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The Sherpa That Enabled Me To Keep Plodding - Ldv Pilot <3


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#16 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 12:42 AM

The cats loved this cooling mat! they work really well. Keeping them cool in the summer was really just ventilation and blocking the front windows, using silver foil as a sun shade. This made a HUGE difference! Cracking the front windows 10cm, the side window open 10cm and the top vent open fully with the extractor fan pulling out kept the van at around 28' on the hottest days. It was a challenge, it was a full time job keeping these guys cool, but we did it, together.  

 

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Working on my little desk area

 

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Painting the table

 

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Donk

 

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#17 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 12:45 AM

I lived in a Buddhist community for a while. It was fun. I'm not a Buddhist though. I thought I might be, or maybe a Hindu. Having explored all these things I've decided that I'm just me and I can reach enlightenment without being a thing so I am just me now. 

 

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They gave me a lot of space 

 

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Lola chilling at the monastery

 

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Here's just SOME of my girls, lol

 

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Vanlife

 

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Edited by Mini-Mad-Craig, 11 September 2020 - 12:47 AM.


#18 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 01:22 AM

I stayed at my friends house in Iwade, Kent, to help her move house. I was there for around a month in the end. It was nice to be able to plug in and not worry about generating power!

 

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Sunset at the Sheppey crossing

 

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I started a little business whilst I stayed at Wendy's. Selling spiritual themed gifts on eBay, Etsy and at fairs. It was fun!

 

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I ran it out of my garage in Northampton for a while after, living off the money I was making from selling bits.

 

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Sleepy Millie.

 

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#19 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 01:36 AM

I lived in a field for a bit with a horse

 

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Business was good, most weekends looked like this!

 

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Awesome sunsets!

 

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I had the tyre valve changed at a tyre place and driving home the wheel fell off! could've been much worse. Luckily not much damage. 

 

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Then it was MOT time again. On that same side the rear cylinder was leaking so I changed that and she had a full ticket for the year.

 

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#20 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 02:06 AM

I got a job in November doing what I'd done previously which is working with vulnerable adults with mental health and Autism. 

 

Training in Newbiggin

 

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A little trip to Lindisfarne island. Beautiful!

 

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And a trip to Scotland! :)

 

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This Bengal cat adopted me near my parents house. It turns out he was actually a stray, and a local was threatening to shoot him with an air rifle, this had happened to another cat, which died! :( As soon as I moved into the house in April I took him to the vets to get checked for a microchip which he didn't have. Apparently he was a known stray in the area. Well, hes no longer stray and lives with me now <3

 

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Something going on here..

 

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Wheels! :)

 

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I managed to get some chrome rim's that snap on. They're a new old stock LDV part!

 

Looks the business I think

 

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With me now living in a house it was time to get to work making the van the perfect weekend warrior!

 

My dad is a laminate flooring pro so we got to work on that! I picked Villa - harbour oak which was actually the first one that my dad sent to me. It looks amazing and the quality is incredible. It's definitely worth paying extra for this. Even the groves where they join are so nice.

 

We did it all in one morning which was cool.

 

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I also painted the rear arches matt black at this point which tidied everything up a lot!

 

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It was also a good time to sand back the cladding and pallet wood and give it all a few fresh coats of varnish. It'd taken a few knocks here and there, this van was lived in!

 

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Looking good

 

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The front floor was also starting to show surface rust in a lot of areas so I took it all down to bare metal and painted it. It will need some welding in the front footwells and arches soon, but not too much. Generally it's very solid, the chassis is like new.

 

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Edited by Mini-Mad-Craig, 11 September 2020 - 04:29 PM.


#21 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 02:30 AM

The bed back in

 

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The edging trims for the door step. This is made out of 90' stainless. I was quite nervous about doing this because I remember it being hard the first time (they were plastic back then) - I bought a mitre box and a good saw and it made it much easier. It still took me a solid couple of days to get perfect including painting them. There's a little hidden storage box for a bottle jack under the floor too.

