping in tents (true festival credentials there) in another field a mile away, with a hill between us and them. Eventually and logically we met by the bar in the main open-air performance area.
And so began a long weekend of festivalness. You know the sort of thing, I’m sure. In short: laughter, beer, cider, world music, punk, reggae, dance, trance, sitting on grass, dancing in rain, eating all varieties of take-away food, putting off going to the toilet.
There was the ritual degeneration of the portable toilets. Actually they stayed pretty clean for a couple of days. Walking past the ones in our field we heard a shocked woman bellow, “They’re clean. What kind of f****ing festival is this?” But I don’t think festivalgoers are really happy unless they have a stomach-churning toilet tale to tell and so they silently conspire to stop flushing or aiming accurately. Drink less beer and do your pelvic floor exercises before you go and you should survive a festival with the minimum of gagging. Anyway, that’s the obligatory toilet mention out of the way, and not too graphic.
We saw all kinds of performances, some memorable and some that simply passed the time agreeably. Well, apart from some African psychedelic guitar rock which was pretty painful.
Personal favourites started with Nina Nastasia sounding beautifully gloomy as she sung to those of us sitting in the Friday sunshine. Martha Wainright huskily belted out a fantastic set at the Castle Stage. Roisin Murphy sang, danced wildly and wore many costumes. From where I was sheltering from the rain it looked and sounded like an exciting performance. But the highlight for me personally was the awesome presence, warmth and deep and stirring voice of the one and only Leonard Cohen. He had the audience rapt, and welcomed all applause with, “Thank you friends”. He looked like he was having as much fun as I was. Then he skipped off stage. What a legend.
T
Personal highlights for me were The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir (a bizarre mix of folk, rock and bluegrass. It shouldn't have worked, but it was great), Beth Orton, Random Dance Company (strutting their stuff at nearly midnight),
Jilted John (who, despite having had only one hit, still managed to fill a 45 minute set) and the Buzzcocks, growing old discracefully.
Cracking weekend.
P
We arrived mid-afternoon on Thursday so that we could hopefully get a good pitch and start the ‘chilling’ as soon as possible. Of course we soon realised that we don’t need a festival to chill when we are living and travelling in an Airstream. Our life is currently one big chill.
The getting a good pitch theory was pretty dumb because you just got directed to the next place in line, regardless of whether you were in a large travel trailer, a camper van, converted bus or tee-pee. So we made the best we could of being sideways on a hill and having to hurry ourselves into our little spot while other vehicles were rapidly surrounding us and cramping our manoeuvrability. And what’s the problem with sloping sideways? Little things like the bathroom door slamming, disorientation if you change direction suddenly, water not running out of the shower or kitchen sink and, if you fry two eggs at once they merge as one inseparable conjoined twin yolk. Maybe that’s a bonus.
We were soon visited by some new friends who we had met the previous weekend at the Game Fair / first gathering of new European Airstreams. They were there in their 684 International. We also spotted a couple of vintage models, but we were completely outnumbered by VW campervans and some very creatively converted buses and vans.
As we were settling in the text messages started arriving thick and fast as we tried to communicate with some old friends from London. They were camping in tents (true festival credentials there) in another field a mile away, with a hill between us and them. Eventually and logically we met by the bar in the main open-air performance area.
And so began a long weekend of festivalness. You know the sort of thing, I’m sure. In short: laughter, beer, cider, world music, punk, reggae, dance, trance, sitting on grass, dancing in rain, eating all varieties of take-away food, putting off going to the toilet.
There was the ritual degeneration of the portable toilets. Actually they stayed pretty clean for a couple of days. Walking past the ones in our field we heard a shocked woman bellow, “They’re clean. What kind of f****ing festival is this?” But I don’t think festivalgoers are really happy unless they have a stomach-churning toilet tale to tell and so they silently conspire to stop flushing or aiming accurately. Drink less beer and do your pelvic floor exercises before you go and you should survive a festival with the minimum of gagging. Anyway, that’s the obligatory toilet mention out of the way, and not too graphic.
