Campsite Review : Valley Farm, Wickham Market

Big Sky at Wickham Market

 We had a fantastic stay at Valley Farm Equestrian Leisure Campsite in Wickham Market, Suffolk. So much so i am reluctant to tell anybody about it as due to a poor weather forcast we were literally in a field of our own ! The campsite is located in a lovely bit of Suffolk countryside near a river and five minutes from Wickham Market itself.
The campsite is an equestrian centre (riding school) so the campsite is surrounded by horse and Pony paddocks and stables as well as Alpacas, Peacocks and even a Rhea (like an ostrich) There are regular kids riding lessons going on which are open to members of the public as well.

We so enjoyed this site, highlights being feeding the horses, a midnight walk with the kids in the surrounding countryside and sitting around the fire-pit under a majestic star lit Suffolk sky. The owners are lovely and fond of the old VW campers, the owner told me he used to build Beach buggies so new all about the Aircooled scene.
The facilities were really good, in fact the shower was the warmest i have had at a campsite for sometime and the site was spotlessly clean.
The only downside was that on leaving the site Bab's starter motor failed and we had to call the AA ; but at least we got a bit longer on this fantastic site.

Latitude Festival 2015

Chilling at base camp

Bab's first festival went off without a hitch at this years Latitude Festival, the events 10 year anniversary held in Southwold Suffolk. 

We stayed in the Festivals family camper van section, along with loads of fellow v dubbers and some classic Commer vans like 'Rockin Robin' parked behind us in the photo above.

Staying in the bus not only gave a touch of much needed luxury for a hardened festival goer like myself : i dont think i had ever slept so well at a Festival in my life. The other bonus was the fact i spent a total of £5 all weekend on a beer on the Saturday night, thanks to bringing copious amounts of food and drink in the bus. 

Breakfast on the custom 7" vinyl camper table

If the bus performed perfectly, the same could be said for the acts we caught across the festivals many stages. Highlights were Ibeyi, Femi Kuti, Roni Size, Lianne La Havas and a bonus of getting to see Ed Sheeran's surprise late night set  at the I Areana. Other highlights were getting on the main stage during an 'invasion' during Santigolds set and meeting the lovely Ibeyi twins and Lianne La Havas....to quote the Fast Show '.......which was nice'. The festival is so well run and i was amazed at all the comforts on offer as a veteran of the apocalyptical wastes of festivals in the late 1980's and 90's.  The festival is incredibly middle class, everywhere we went heard conversations like 'Tristrian & Polyanna! Wonderfull to see you, how was the gap year?'. Must not sneer after all i was enjoying mango and coconut for breakfast (see pic above) something i would not have been experiencing at Reading Festival 1987 watching people throw bottles of piss at Bonnie Tyler.

Lianne La Havas

Femi Kuti

Ibeyi

Revamped Interior : shabby chic denim and vintage reggae theme!

This is the type of Interior refresh suitable for the bus owner who has spent the budget and then some on the respray and has nothing left but favours, hard work and a pile of junk to 'up-cycle' !

Best things about the upgrade?
Having pockets on the panels to put your mobile phone, sweets, rolls of cash etc.

• Rock n Roll bed : no more falling
  
  through the 'slats' in the old original Danbury layout! 
• Managed to save a lot of the original Danbury interior, including one of the buddy seats
• Cab Seats : the only thing done by a Pro and well worth it, used high quality denim off the roll rather than the old pairs of Jeans used in the rest of the bus.
• My Reggae 7" table, the 'feature' item. Lots of trial and error : MK 1 was made
  
  used using resin over the records. Apart from nearly killing myself with fumes and turning my shed into something resembling a scene from 'Breaking Bad', i had to use faked 7" with cool reggae labels over what were originally Max Bygraves 7". The adhesive and resin reacted and fouled, epic fail. In MK 2 version i used Perspex over the original reggae 7" in my collection, meaning i can unscrew it and use some of my funk 7"or Punk even. 

Still quite a bit to finish, some of it is more shabby than chic.

• Cab door panels, using same new denim used on the cab seats.
• Installation of folding buddy seat on the sliding door side.
• Refresh of the overhead storage cupboard. 
• Some suitably vintage speaker covers under the rear bench
• Replace the coffee sack ceiling with some cool Kente (West African) fabric that mach the curtains. (thanks Mummy Phillips!

Finally must say a big thank you to Barbara for all the hard work on denim and anybody who gave us their old jeans!

Xmas Day Outing 2014