The "Bay" man's house is upon us, the feeling of excitement is similar to that experienced when discovering you have a kit-kat which is pure chocolate without the biscuit centre.
Vic turns the 600cc beast off; the low rumble of the 1bhp engine comes to an abrupt halt. We gather weapons and ammo, otherwise known as bags and phones and leap from the Smart, lock it, and head towards the front door of the infamous, camper van housing house.
A man approaches us, he "the bay man"! Excitement again, turns into a mixture of fear and anticipation; I now know what a gladiator in Roman Britain felt like before entering battle lol
We are led around the back of the house, past a series of old, dishevelled barns to be led into the back door of one such barn...to be met with the site of....
There she was!!! In all her glory! Sitting there, a VW Camper in a barn...surely...the stuff of dreams??? Well surely the stuff of my dreams, but being strange, and Welsh, don’t read too much into that!
Anyways, we have a good old look around the bus, we punch, prod, kick, pull, push and drink coffee all the while mulling over this mysterious beast.
We stay for an hour chatting to the bay man about all sorts of topics ranging from the history of the bus, which is small, verging on non-existent to the ageing Rotweiller dog that is lying down, pretending to sleep, but really waiting for some unsuspecting foreigner to tickle its head so it could ravage them to death.
Anyways, we do some more investigating around the bus, it has a sunroof, it’s an automatic, and it has two sliding doors and an engine that is seized. Apart from that, everything seems well with "Olive". She has a half decent inside, a bed, a retro fridge, a washing up basin complete with tap and some old skool carpet, which I thought was quite funky, in a dusty, old, musty kind of way.
We stay around looking at Olive for the next hour or so, doing some more pushing and pull and trying to find things wrong with it. I mean, apart from the lack of a working engine, 4 flat tyres and a broken front quarter light, everything seems well with it. From the outside she looks solid, no holes anywhere and only a slight piece of rust near the driver’s side seat belt.
We are interested...more so than interested...we are interested, excited and bouncy! We decided we want it, shake hands, agree to call Bay Man later and stumble back, with a spring or two in our steps to the "beast" to make our journey home.
The topic of conversation within the Smart ranges from, how much we should pay, what condition it was in, and more importantly, how the hell are we going to get it back from Bridgewater to the hamlet of Keynsham....hmmmm...time for food we decide as we head to a pub on bank holiday Friday, which appears to be closed!!!! How stupid we think and head to another fine eatery!
The next day, Saturday, we ring the Bay man up and sort out a price; again...you will find out more in a day or two my loyal subjects...
Meanwhile...here are some photos of Olive in situ...
