Milly the 1979 Westfalia Berlin Deluxe Bay Window Camper Van

[chrisradioman]

I know your all clinging on with white knuckles waiting for my updates but my progress has been slow, mainly because of a new addition to the family:-


Alys Coral Charlotte Jones was born this morning weighing in at a healthy 7lb 8oz.
Both mother & baby are fine & both are now home:-

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Plonked my Kayak on the roof of my camper & it clears my garage door just not sure if it will with a roof rack on mind:-

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Thought I'd get a pic of Alys in the bus before I strip her down (the bus):-

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Got a present for my birthday:-

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The radioman family 2011 European Holiday

The night before we left I put the works van & our 3 cars on the driveway & packed Milly & Vanilly (camper & trailer), then parked them on the garden outside my house (I didn't want some knob head ramming into them while avoiding the new speed bumps on our road). We loaded everything up & went to bed happy that everything was done. Sean's Bug wasn't running right so we decided as time wasn't a problem to get it into J & P motors in the morning. After eventually leaving Swansea at 11.00 with everything done, I pulled off the curb & smashed in the rear valance of Vanilly when it dropped off the curb edge, bending the newly painted item upwards! Doh!
Oh well we set on our way anyway.
I had 2 small jobs to do for work on the way, one in Porthcawl & one in Chepstow. We called in Porthcawl, which only took 20 mins & as we waiting for Amy & Sean & needed to kill time we called in the Go Outdoors camping shop in Cardiff. While Amy & Sean were waiting at home for news on the Beetle I asked them to fetch me some sand paper, news papers, etch primer, filler primer, filler, paint & a hammer so I could repair the valance so they put all this in the car.
When I came out the van wouldn't start, double Doh! I noticed the light on the immobilizer wasn't flashing so I began investigating, when I checked I noticed hadn't screwed the fuse box back on & it must have moved around & shorted, blowing a fuse. I screwed it back on & replaced the fuse then it was fine. Next stop was Chepstow. On my way down the bypass after getting off the M48 a lorry going the other way threw up a stone which slammed into my grill & dented it triple Doh! They say things come in threes so now we could relax a bit & headed for Dover.
J & P's did they're best to get Sean's Beetle ready. By 1500 they had removed the engine & diagnosed a loose flywheel, (just as I had suspected) & sorted the problem. They only charged £100 but the beetle wouldn't be ready till 1700.
as time was getting on Sean & Amy decided to push on & drive in Sean's Golf GTTDi. The rest of us stopped briefly at Reading services to fuel up & check the oil then moved on, by now Amy & Sean were only a few miles behind us. We stopped again on the M25 at Clacket Lane services for a Coffee & a Mc Donalds & Amy & Sean caught us up, we all left together
We arrived at Dover docks about 2130 in good time for our 0320 sailing, we decided to pay an extra £60 per car to get on an earlier crossing & were heading for Calais by 2230. We arrived in Calais at 0045 too late really to find a campsite, so we headed straight to Chimay. After driving for a while we stopped at a truck stop somewhere in Belgium at about 0300 to get our heads down. Me Yvonne & Leah slept down the bottom, Cayo & Katy up in the roof, Amy & Sean in Sean's car.
We were all up by 0900 & heading once again for Chimay. Just outside Chimay we stopped at a local Lidl store & bought fresh meat & bread for a continental style breakfast. We arrived at European Bug-in at 1100 & I got the first participant screen sticker No. 300 (the first 299 go to VIP reserved guests) how cool is that? We spent the rest of the day organizing our camp, watching all the VW's arrive & chillin. Amy & Katy had to nip into town because they forgot tent poles & had to buy a new tent, while I set about repairing the rear valance.

Anyway time for pics:-










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More Bug-in 4 pictures here:-
http://thelatebay.com/index.php?topic=1697.new#new

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[chrisradioman]

Sunday morning we packed up our camp & headed down to the show & shine with Milly & Vanilly. In my opinion there were only 3 contenders in late bays even though there were dozens entered but the prize went to an prototype as usual. To be fair the prototype was stunning.
After the show we drove around posing with Milly & Vanilly until the boys had to head home at about 1600 to catch the ferry home. At 1700 we left Chimay & made our way down to Luxembourg city in Luxembourg. We arrived in a lovely camp site at 20.30 & set up camp plugged in our electric hook up & filled the aqua roll, as usual we had loads of attention all the way with people taking pics & smiling at us.
Once set up we all went for a stroll through the village, as it was late by now & the super market was closed so we stopped in a Italian Restaurant, just 5 mins up the road, Amy had Spaghetti & the rest of us had a Pizza , cracking food & reasonably priced. Once we were all stuffed we strolled back to camp played some games & went to bed just after 12:-