Looking back over the last few days, because that's all it's been, I've been through so many stages and emotions. Gawd, this is JUST a van I'm looking for here, not spiritual enlightment, a lifetime partner or even just a good time. However, the ups and downs are huge. Let's see...
Went to see a VW Transporter early last week - £1695, with a high roof. Hated the back doors, extended with frameless glass, so very fragile looking. Also a very suspect odometer, reading, I interpreted, 013nnn, which to my mind is 13,000 miles -right? Dodgy junk yard dog man reckons that's 130,000... No thanks.
Next breakthrough was finding a couple of VW Transporter enthusiasts working from a farm business unit in wildest Berkshire. I spent an hour talking to them - great guys, and doubtless the right people to buy from if they have the item you want. I'll certainly stay in touch with them, for servicing or whatever. But they had only two for about £4500 each, low miles (70-80K) which still needed to be sorted before sale, and both with rear "barn doors". Now I wasn't especially particular about the type of rear door previously, but having seen others they had, and also the one owned by the club member, it seems to me that the thing to have is the tailgate. It requires more space to open, but provides a handy place to stand out of the rain, like an extra area to conduct one's affairs. Nice. And I KNOW I'm going to be disappointed if I don't have one of those... But at least I now know that I want, if I'm getting a Transporter
1) A Long WheelBase (LWB), because you could JUST fit a 300cm board in one, so my proposed 260+ (see some point in the future when boards are being considered) will fit ok
2) A tailgate, because it's much cooler than barn doors
Thursday is the day - Autotrader appears, both in paper and online. A fresh batch of vans. But of course I don't call people up on Thursday evening, no... My son comes round and talks for a bit, I lose focus... you know how it goes. So by the time I start calling on the Friday,when I'm supposed to be working for a client, but fortunately there's lots of time sitting around watching things happen at this stage, lots of potential goodies (price reasonable, tailgate, LWB) have been spoken for. Crap. Saturday is spent at a local music festival (Lemon Jelly - dullsville, why not just play tapes?!), with calls going out to various places with little to show for it. I discover that someone near High Wycombe was going to a wedding reception that night and would be woken up by his dog about 6.30 Sunday...
On Sunday the wedding receptionist announced that the van has been taken by the guy he showed it to on Saturday. Meanwhile my trawl through the Autotrader web site continues, with my mesh getting finer and finer (newspeak for "escalating budget", thus capturing greater numbers...). And now, on the following day, I'm looking to go to somewhere near Milton Keynes to see one for £5250 (!), but in alleged good condition with a tailgate blah blah blah. And of course I'm having severe nth thoughts - this is a STUPID sum of money, I could spend a month in Dahab for that and probably improve no end if I have a lesson every day, etc. etc. But let's go see it anyway.
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Wavesailing - that's what I want to do!!!
