Rustival

9th March 2024

 

Clapped out to concours every vehicle is welcome! was the strap-line for a very different car show organised by British Youtubers Ian and Carly from HubNut, Matt from Furious Driving and Steph from idriveaclassic. Rustival was held at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, Warwickshire, a nicely central location with good access to the motorway network and only about 90 minutes drive away for me. I follow two of the organisers channels and fancied a Saturday trip out. Now I don’t have a particularly interesting car but that’s rather the point of Rustival - all wheels are welcome - and since it was also cheaper to go as an exhibitor than as a general visitor I booked my space. I even gave the car a wash and polish a couple of days before, something that happens… shall we say infrequently? 

 

Exhibitors were allocated into two car park areas named Van den Plas and Mayfair, I was allocated to Mayfair and entry was from 10:00 a.m. I arrived a little before 10:15 and the exhibitor areas were mostly full by that time so I was parked up almost at the far edge of the show. 

 

 

 

 It looks a little lonely here but the area quickly filled and my Toyota RAV4 Hybrid was framed by a Porsche 944 and a Vauxhall the details of which I cannot now recall. I’d been a little concerned that my boring and reliable modern car would look a little out of place but it was far from the newest car present. As far as I could tell it was, surprisingly, the only RAV4 present. As my sister pointed out it was bound to win the prize for “Car I’m Most Likely To Go Home In” :-)

 

I’d planned ahead and taken a flask and a picnic lunch because who wants to spend time queuing at the burger van when you can be checking out the exhibits? So first I took a cup of coffee for a walk around the Mayfair section which contained some interesting, ordinary, and rare cars

 

 

 

 and other vehicles, not all of which had seen wax or polish recently

 

 

 

which sums up the ethos of the show nicely.

 

I popped back to my car and ate lunch then headed down to the Van den Plas area where the various Youtubers’ displays, portable stage, stalls, and a lot more exhibits were located.

 

 

 

 And I spent the next few hours wandering around looking at what everyone had brought and chatting with or listening to exhibitors and visitors. There was getting on for 900 cars exhibited and although my ticket included entry to the British Motor Museum I never actually made it indoors (though I have visited before). Time flew and soon it was nearly 3 o’clock, prizes were being awarded

 

 

 

 and it was almost time to head home. Particularly since I set my alarm for 0600, woken at 0355, and failed to get back to sleep before it was time to get up so having been mostly on my feet I was starting to flag.

 

A couple of my show highlights:

 

 

 

 This Austin A40 Farina Mk1. I’m always going to be drawn towards one of these as a 1961 Countryman model was my first car. The young lady owner of this example has also adapted it into one of the smallest micro-campers I’ve ever come across. So that’s my choice for car of the show because I’m partisan :-)

 

 

 

This slightly scary Reliant Robin based trials car, complete with quite a lot of countryside still stuck to it from its last trials event. The gent who owns and built it was happy to explain to visitors the why’s and wherefores of his creation and yes, it’s street-legal and yes he drove it to and from Rustival so I guess he was as glad as anyone else that we had fine weather on Saturday!

 

Here’s 63 photos that I took on the day in a Flickr Album

 

 

 

 Rustival was a great success and the organisers plan to do it again next year so I hope to do it again too, I’ll be keeping an eye on https://www.rustival.co.uk/ and suggest you do as well if you’re interested in all types of cars not just the “special” ones.

Trains By The Sea

South Devon Main Line at Teignmouth and Dawlish.

Shame the sun didn't come out as well.

Interesting times.

I’ve been avoiding writing about COVID19 like the plague. But here goes my ha'porth.

While others have produced many pages of words on their lockdown activities, how many books they’ve read, video conferences they’ve attended, or new skills they’ve learnt I’ve mostly been at work. Being declared a key worker right from the outset has meant the changes to my daily routine haven’t been that great. I still need to visit and interact with customers - albeit while trying to observe strict social distancing - and I already worked largely from home anyway. I haven’t needed to visit the main office, or rather I’ve avoided doing so even though most of the desk based people normally there have been despatched off to work from their kitchen tables but occasionally I’ve needed to visit a nearby site to access a printer. (Using my own printer at home being verboten for security reasons.) So work wise not so different from normal.

