Sanne's Sunglasses

I've spent money! I've invested in these great vintage-styled sunglasses from Ralph Lauren:
I'm going to look like this, just 20 years older. :)

They cost 305 dollars, and to this you have to add 90 dollars for prescription glasses, since I cannot see without glasses. But I know I will LOVE them the next 20 years.

And before my Summer holiday I'm going to invest in this fantastic objective for my Canon reflex camera:

It is a 18-200 objective which I've found on the internet for about 618 dollars, and then I don't have to change objectives - which I never do. I've looked at Tamron's 18-270 objective, but after having read comparisons of them, I chose Canon's. Normally, I don't go for brands, except for my camera where I like everything is Canon.

And DH has bought a lawn mover for what equals to 4,545 dollars!!! And it was not like he needed one! It originally cost 5,454 dollars but I bartered the price down. It has front blades and hydrostat - something a man cannot live without.

So I've started saving for my other dream car - a Fiat 500, the middle model, as dad says. Preferably in pastel green, like here:

I will import it from Italy next Summer, the tax is about 545 dollars and then it is ready to drive. I'm excited if my marriage survives another vintage car. But as son says: "It costs the same, it has almost the same size as the lawn mover, it just misses the blades underneath." - and he is right.

So I think our New Year resolution is closed now!

Vintage Car Exhibition during Whitsun

We went to a huge vintage car exhibition during Whitsun, that is Sunday and Monday and it was LOVELY! :) I shot about half a million photos and even after having deleted the usual approx. 400,000 there were really many lef. I have sorted some for this blog post, not that many car photos, there are so many other things I want to show you. Perhaps, I will make a blogpost with car photos later, we shall see.

Graested Veterantraef is huge and very many-sided. The first day I parked Tiny Honk among the vintage cars and motorcycles. My parents parked dad's old Chevy Stepside truck with camper among the american cars. Here is Tiny Honk in the line:

If you have a Fiat 500 your Wunderbaum should be Luigi from Cars:

What do you do if you have TWO nice vintage cars? You place one of them on a trailer and drive the other - brilliant:

Even the amusement park was vintage, here is a nice ice cream wagon:

I loved this amusement. In the front you see one of the huge steam engines, they drove around all day:

The amusements were driven by vintage engines like this:
Beautiful and huge steam engine. My mother is standing beside it so you can feel how big it is:

Here is yours truly (I'm about 166 cm):
Such steam-bandits needs a lot of coal to drive around all day long:
Vintage diving equipment - I would never do it:
But others did! They had dug a huge hole and then the brave divers dressed up and dived into the hole:
There was a large army exhibition and several "wars" were going on during the day. This tank weighed 45 tonnes, had a 38 litres engine with 850 hp - it was a large bandit that was so noisy it resounded in your cranium:

There was an area with vintage engines, here is an old "power saw":
And there was working artisans. This man was very nice and promised to make me a pair of wooded clogs in my size with sealskin for just 40 dollars:
Later in the afternoon the kids were tired and took a nap among alle the engines that were noisy and smelled. Here is a boy in a stroller and a girl on a blanket at the ground:
There was a hucker's marked and also a sparepart marked. At the hucker's marked there was a fun amusement I've never seen before. A pool with huge clear beach balls, which the kids were inside - it looked really fun and there was a mile-long queue all day long:

There was a cannon king who was shut out of the cannon twice a day. Ironically, he was sponsored by a undertaker:

A very nice car-sandcastle was built:
"You're arrested, sonny!":
The vintage police men (with real moustache and bellies) arrested son, but he wasn't thrown in the clink.

At the second day Tiny Honk parked among the american cars, here he is seen from dad's camper:
Later the same day his baby-brother, the Corvette, parked right behind him. Many call the Opel GT the "mini-Corvette", but in fact it is the Corvette that is a "Maxi-GT", since the GT came first. But american car fanatics don't like to hear the truth:
It was a lovely Whitsun with something for everybody.

I Did It Again! :)

I've won the NegleNymfernes (NailNymphs') competition! :)

This time I won third prize, and this time there are prizes - yepiii, I'm so excited!

To enter the competition you should write a review of a product, and I thought that everybody would write about nail polish, so I wrote about rhinestones which I love to use.

The First and the second prizes are great. I will start using my red flake polish over black polish and the stribes are an easy but very nice effect.

I cannot wait to receive my lovely prizes.

And during Whitsun we will be visiting a vintage car exhibition at Græsted - life is great! :)

Frederik, My Mum’s Car

Now it must be time for another car story. I have lots of them “in stock”, but never time nor energy to write them. Sometimes I’m afraid my blog falls between two chairs: The men think it is only about cars and get disappointed, and the women are afraid it is only about cars. None of this is true, indeed I hope that my humorous writing and taste for life will entertain most of you.

I have just written about the car my mother didn’t get, so now I will write about the car she did get, and still drives today almost 40 years after – I present to you, Frederik. (Remember all photos can be clicked into large size)

Frederik is a rare Fiat 508C Balila from 1939, in fact he is the bigger brother to the Topolino, which is a Fiat 500 from 1937. Big brother because of his size, the Fiat 500 is quite small.