 

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Lola remembering what we used to do

 

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Some art

 

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I got these frames from the Range thinking I was going to be okay with it but they drove me around the bend because they werent the right size for the art

 

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I ordered some from Germany which were really expensive but worth it. They cover the lock so you cant unlock it from the inside but I never did anyway really. Also here is the new mattress. I was using some seat cushions from my parents old conservatory seats the first time round, with memory foam on top. Now I have this which is 3", with 3" of memory foam. It's super cosy. The bed is small, but if you lay diagonal it's 6ft2. I am 5ft9 :)

 

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I rescused a house martin and even though I looked after her real good, she died. We had a special bond

 

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I visited Castlerigg stone circle which was the maiden voyage for the new and improved van. It was amazing. I spent some time at the stone circle (highly recommended), and at derwentwater.

 

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My ceiling

 

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My room right now

 

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I also got a fish and called him Sid

 

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My lizards in their vivariums

 

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The bengal

 

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Edited by Mini-Mad-Craig, 11 September 2020 - 02:46 AM.


#22 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 02:40 AM

The decal on the side says ओं मणिपद्मे हूं in sanskrit or 'Om Mani Padme Hum' in English which means 'the jewel is in the heart of the lotus'. It means that in the centre of it all is a jewel. “God in unmanifest form is like a jewel in the middle of a lotus, manifest in my heart.” It's actually what that art is about, 'You're standing on a bridge watching yourself go by'. I made a Youtube video about it if you'd like to know more, you can use it as a mantra.

 

The idea of a mantra is that it just sits there, and all that stuff goes by. It’s like a bridge on which you stand, looking down into the water in which you see your own life going by. It’s a training device to break you out of your attachments. When I’m driving and doing mantra I’m not attached to my driving. I’m doing mantra, and driving is just happening. So in other words, the mantra is a technique for bringing me into a place in myself which would be called the eternal present; that is, a place where nothing is literally happening at all. It’s a device for calming my mind.



#23 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 03:26 AM

One last photo and some words at 4am. I have spent my 20's chasing the sort of experience that gave rise to the worlds religions. I smile often these days and I mean it. Sometimes I feel sad but and that's okay. I have hope that one day I might just feel happy. I've always felt that I was somehow defective and didn't fit in on this planet. I met somebody who made it all go away and we shared a lot of good years together. I am lucky. I am an intense being and I do everything to 149% and I think after a while that gets exhausting for people. It was strange because when I was with him I didn't have to do anything good because there was somebody there who made it okay to not do anything good. It's strange to find yourself in the world without a guidance system. It's just you. I guess that's how it always was, the safety net I lived in was illusory. I am here to be harmless, to every person and every little creature, even an ant. I think theres definitely something in loving people for no reason. It takes people by surprise when you just love them and they don't know why, it isnt pretend love, it's real love, a love that's beyond you, beyond your personality, beyond anything you thought you were, it's just this love that knows everything, it knows the good things about you and the bad things and it doesn't pick or choose, it just smiles and loves it all. That's a good kind of love. That's what I want to be. I spent a lot of time trying to work out why I felt different and I dont really think theres an answer. Now I'm just being, because there is no time.

 

There is no moment other than this one. It might sound tripe but it's true. There is no 'later'. I mean in terms of psychological time theres a 'later' because your brain can create later, but that is illusion (you can experience this illusion directly if that's your desire). There's no 'later' and theres no 'before', all there is, is this moment. 'Before' was this moment, but previous ones, and 'later' is this moment, but the next one. You might say 'so what', but to contemplate this and really arrive 'here' is a truly bizarre experience. When you're in that peak experience, like mountain biking, that first spoonful of warm chocolate fudge cake or having sex, thats the moment. The mind has shut down and you're just consciousness knowing itself through the universe. The Hindus call that Braham and Atman, Braham is essential to it all, Atman is an appearance as form but without Braham it can't exist. Anyway, will you join me? when? now! There's no place that the peak moments get saved or queued up. You can just go out of your mind and be pure awareness, right now! now! and now too. It's just this one eternal moment. It's way bigger than your mind can ever imagine because your mind is here on the material plane working with 4 dimensions. If you use attention the right way you can enter the astral plane then you're far out and you can understand things a little better, but all it does is make you realise that you're never going to understand it. The more you try to understand it the less you do because it gets infinitely more vast and infinitely more empty. It's all paradox. Full and empty. The human mind can't come through, it's not pure enough. Pure energy only! I thought for a long time that human beings knew so much, that we sort of were the best it could get, but we are a mere spec in the infinite vastness of the 'one', call it 'god', 'consciousness' or anything. A finger pointing to the moon is never the moon.

