I’ll clean him and drive him and call him George

• By Alison
• 30 August, 2010
• 1 Comment

Meet George, he’s been part of our family since 1998, the year before we got married. He took us around Europe on our honeymoon, and has been a staple part of camping holidays ever since. He’s also been quietly rusting away and falling apart over the years which is a travesty brought on by lack of a secret money stash to throw at him.

Recently Mr Boxer Shorts did something we’ve never done before. He loaned George to a friend of his to go away on holiday in. It was a friend from a long time ago, reaquainted through the miracle that is facebook.

Try and wrap your head around the enormity of this. Would you lend your children to someone you didn’t know?

Actually the answer to that (now that we’re on the last week of the school summer holiday) is yes, when can you pick them up? But George on the other hand is a beast of great sentimental value. He predates the children by several years, and is both more and less robust at the same time.

Lending George to someone else required preparation – it meant compiling a litany of George’s quirks and foibles. And to her credit – the person we leant him to did very well to manage, considering the first thing on the list.

Be careful when you slide this door closed, because if you don’t do it right, the door’s going to fall off.

Yep, the undertrack of the sliding side door has long since rusted away and fallen off. If you don’t push the door in as you slide – which is something you have to do with a fair amount of inherent violence – then the whole door will continue going sideways, jump off its track and land on your foot. Then you need to try and lift and thread it back into the top bit while attempting not to swear in front of your 8 year old, and bleeding profusely. And it’s heavy – a fact that your broken metatarsels can attest to.

Don’t use the grill with the lid down, otherwise you’ll burn down the van.

We didn’t burn down the van, but we did burn the lid nicely. That was annoying. This one’s not too hard to remember though, and if you forget – the nasty smell of toasting formica should alert you in time.

If people start waving at you to pull over, with a look of fear in their eyes, then your axle might be on fire.

This happened to us once – on the way to visit a friend. There was smoke and flame pouring out the back of George. And we just thought people were being happy and waving hello at us (because people DO that) until one driver caught up on the side and leant out his window to shout “you’re on FIRE!” before careering into a ditch.

We stopped and leapt out, joined him in the ditch and lay there for a while – a slightly uncomfortable fivesome, until we realised the smoke had subsided. The RAC was called, and the prognosis was that actually it was a brake pads, which in a recent service had been tightened so much that they were in constant friction as we drove.

Actually, that probably wasn’t going to happen this time, so I didn’t mention it to her.

Steering is best done without looking. Feel the force. Only when you accept the impossible will you find reverse. 

You can’t get into gear unless you accept that the gearstick is in all reality a big pot of soup that you’re stirring. And the thing on the top of the gear knob – the bit that says that reverse is to the left and up – is wrong. You’ll find reverse to the left, out a bit around twice, up and down, push and then down again. There you are, it’s easy when you know how.

Give him a break – George is nearly 40 years old. I’m over 40, and my bottom bits are threatening to fall off too.

Oh, and don’t try to go over 60 on motorways, the wheels might fall off.

So I am told. Haven’t tested that one yet.

George is very high tec – this bit here is the ipod connector. But if you don’t unplug the fuses when you stop driving, the radio will stay on and drain the battery.

That’s not too hard to do, right? There are two fuses hanging down from the radio, you have a 50/50 chance of picking the right one!

The little foibles of George come down to cupboards that need to be opened with a small stick, as the plastic catches have long since broken, and no-one makes them anymore, and hatches that are held shut with fancy ikea hooks because they fit nicely through the gaps at the top. 

Details like: Don’t put clothes in the storage under the seats and then drive through puddles, or you’ll be squelching for days. Don’t leave anything at all on any surface when you’re driving, or you’ll be wearing crab souffle on the back of your head.

Don’t put your elbows on the table – it’s rude, and you might end up with the table on your knees when it breaks off the side joints.

The list goes on.

But George is part of our family, and we love him just like he is (although if I had the money, I’d have his door slider rebuilt!!)

The good points of George far outweight his “challenges”.

We can just up and go anywhere in him. We can arrive in the pouring rain, and sit in him and make cappuccino. 

The girls can both sleep across the back in comfort with us in the double bed if it’s too cold too sleep in the annexe (this is something we discovered when camping in the new forest recently, it was a wonderful discovery at the time!).

Bacon sarnies simply taste better in George.

Other VW owners wave as we drive past. We look out for other Kombies (Campers) so that we can wave at them.

Once in Pilzen (Czech Republic) we turned up at a campsite, and immediately set up right beside the only other camper there. We spent the whole night around a campfire chatting them about where we’d all been and what we’d done, while their 15 year old kept going back to the bar to get a 2 litre sprite bottle refilled with “Pivo” (Beer). 

He goes down the alps faster than he goes up.