My planned trip to the far north of Scotland by rail was due to start on March 20th, so that didn’t happen. I’ve got most of the money refunded now and made a note of the companies who took a “tough luck, we’ve got your money now fuck off” approach to the situation for future consideration when trip planning. (Yes, I’m looking at you Caledonian Sleeper.)

That left me with a week off and nowhere to go, which has been my only real period of lockdown. In those early days of bog roll and other shortages I was glad I had previously stocked up for Brexit. Although I haven’t needed to use much of that stockpile since shop supply lines have since adapted. Shop once a week, Monday or Tuesday after 1400 hrs seems to be the way to avoid the worst crowds (though not necessarily the worst people) and still get most of what you want.

For my daily (well some days anyway) permitted exercise outing I’ve mostly headed to the nearby woods, scrub, and swamp of Wildmoor Heath or on a couple of occasions down by the Blackwater River.

I live in a built up area so it should be no surprise that with a lot of people needing to escape the confines of their four walls the open spaces will have more people in them than usual. It has apparently come as a surprise to the usual vociferous half-wits on social media though, encouraged by our appalling fourth estate (and in some cases Chief Constables). 

I’ve left it until 1830 or 1900 hrs before going out for a walk, avoiding most of the families with loud unruly kids and bikes. There have still been a few of the usual arrogant mountain bikers to try to avoid though. I think having a saddle stuck up your arse must do something to your brain chemistry. At least the weather has been conducive to outside activities. Although maybe if it had been pissing down we would’ve minded less about not being allowed out.

I did try going out very early one morning instead. It was bloody cold. And there were nearly as many walkers out as in the evening.

In spite of the generally good weather I’ve managed to get drenched at work a couple of times, just so I don’t forget what rain is I suppose. The joys of working outside. Now compounded by people who have no idea what 2 metres looks like and having to be alert to the possibility of attack by 5G conspiracy fuckwits.

I already lacked a social life before all this but evenings in have proved that there’s still very little worth watching on TV. I managed to stand about 3 days of government Corona-briefings before deciding I didn’t need to be depressed any further. Youtube has remained my channel of choice and Saturday evenings have been enlivened by the weekly Don’t Panic! livestreams from All The Stations. Also an epic and unintended 3h 10m livestream from Martin Zero the live comments section of which turned into a fantastic childhood TV nostalgia-fest 😊

In other news I’ve read quite a lot of eBooks, although not as much as I expected. Where does all the time go?

I’ve spent too much time on Twitter. I’ve had to temporarily restrict my tweets to confirmed followers to get a break from the wilfully ignorant and terminally stupid who always seem to be looking for a fight. I’m so glad I don’t do Facebook as well. That particular plague seems to be infecting Cix as well unfortunately😞

I’ve had my first adventure into Zoom land. The talented and generally lovely Odette Michell did a “live” gig via Silsoe’s NAF Club. An award-winning artist live in your own front room can’t be bad, even on an 8” tablet 😀 Gotta love the technology.

Steve Knightley and Show of Hands youtube channel has whiled a way a few evenings with musical entertainment as well.

I eschewed the VE Day 75th anniversary bollocks. I was unsurprised when it was inappropriately used to whip up some jingoistic nationalism. Did the virus take a day off so that the Daily Mail could celebrate what it referred to as “Victory over Europe” day? 🙄

That’s “sort of lockdown” so far, I wonder what’s next?

We await the buffoon in 10 Downing Street's widely-leaked announcement that restrictions are to be eased from tomorrow. I have no doubt this will result in a fiasco, will make things more difficult at work, and quite likely unflatten the curve as well. Still the elite are hurting in the pocket and hoi polloi need to be sacrificed to ease their pain.

We are to stay alert apparently.

Good luck to you all.

Revealed: What 200 people were doing in a field in Crayford on a Sunday afternoon.