 

The place where it always was, It always has been, it always will be and nothings happened yet because you're not in space and time. Eternal.

 

The self, 'Craig', 'Marie', 'Charlotte', 'Tony', imagine that you're born into this world as a human being, you live for some time, if you make it to 90 you did good, if you died young then you were less lucky. The good, the lucky, thats as interpreted by the human mind, as human beings we're conditioned to feel that being here, that this experience, is worth holding on to, so we cling, our main desire is to live long and healthy lives surrounded by people that we love. But where does this come from? This idea that a long life is the aim. Of course, life gets very sad when we lose a person we love, maybe it's born from that, but I'm not so sure about it all. It's tragic when somebody young dies but only because we're attached to living. But we don't truly appreciate this life because we spend nearly 40 billion on warfare in case we need to blow somebody up and considerably less on malaria nets.

 

You might not have a later. Seriously. A lot of people will wake up today and they will lock their front door for the last time. They won't know its the last time they turn the key, it just will be. Statistically, that's a 12 year old on her way to school. A 30 year old on his way to work. It doesn't pick or choose. That's a fact - people are going to die today. That also means theres going to be parents out there who loose their 12 year old daughter, and an engaged soon to be married 30 something about to lose the love of her life. This will happen, TODAY! How can a rational world which is supposed to be taken seriously work in this way, Sometimes when I'm in the kitchen at 2am and my cat runs down for food I get annoyed, like 'how on earth did she hear me here? she was fast asleep' - then I imagine that moment in the future when I go down to the kitchen and make loads of noise and she doesn't come because she isn't here anymore. It's all just so precious.

 

This whole thing is a cosmic giggle. Theres no time to worry about it all, to argue, to be annoyed, to be angry. The last time you kiss your wife, feed your cat, or buy toothpaste, and you have no idea when it will be. Far out. How precious each moment is. love love love love love. I'm not right about any of this and I dont claim to be. Truly, I dont know anything, at all. Peace out Mini people <3

 

“This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.” - Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

 

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Edited by Mini-Mad-Craig, 11 September 2020 - 03:48 AM.


#24 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 03:42 AM

Thank you if you made it this far, seriously LOL I posted so many pictures and said so much. This actually took a long time. I'm going to hang around, I really like Minis. I like tens. KN Turbo wheels. Theres something about only having 4 gears which is cute. I just love them they're so good. 



#25 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 04:23 AM

There is actually one more thing I wanted to say as I’m laying in bed thinking about it all.

You know if there’s a person or a group of people who really are in touch with it all then they’re fully realised beings and they don’t need you at all. I mean if you turn up then they’ll feed you and love you and you’ll share smiles because you all just know about it together but if you turn up and they’re like ‘you must stay’ or ‘come to our Tuesday class’ then they need something from you and then they don’t really know and it’s all pretend. Maybe they’ve even got real good at pretending to themselves that they know but they don’t really.

That’s my experience of it all. I met a few people who seemed enlightened and they were just fully autonomous beings in the world who didn’t need anything from me because they’ve gone beyond. It’s like this fullness that you can’t explain but you don’t want to leave. You know they love you so fully even though you have crazy thoughts, and you think ‘I hope they don’t know about that one’ but they’re so past their own humanness that they know it all and they still love you.

