It's wednesday, but no ordinary wednesday, because there is frantic activity across the land as we load our vans, our trailers, our mobile homes because it's the time of year when Beaulieu beckons.Enthusiasts from all over the world have their tickets ready and those who have booked stands will join the throng converging on the New Forest early friday morning ready to join the queue for the gate printed on your windscreen sticker.
The organisers have it down to a fine art and they are ready for the thousands of us who choose to spend three days in a field selling stuff we don't need, buying more stuff we don't need, and occasionally stumbling across stuff we DO NEED.
But the real reason we migrate to the Beaulieu Autojumble every year is the people. We meet old friends, we make new friends. We enjoy transactions that you simply cannot make on the internet . Of course we buy and sell online more and more and we rejoice in the fact we live in an era when we can buy an autovac from our armchair - Lalique from our laptop or a magneto from our mobile phone.
The range of things for sale is truly wonderful , but of course you can easily end up buying a car - either in the 'dealermart' or the Bonhams auction where they always assemble a tempting array of Pre War Cars. Do you remember the story about the Beaulieu Bluebird? Well the very car is offered for sale HERE.Are you brave enough?
If you get fed up with all the ironmongery, head for the marquees selling magazines, books, pictures, ephemera. You will most certainly find something irresistable if you look hard enough.How can I have said 'No.' to this 1946 drawing of a Bullnose last year? Perhaps I'll find it again this weekend. But I shall also be looking for a manual for my latest acquisition - a Charron C 1918.
You have to be optimistic.
We are human- and we need to eat and drink. So once the public have obeyed the tannoy and returned to their cars, the traders come alive. It's party time. The smell of cooking wafts across the fields and bendix gears smell of bacon, carburettors smell of curry, and tyres smell of rubber. The bar nestles up to several food outlets and on saturday night a band plays to help the joi de vivre late into the night.I wander back to my tent hoping it has escaped the wind and rain and once I've zipped up and got horizontal, a neighbour plays the entire Pink Floyd album 'Dark Side of the Moon' across the camp site.
I toss the intolerance out of the tent and lay there being transported back to my youth enjoying the unique atmosphere of people enjoying themselves and their hobby.
Text and pictures Robin Batchelor.