My dad found him in a barn at the local farmer, he was a toy-car for the farmer’s son. Dad asked what he should give for him, and the farmer said that he could just find another car for his son to play with. Dad gave him a green Opel Olympia from 1956 instead. As dad says, today it would also have been a fine vintage car.

Dad dragged the Fiat home, messed a bit around with him and drove him the same evening.

The first evening dad found a coin with our King Frederik, therefore, the car is named Frederik, and the coin is glued to the heater.

Dad repaired the brakes, except the parking brake, which is a transmission brake, and it went right through the appraisement. Later dad heard that the previous owner had been stopped by the police and had had the license plates taken because of the parking brake - this proves that the police aren't experts in all areas! Well, it was surveyed, but dad didn't have the papers, only a customs certificate. We waited impatiently, and immediately on their arrival we went on holiday, although we hadn't driven it before - except some shorts tours down the street.

At the holiday dad found the engine too small, so he re-built the gear box so 1st and 2nd gear could syncronize. Later he put a Simca engine with 5 main bearings at the original gear box. When it was worn he replaced it with another engine alike. But dad loves speed so one day he simply had to built a Volvo B18 engine with overdrive, racing cam and double carburetor into it:
One of his great amusements was to race from the youngster in Copenhagen, they always got very surprised seeing the sweet old car racing from them.

But although you love your car it rusts, especially when you drive year round, since we use so much salt during Danish Winters. So dad has cast new mudguards of fibre glass by using the old mudguards as moulds. You cannot find any kinds of spareparts for such an old car, so you have to be creative and make everything yourself. Dad has also repaired it in the middle of a tramcar roundabout in the Netherlands. He borrowed some tools at a small garage nearby. Do you think people stared!? :)

Frederik has got a new "living room" four times.

The vinyl is a protection cover so the dog can hop in without ruining the seat, and yes, there is no sash bar in the middle of the doors, it is called "mother in law doors".

Mum worked as a domestic helper for many years and drove Frederik daily. Dad has calculated that she has driven 1.5 million kilometres just for work. The neighbours and her colleagues thought it always drove, but they didn't know that dad repaired it during the night so it was ready for the next day. It wasn't always much sleep dad got.

When I went to school we made a trip to Copenhagen (the Capital of Denmark) a few times a year, it was very exciting for the farmer kids to go to the big city. The parents volunteered as drivers, but no one would drive with mum and Frederik since the wind blew in through the doors. It is almost impossible to get rubber lists for the doors, but we didn't mind - we were used to it. We loved its soul more than its comfort.

Frederik got a huge overhaul about 15 years ago, he also got a "new" Nissan 1700 ccm diesel engine. The diesel engine is front-wheel driven, so dad has reversed and changed the rear-wheel drive and built an electrical Volvo overdrive onto it.Dad had it appraised with the new engine and changed it to mum's name and gave it to her as a gift with a huge bow and a tiny little card. He had realized that he never would finish the Ladybug.
I regret if I have misunderstood some technical details. The story is told by dad and written by me, so if anything sounds like nonsense, I'll gladly ask him for details. A few issues might also be due to translation.

The Ladybug – Or “the Car My Mother Never Got”

The ladybug is a Fiat 500 Topolino from 1937, and it has been in dad’s garage for about 40 years now. In fact it is my mother’s car, but I wonder if he ever finishes it for her.

Forty years ago, mum did not have a driving license, which dad found very unpractical since they had three kids. One day on their way to the Isle of Moen, where they had their Summer cottage, dad stopped at a breaker to buy some spareparts (a roof rack for his Morris 8, named “Trille”, which translates to “rolling”, he had sold her to a friend). Mum saw the Fiat and thought it was sweet. Dad said: “If you get a driving license, I’ll give it to you!”. Mum said OK and dad went right in and bought it for what equals to 100 dollars including 10 dollars freight – 40 km to their cottage at Moen. Here it is in my grandparents’ garden (which is now mine):


Dad burned the paint off it in the garden:

But it was in a bad shape, so dad has got tired of its renovation several times during the past 40 years. It was also too small for three kids and something else was always more important, so it had to wait.

Topolino means ”little mouse” in Italian, but in Denmark it has always been called the ladybug. For many years dad wanted to paint it like a ladybug, red with big black spots and he even found antennas for it, but as we kids grow up he dropped the idea. It is a luxury model with four gears, most of the models only have three gears and no reverse gear. It must have been a fun sight when dear husband had to push it back then! The Topolino is not as rare a car as the other cars my family owns, you see it quite often in museums, and Simca made one very much alike it. Dad has built a Fiat 500B top-valved engine into it, as the normal side-valved isn’t very durable. Dad and my brother have made most of the steel plate work and they are not missing much. Dad had it approved by inviting the surveyor to his garage many years ago, he had made the frame in which there was a lot of rust, and he would not risk problems with the approval later. Here most of the family plays in its frame:
Yes, it’s me at the right, dad is sitting on it, grandpa stands at the left and my sister and brother smiles.

And here is dad working on the frame:

This is how it will look one day when it is finished:

I think dad has planned exactly this colour.
Mum got her driving license and has driven a lot of other cars since and one day dad gave her another very nice vintage car, but it is another story.

I’m sorry about the photo quality, it is 40 years old photos I’ve scanned, but you can click them to view larger versions.