So if you look at religions and I won’t name any, but if they come to your door trying to recruit you or sign you up or they claim that they can take you there then they’re not there because they still have desires! If they need anything from you at all then it’s a dangerous game to play. I never wanted to stay in a community, even modern Buddhism felt very cultish. The original Buddha said ‘I am just a man, do not worship me’ but they build giant statues and pray to him in worship. I met a lot of people in places like that who were so caught up in it all but they were just wearing super egos because they thought they knew but that was their egos telling them that they knew but the ego is the very thing that you’re trying to bypass. The ego is clever. Although Buddhism does have incredible techniques for understanding the nature of the mind and the world, it’s quite scientific actually, way ahead of its time.

Does that make sense? I think I could summarise it by saying that if you find a person and their love seems truly unconditional and you can’t explain it then just feel that love and bask in it and accept that perhaps they are a fully realised being and if they continue to seem pure and entirely loving then they probably are, but if you meet a person and your gut just isn’t sure, then they give you a pamphlet for ‘stop the week, Friday night gathering’ run a mile and find some new people to be friends with.

I know this is a mini forum but If this stuff is on my mind I guess it’s better to say it than to keep it.

It’s sort of like this project thread actually. I wanted to share with you my van and my life and then you might reply and if you do we can talk and that would be nice for me. I don’t need people to say to me ‘wow that’s amazing’ or ‘very good’ because I’m just here and I’m happy with how things are going, but there’s so much love in me that if you felt like you needed some you could leave a link here and I could take a look and then we’ve both shared something together. It’s a good an opportunity to interact with others. I can see how it would be annoying, if you’re building a car and you’re trying to capture each stage of the process, at that point I’m not sure if you’re building the car because you want the car or if you’re looking for external validation from other people who might say ‘wow you did a great job on that’. Then the car is a sort of Segway to you feeling better about being here when you could just build the car and have the car and that’s enough. This is where the world of opposites comes in and you can occupy multiple levels of consciousness at once, yin-yang. So theres the one where it's bad because you're not present because you're too busy trying to capture, there's the level where it's good because you're sharing with a community and its nice to interact, then theres a third level where it's not even happened yet because you're not in space and time. 

Goodnight xx


Edited by Mini-Mad-Craig, 11 September 2020 - 04:26 PM.


#26 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 04:34 AM

I wonder if I was new here then there might be discussions in the admin lunch room like ‘gee, he’s a loon, we better get him blocked’. I’m always thinking about the balance between what you can say, what it’s okay to say and what’s actually relevant. I guess none of this is relevant and that might be grounds for not posting it but I just like to say what’s in my mind at the time. The thing is, somewhere deep inside, intuitively you know it all. Sometimes people get carried away with the mind even for an entire lifetime and they never stop, it’s like keeping your foot in the accelerator until you run out of road. But a good spiritual teacher has you nodding along. That’s because they're not teaching you anything, they’re just a sign post to the place in yourself that knows it all, already.

So yeah. I’m really going to sleep now. Goodnight mini people. xx

#27 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 04:35 AM

Did I mention I have a van?

#28 Ben_O

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 08:49 AM

Sorry to hear about your troubles Craig

It sounds like this really did save you and I'm so pleased to hear that.

 

The van looks great and well done for doing such a great job on it.

 

Good to hear things are improving now and I'll ch3ck out your YouTube over the weekend. Sounds very interesting.

 

Good luck with everything

 

Ben



#29 Mini-Mad-Craig

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 04:27 PM

Sorry to hear about your troubles Craig

It sounds like this really did save you and I'm so pleased to hear that.

 

The van looks great and well done for doing such a great job on it.

 

Good to hear things are improving now and I'll ch3ck out your YouTube over the weekend. Sounds very interesting.

 

Good luck with everything

 

Ben

 

Thanks Ben! Things are certainly looking up now. Embracing my problems has been a big thing for me, rather than just pretending that I'm okay, because I've done that all my life and the truth is, I've never been okay! 

 

Nice to see people like you still around here :) 

 

Take care,

Craig



#30 MiniJosh92

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Posted 11 September 2020 - 05:47 PM

Look who it isn't! Enjoyed looking though all the photos!






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