We saw all kinds of performances, some memorable and some that simply passed the time agreeably. Well, apart from some African psychedelic guitar rock which was pretty painful.
Personal favourites started with Nina Nastasia sounding beautifully gloomy as she sung to those of us sitting in the Friday sunshine. Martha Wainright huskily belted out a fantastic set at the Castle Stage. Roisin Murphy sang, danced wildly and wore many costumes. From where I was sheltering from the rain it looked and sounded like an exciting performance. But the highlight for me personally was the awesome presence, warmth and deep and stirring voice of the one and only Leonard Cohen. He had the audience rapt, and welcomed all applause with, “Thank you friends”. He looked like he was having as much fun as I was. Then he skipped off stage. What a legend.
T
Personal highlights for me were The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir (a bizarre mix of folk, rock and bluegrass. It shouldn't have worked, but it was great), Beth Orton, Random Dance Company (strutting their stuff at nearly midnight),
Jilted John (who, despite having had only one hit, still managed to fill a 45 minute set) and the Buzzcocks, growing old discracefully.
Cracking weekend.
P
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
We are not alone...
….We interrupt this absence of posting to bring you some up-to-date news….
We haven’t had much luck with internet access since we left the Republic of Ireland. I’ll complete the log of our trip there very soon, but I need to tell you of something that happened last weekend.
The Game Fair is an annual event, which showcases hundreds of different “Country” businesses. There were over a thousand trade stands which, as far as I could make out, showed 500 different ways to grow, rear, cultivate, promote, enrich and otherwise encourage wildlife on your land, alongside 500 different ways to hunt it down and kill it. It is certainly the largest trade show I have ever been to, but of the thousand or so stands, there were barely a couple which were remotely interesting to us (namely, the Real Ale bar and the Airstream stand)
What, I hear you say, were two vegetarians doing at a place like this?
Well, Airstream Europe were showing their range at one of the stands. They wrote to all their owners some time ago, inviting them to attend the fair and offered to pick up the tab for the campsite fees. Very generous, since the fees weren’t cheap. In the end, nine Airstreamers brought their trailers to the show. This was the first gathering in the UK for owners of new Airstream trailers ever. How completely excellent!
We hit the campsite on Thursday afternoon and were the third unit to arrive. And what a campsite it was! There were large pitches for over a thousand caravans, tents and motorhomes. The toilets were fully plumbed in air-conditioned marquees. There was a supermarket in another marquee, which sold almost everything under the sun (for a price). I didn’t use the showers, but I’m told they were pretty good (if you got there just after they’d been cleaned). The whole thing was well thought out and executed. The only problem was the scale of it all! Our section of the campsite was about a mile from the entrance to the show, and the showground itself was enormous.
The Airstream stand was near the Main Arena, (which was conveniently situated at the far end of the showground) and in all it took nearly an hour to fight through the crowds from our trailer to the Airstream stand. And what a crowd it was: I overheard somebody say that there were 134,000 visitors on the Saturday. That could be a lie – it felt more like a gazillion.
The rest of the Airstream trailers dribbled in over the course of the Friday and Saturday, and despite a clerical anomaly which split the group in two, we managed to roughly arrange ourselves so that all of us were in one small section of this huge site, and despite being just a bunch of randomly positioned trailers, we didn’t half look smashing.
The summer finally arrived, and it was blisteringly hot all weekend, which I loved to bits but Tracey hated, so she hid in the shade. It wasn’t kind weather for Anthony and John from Airstream Europe. They took advantage of the presence of so many trailers in one place in order to sort out every little problem, niggle, snag, and grumble that all us owners had. They worked their asses off in the blazing heat for two days solid.