Sunday 4th August 2019

Nice clickbaitey title 😀

So now the embargo has been lifted on this I can talk about what happened on the first Sunday in August. At the beginning of july I got an invite from Geoff Marshall of All The Stations fame to take part in something slightly silly and railway/tube related along with a couple of hundred other like-minded idiots enthusiastic people.

How would you like to come to Crayford wearing a tee shirt the colour of a London Underground line and stand about for an hour?

Well who wouldn't? Name added to spreadsheet, railway ticket booked.

The idea was to create a human version of the "Tube Map" - or at least the Zone 1 section of it because we're not that mad - and then video the result to be published on Youtube. Previously All The Stations had done something similar, the BR Double Arrow symbol. That only needed 100 people to be herded into place, the tube map would need at least double that (we'd hoped for 300).

One thing became apparent, getting enough people with enough of the right coloured tee-shirts wasn't going to be simple.

Hammersmith & City (pink) was always going to be a problem.

Everyone has a black tee-shirt so Northern Line definitely wasn't going to be a problem.
I chose Piccadilly (dark blue) because I was born near what at the time was the western end of it. Having decided on Saturday that my intended shirt had in fact faded to something nearer the Victoria line I went cheap tee shopping (Decathlon £1.99 as it happens) and as at that point there were plenty of Piccadilly and not enough District looked for a suitable green tee as well. It seems the clothing industry only now knows two versions of green, fluorescent lime or khaki, nether of which are close to the required shade.

 The event was held on the pitch at VCD Athletic / Oakwood Training Ground, Crayford. It wasn't hard to find, followed the trail of coloured tee-shirts from the station.
Once the goalposts had been moved out of the way and some group photos taken by the talented Luke Agbaimoni all that was needed was to arrange 200 people into a semblance of Zone 1 of the tube map. It took a while, with a few tweaks and rearrangements and checking from above by drone. Eventually we were ready for the actual filming. This was all done from Geoff's drone which he assured us had never fallen from the sky yet so we would be perfectly safe 😀

 And it didn't.

So what was the point of all this then?

Does there have to be a point? A lot of people, most of them having some interest in railways and or the Underground got together and did something essentially a bit daft and chatted, socialized (the football club bar was open and it was a hot day), and met people who they might only have known online or have met before only briefly. Not all "social media" activity is carried out through a screen.

Nobody fell over backwards Falklands penguin style following the drone as it flew over (and no one got that reference when I mentioned it at the time).

At no point did I hear anyone shout out "Mornington Crescent!", though it was a big field and I'd be amazed if nobody thought of it.

Everyone who was there seems to have enjoyed the experience and in these uncertain times that's not something to be passed over lightly.

The final result?

That's now live on Geoffs channel, go and watch it and "think yourselves accurs'd you were not there, And hold your manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that stood with us upon Human Tube Map day." 😜

Human Tube Map, The Video.





 

Hambleden Weir and Lock

Hambleden lock on the River Thames is connected to the north bank by an unusually long weir. Even more unusual is that the public can walk across the top of the weir above the sluices - most other Thames weirs seem to have keep off notices, spikes, and barbed wire.


It's a pleasant spot with the large white building of Hambleden Mill close to the other end of the weir from the lock. It can be very popular in summer but on a winter's afternoon just before Xmas it was fairly quiet with a few walkers but no boats moving on the river.

There's a car park about 500 yards north up Skirmett Road which is free but has a height barrier. It also has toilets though I've never seen them unlocked - probably seasonal.

Hambleden Mill

You don't want to fall in there! Although sometimes there are canoeists practising their white-water skills here

Hambleden Lock

The Thames looking upstream from Hambleden Lock

The weir and the mill at Hambleden

Hambleden Weir

Ducks aren't risk-averse evidently

South Devon Railways

3rd September to 7th September 

Went to Torquay for a week, stayed at Atlantis Holiday Apartments which was good and very handy for the railway station - I decided to leave the car at home - albeit uphill. South Devon was busier than I expected for September, lots of "SAGA Louts" 😀

Anyway, I seem to have spent some time riding on the heritage railway lines in the area and here's some video evidence: