Poppy Matilda - Our New Beetle

Let me introduce you to Poppy Matilda ...

She was conceived on Remembrance Sunday (deposit paid), Born on Saturday 15th November (collected)  and Christened on 16th November (splashed with Holy water from Maria's christening).

The name 'Poppy' was suggested by Vodqueen so she has become Poppy's Godmother.  I chose the name Matilda as I thought it was a fun/happy name and reflected the personality of the car!

We have owned Poppy less than 48 hours, driven over 300 miles, have flowers in the bud vase and its absolutely fantastic! 

Oh and the best thing of all, if you drive past another beetle, new or old style, you wave and flash your lights...

Volksworld Show 2007

So the Volkswagen season has arrived again! Woo Hoo! The first date in the calendar is the Volksworld Show (which takes place at Sandown Park), pics of the last two shows can be found here and here (if you are interested, of course)...

However, things (once again) didn't go easy, in fact, pretty far in the exact opposite direction actually...the "Curse of Colin" (as it is becoming known) struck again, and this time, it was personal!

First off, we stopped in Reigate to get a bit of cash out (had a shopping list for the autojumble), Flyingpops parked next to the tiny Pizza Hut and I hopped out and walked jovially up the road, humming to myself, around the corner, popped the card into the Barclays cash machine, grabbed the money and the print out, came around the corner again (tucking it away into wallet) and noted, casually, that Flyingpops was no longer sat in her seat, but in the back of the bus, not only talking to someone on her mobile, but also waving at a passing VW Beetle ("Aw", I thought...)...but as the occupants of the Beetle passed me by, I spotted, with no little amount of alarm, that they were all looking back at Colin and were in a heated debate, pointing in that direction - my narrowed eyes flicked back down the road and I *immediately* (less than a heart beat) broke into a world record beating sprint as a car swerved round Colin, driver gesticulating rudely...

It was rolling down the f*cking hill...!!!!

Flyingpops was none the wiser, I could see her, poking around in the boot, still talking on her mobile - everything went into slow motion, I could see Colin gradually getting faster and faster, more cars clocking what was happening and swerving out of the way every second - I ran into the road, wildly waving my hands to warn oncoming drivers we had a problem (God only knows what they must have thought I was doing)...and what felt like an eternity later, I managed to grab hold of the passenger door, screamed something unintelligible (probably) at Flyingpops and used all my strength to try and slow poor Colin down before we really did hit something...

She calmly continued her telephone conversation, but did hurry up to the drivers section and stamp on the break (luckily before I was stuck by anything, my adrenalin fuelled strength failed or Colin was bruised)...*phew*!

I think it took about ten minutes before my pulse returned to normal...and when it did, I replayed the whole thing in my mind (in wild eyed silence), but with Mr Bean, or "One foot in the grave" canned laughter accompanying our every move...honestly, you couldn't make it up any better than that, and you would think that's all anyone deserved for one day...but, dear reader, we aren't at the end of this sorry tale... :(

We got over to Flyingpops' folks, gathered her mum with her T25 (so it was now "Colin and Co." I guess) and headed back-road way to Esher, didn't get a shot, but a number of their bins in the town centre said "Please keep Cambridge Tidy", which I thought was a little odd)...Anyway, got to Sandown park (without further incident), weather was even starting to look promising (nothing like as good as on the last two outings, but hey) -


- I cooked us some nice breakfast (did toast and filter coffee for Flyingpops and her mum and I had Earl Grey with a nice dry cure bacon sarnie) -

- we finished eating, got all our stuff together, started locking up the buses, Flyingpops' mum went to close her side door, and as she did so, the back window just literally fell to bits!!! Glass showering all over the place! WTF??

So, while she got on the phone to her insurance people, Flyingpops and I got creative with a plastic bag and some gaffer tape (as it was threatening to rain) -

- and then had to leave her with the buses awaiting the promised window crew's arrival...so we had a little walk around, spotted these Beetle jelly moulds and cake cutters -

- had a nose around the show and shine (best of the year at Volksworld usually ;) -

- and the auto jumble -

- oh, spotted these hilarious stickers playing on the old classic EMPI "Caution, Do not lower the window at speeds in excess of 120 M.P.H.", should have bought the cooker one really... ;)

- A few more sights follow -










- Oh and check this out, a new drag racing flat-4, in the style of a massively lowered bus! Back view -

- and front view -

- can't wait to see what it can do down the strip at Bug Jam!!! ;) Bought some new hub caps for Colin (as we only had two, and they were both plastic and broken) -

- and here they are in situ, I think I need to get the wire brush out and pain the wheels though, they look a bit stange at the moment, so shiny against the rust... ;)

We got back and Flyingpops (finding the glass hadn't been fixed yet) went into one of her "episodes" that one day will perhaps result in a compulsory anger management course, and verbally assassinated a large number of weekend call centre staff, who will no doubt go home and commit suicide (well, the bad ones, anyway), and it finally appeared that there was no way that bit of glass was going to be fixed today. So, I volunteered to guard camp (watched a movie on the Shinco, no worries) while they did a tour of the stuff inside, then we found some tarp in the back of Flyingpops' mum's bus, and wedged that in for the drive home...