The good weather was a bonus for the Barbecue on the Saturday night. A couple of weeks back, while our trailer was in Tebay for a service, we were chatting with Michael and Stuart (from Airstream) about the Game Fair and we were gently cajoled into helping out. I didn’t quite realize what this meant at the time, but I found out the day before we arrived at the Game Fair when we picked up an email saying that Tracey and I would be “hosting” the weekend. I wasn’t sure if we needed to wear red blazers and sing “songs from the shows” (not a happy thought), but it turned out that all we needed to do was make an attempt to get everybody into (more or less) the right place, make sure they had everything they needed, and set up for the afore mentioned barbecue. All the Airstream team were busy on the stand all day, so it fell to me to get the food. You may have figured out that Tracey and I are vegetarians, so I didn’t relish the prospect of buying meat, but somebody had to do it. Never again. Luckily, there was a Lancashire butcher on one of the stands, and after he pissed himself laughing at me, he was very helpful and even gave me a 10% discount (I think he needed cheering up). With the raw flesh sorted out, we headed into the local town to pick up the rest of the goodies. The village of Woodstock is as far from the image of the music festival as possible. There are row after row of pretty little golden sandstone cottages with hanging baskets by the acre. It looked just like a collection of those little ceramic cottages you can get in gift shops. Very pretty, but not quite real.
The barbecue was great. We managed to find some veggie-burgers, so the four vegetarians were happy. The evening flew past, and I feel a bit sad that I just didn’t have time to chat to everybody – there were about thirty of us in all. If everybody else enjoyed themselves half as much as I did, they would have had a ball. I do feel that I must apologise to any reader who was an innocent bystander. I’m sure that we made a little more noise than was polite on a campsite. Please rest assured that next time we’ll do it in private. Which leads me to say that everybody there was very keen to meet up again.
So who were this motley crew? Aside from us layabout full-timers, they ranged from cook-shop owners to consultants, croquet mallet makers to fashion photographers, Portakabin renters to BMW executives. What made them all buy an Airstream? Not a clue – I shall have to ask them that next time.
After (almost) everybody had gone home, I popped over to the Airstream stand on the Sunday afternoon to say my farewells before they all left too. I felt very honoured when Anthony invited me to share a couple of beers with him, his sister and brother-in-law. It was a lovely end to a wonderful weekend. After that, I chatted with the rest of the Airstream team on the stand. I have to say that I have never met such a dedicated group of people. I don’t mind admitting that there was a little tear in my eye while John was explaining how happy he is, after years working on the production line at an “ordinary caravan” manufacturer, to be involved in a product of such quality.
A big “Thank You” goes to Airstream Europe for coming up with the idea of inviting us along and subsidising the site fees (I’m sure I’ve got a fistful of receipts for them somewhere…). Thank you too, to all the ‘Streamers who came. It was a delight to meet you all. I shan’t embarrass them by posting names and pictures here, but you know who you (and your watering cans) are. Thanks for a great weekend.
When can we do it again?
In the meantime, we’re off to meet up with some old friends at The Big Chill.
We haven’t had much luck with internet access since we left the Republic of Ireland. I’ll complete the log of our trip there very soon, but I need to tell you of something that happened last weekend.
The Game Fair is an annual event, which showcases hundreds of different “Country” businesses. There were over a thousand trade stands which, as far as I could make out, showed 500 different ways to grow, rear, cultivate, promote, enrich and otherwise encourage wildlife on your land, alongside 500 different ways to hunt it down and kill it. It is certainly the largest trade show I have ever been to, but of the thousand or so stands, there were barely a couple which were remotely interesting to us (namely, the Real Ale bar and the Airstream stand)
What, I hear you say, were two vegetarians doing at a place like this?
Well, Airstream Europe were showing their range at one of the stands. They wrote to all their owners some time ago, inviting them to attend the fair and offered to pick up the tab for the campsite fees. Very generous, since the fees weren’t cheap. In the end, nine Airstreamers brought their trailers to the show. This was the first gathering in the UK for owners of new Airstream trailers ever. How completely excellent!
We hit the campsite on Thursday afternoon and were the third unit to arrive. And what a campsite it was! There were large pitches for over a thousand caravans, tents and motorhomes. The toilets were fully plumbed in air-conditioned marquees. There was a supermarket in another marquee, which sold almost everything under the sun (for a price). I didn’t use the showers, but I’m told they were pretty good (if you got there just after they’d been cleaned). The whole thing was well thought out and executed. The only problem was the scale of it all! Our section of the campsite was about a mile from the entrance to the show, and the showground itself was enormous.
