Part of the driving force behind potentially selling Clarence is that my folks are moving house, and as such I’m going to be losing my garage space for the bug. The Clio is going instead of Clarence of course, although where I’m going to keep them both is still something I’ve yet to figure out. Anyway, the reason I mention that is because about 10 or so years ago a fair bit of my stuff went into their loft and, as I’m guessing the people who are buying their place won’t want my old junk, I spent a couple of hours on Good Friday retrieving some of it.
Jumping in Clarence and firing up some tunes, the horror show that had been the previous few days soon left my conscious mind and within minutes I was a happy man; there really is nothing like driving an old Volkswagen in the sunshine! Much of the stuff that had been in the loft had been there for years, and I’d completely forgotten what was there. Plenty of it got thrown away – why I’d kept some of it in the first place I have no idea – the fact that some of it went up there in a bit of a hurry before my first winter season back in 2004 might have had something to do with it though.
I was pleased to see that the mice hadn’t got to my old copies of Volksworld – although seeing what a 21 window bus would have cost you in 1998 would make most VW fans cry these days – and I’d forgotten that I had quite so much stuff to put on the walls. And on the walls it shall be going! The clip-frames with photos of the 1999 Volksworld Show and Bugfreeze probably won’t make it – the quality of photography isn’t exactly great as you can see!
I’d also completely forgotten that I had registered the first bug with the Year 2000 Beetle Census, and that in my clip-frame craziness that had also found its way into one along with a few photos of the original Supasatsuma (complete with girlfriend of the time!). Looking onlne, it would appear that the book that was supposed to be produced by the people organising the census never materialised, nor indeed did anything else. I’m assuming that I wasn’t the only person who sent off their couple of quid, so presumably someone made a good few quid out of it!
Along with that, I found the piece of orginal VW advertising that I think I bought at the Volksworld Show in 1999, so that too will probably find its way to the framers at some stage.
It’s weird to think that by this time last year I think I’d been to at least 2 or 3 shows – I haven’t managed one yet this year for one reason or another! Hopefully that’ll change over the coming weeks – Stanford Hall conveniently happens to be on the way home from Darryl and Jo’s wedding venue so I might have to nip in on my way back up north from there. I guess that will depend on the hangover……..