Not a day that went quite as expected... ;)

Anyway, loads more pics here on my flickr stream (if you like this kind of thing)... :)

Update - a bit of Gickr action for you -

Brighton Breeze 2006

So, just a few pics from today, set off super early this morning (accompanied by T&G) to witness the "Brighton Breeze" or what is effectively the VW version of the "London to Brighton" rally...We passed a few on the way -

- but the vast majority of the convoy were *way* behind us, managed to park right on the seafront, opposite a few cheeky non-payers who had probably done the same -

- and when we peered down to the venue, we had practically beaten the organisers -

- *e m p t y* but then, for the air-cooled lot, it's not a race, even though some of them can beat modern performance production cars down the 1/4 mile (with ease), the attitude is more one of rest and relaxation -

- so we walked down the front anyway, to find a bite to eat for breakfast passing one or two vehicles that could well have stayed the night -

- and witnessed the forced removal of anything that wasn't a Volkswagen from the front (hehe!)-

- so just a few of the early risers (I had set myself a little "Macro Mission" for this day, I've shot a lot of these buses before, so I was looking for some other way to approach the day, hope you approve ;) We'll get there in a sec, first, a great, and brave paint job which works really well-

-then a quirky T25 Herbie hybrid-

-and I love the bullet holes on de "Reservior Dubs" bus, not seen that in the scene before today, original (at least!)-

-So, we stopped at the "Madeira cafe" for breakfast, it's towards the "Sealife Centre" end of the strip-

- T&G kindly paid for the feast, and (had Flyingpops not been breakfast nosing, I would never had noticed, but the staff brought my plate out minus one sausage and one bacon strip(!)-
-compared to the others (that were eating meat brekkies) when I went to compain they were terribly nice though and brought it back to the table (with bonus double beans!), so, we sat and ate, and drank tea, and inhaled the exhaust fume as the quick ones started to chug onto the strip (interesting eyes!) -

- and, even before breakfast was done, the queue had really started to form -

- so, the Macro mission began -

- I took a lot of shots that weren't too (and they are all on the Flickr Steam), but it was the little touches, and the left of centre -

- and *mostly* close shots I was after today -

- a beautifully painted bug -

- an embroidered bra portion -

- (sorry, took about 90 pics today) the feel of being around the stalls, hey, every old bus needs some rubbers-

- some very funny t-shirts -

- and an absolutely classic photoshopper, I bought this piece, but he has other copies at various different sizes (on canvas etc.) being a London commuter this just struck a chord, find him here (awesome!)-

- an abstract macro (VW people will know what these are) -

- and, okay, not a macro, but *where* did all this tupperware come from...this stallholder must trawl the car boot sales... ;) -

- a "Big Trak"(!!!)...while I was framing the shot a guy behind me muttered "I remember them being a bit bigger than that", when I stood up (grinning) I said "Yeah, I know" (and motioned about the width of a door frame)..we parted grinning and shaking our heads... -

- Now, where did I spot this muddy little fellow? ;) -

- Not macro, a context shot (need a few!)-

-Hehe...very cool...-

-and thanks to whoever set this shot up for me ;)-

-Now, I wonder if a certain little cat was responsible for the mud in our "metallic pea" camper's eye -

-classic litho-

-couldn't resist this one-

-and this shot just begged to be taken-

-(zoom in to read, the occupants of the camper gave me a laugh and a wave when I finally managed to get my focus locked in! Felt like it took about 10 minutes!) -

- lovely reflection opportunity with all this perfect chrome -

- hilarious(!) -

- (hehe..) -

- (very cool) -

- By the time it came to leave the entire promenade was *full*, the queues were stretching the whole way up to the marina and we passed about 30 vans and bugs as we whipped up the road to Gatwick (on our way home!), I really think this event has outgrown Brighton, too much interest, far too much...-

- Oh and then we got home and it rained(!) lucky we missed it! -

In the breaks, during the late afternoon (lucky again!) we tidied up the front garden (my folks came round to help us out, bearing bedding plants and bulbs...yay!) and I paid them back by cooking up Thai for tea...

Chinese Grand Prix tomorrow...it's got to be a goodie! Tired now...might have to edit this entry in the morning... ;) Nite nite...

Oh, as I said, if you want to see all the other pictures from the Brighton Breeze 2006, just go here...