The Airstream stand was near the Main Arena, (which was conveniently situated at the far end of the showground) and in all it took nearly an hour to fight through the crowds from our trailer to the Airstream stand. And what a crowd it was: I overheard somebody say that there were 134,000 visitors on the Saturday. That could be a lie – it felt more like a gazillion.
The rest of the Airstream trailers dribbled in over the course of the Friday and Saturday, and despite a clerical anomaly which split the group in two, we managed to roughly arrange ourselves so that all of us were in one small section of this huge site, and despite being just a bunch of randomly positioned trailers, we didn’t half look smashing.
The summer finally arrived, and it was blisteringly hot all weekend, which I loved to bits but Tracey hated, so she hid in the shade. It wasn’t kind weather for Anthony and John from Airstream Europe. They took advantage of the presence of so many trailers in one place in order to sort out every little problem, niggle, snag, and grumble that all us owners had. They worked their asses off in the blazing heat for two days solid.
The good weather was a bonus for the Barbecue on the Saturday night. A couple of weeks back, while our trailer was in Tebay for a service, we were chatting with Michael and Stuart (from Airstream) about the Game Fair and we were gently cajoled into helping out. I didn’t quite realize what this meant at the time, but I found out the day before we arrived at the Game Fair when we picked up an email saying that Tracey and I would be “hosting” the weekend. I wasn’t sure if we needed to wear red blazers and sing “songs from the shows” (not a happy thought), but it turned out that all we needed to do was make an attempt to get everybody into (more or less) the right place, make sure they had everything they needed, and set up for the afore mentioned barbecue. All the Airstream team were busy on the stand all day, so it fell to me to get the food. You may have figured out that Tracey and I are vegetarians, so I didn’t relish the prospect of buying meat, but somebody had to do it. Never again. Luckily, there was a Lancashire butcher on one of the stands, and after he pissed himself laughing at me, he was very helpful and even gave me a 10% discount (I think he needed cheering up). With the raw flesh sorted out, we headed into the local town to pick up the rest of the goodies. The village of Woodstock is as far from the image of the music festival as possible. There are row after row of pretty little golden sandstone cottages with hanging baskets by the acre. It looked just like a collection of those little ceramic cottages you can get in gift shops. Very pretty, but not quite real.
The barbecue was great. We managed to find some veggie-burgers, so the four vegetarians were happy. The evening flew past, and I feel a bit sad that I just didn’t have time to chat to everybody – there were about thirty of us in all. If everybody else enjoyed themselves half as much as I did, they would have had a ball. I do feel that I must apologise to any reader who was an innocent bystander. I’m sure that we made a little more noise than was polite on a campsite. Please rest assured that next time we’ll do it in private. Which leads me to say that everybody there was very keen to meet up again.
So who were this motley crew? Aside from us layabout full-timers, they ranged from cook-shop owners to consultants, croquet mallet makers to fashion photographers, Portakabin renters to BMW executives. What made them all buy an Airstream? Not a clue – I shall have to ask them that next time.
After (almost) everybody had gone home, I popped over to the Airstream stand on the Sunday afternoon to say my farewells before they all left too. I felt very honoured when Anthony invited me to share a couple of beers with him, his sister and brother-in-law. It was a lovely end to a wonderful weekend. After that, I chatted with the rest of the Airstream team on the stand. I have to say that I have never met such a dedicated group of people. I don’t mind admitting that there was a little tear in my eye while John was explaining how happy he is, after years working on the production line at an “ordinary caravan” manufacturer, to be involved in a product of such quality.
A big “Thank You” goes to Airstream Europe for coming up with the idea of inviting us along and subsidising the site fees (I’m sure I’ve got a fistful of receipts for them somewhere…). Thank you too, to all the ‘Streamers who came. It was a delight to meet you all. I shan’t embarrass them by posting names and pictures here, but you know who you (and your watering cans) are. Thanks for a great weekend.
When can we do it again?
In the meantime, we’re off to meet up with some old friends at The Big Chill.
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