Sunday, August 23, 2009

Freecycle? Got to love it.....

I've put my old #2 trailer tent on Freecycle. #2? Yeah, even I didn't know I owned two trailer tents. Seven years ago I gave my 1978 Walker Viva trailer tent to a friend. Turns out it's sat unused in their garage for the entire time. (Bloomin' waste....) Now, they've decided to clear out the garage and wow, guess what? It's apparently been my trailer tent all along.

(In the meantime we bought another trailer tent, paid a lot of money to have the back gate widened enough to get the new one in there and I didn't give the Walker to thereyougothen last year when she was looking for a trailer tent. Because I didn't think I owned it any more, bah....)

Anyway, it's still in passible nick with a few years left in it and we all wanted rid of it so...I've put it on Freecycle. And not surprisingly I've had a lot of responses. You have no idea how many single mums with seven kids (some of whom have disabilities) are out there! And they all want to try camping because they can't afford a "proper holiday". You don't use this expresssion to a die-hard camper, really...

There are a few more genuine responses, of course, and I am drawing up a short list because really, trailer tents don't suit everyone. Much as I would like to give it to the potter lady who wants to take it to festivals I know for a fact it takes two people to put it up. Best response so far though? This letter...


Hi there,

I am writing with regards to your trailer tent. Good luck picking as you will get an awful lot of requests- I reckon!

I recently advertised my caravan on Freecycle and received over 50 requests for it-
some polite some rather quite rude! It was going to be a very difficult decision until
I received a message from some lambers in the hills. Their caravan had been vandalised
and they were getting desperate as the lambing season was quickly approaching.

So really in the end it was a fairly easy decision. The caravan would withstand one more
tow and since the lambers would just use it year after year in the same location-they were the perfect choice.

I had bought the caravan from Gumtree for £100.00. It was a bargain, it was a 1984 Robin.
The cooker, fridge freezer and even the little radio all worked perfectly. The upholstery was
great, orange and brown flowers and looked almost new.

So, I cleaned the caravan inside and out and booked a space in a campsite in the west of Scotland to try it out.
This was for the school holidays in April. I then put a tow bar on my car-all ready to go!

The day before we were leaving my neighbour reversed into the caravan putting a gaping hole in one of the corners
rendering the chasis very unstable. He reversed into the caravan (in a pickup) while in MY garden stealing MY
wood! While he was doing this his dog killed my chicken. He apologised for neither incident! He did advise me though, he had really done me a favour
as the caravan was rotten inside. I didn't really see it that way, as you can imagine.

We go to a lot of festivals with the kids as my partner is in a band. The caravan we bought was for this purpose but it never even got one outing :-(
We would certainly put a trailer tent to good use as we are usually off to a festival every couple of weeks during the Summer. There still a few more this year.

We use 2 tents just now and we do cope- however a trailer tent would make festival life just that little bit better!

On the upside my dog did break into aforementioned neighbour's house while his dog was in season. This cost him £100.00 at the vets.

SO, this is my comprehensive reason to why I would like your trailer tent!


Many thanks for reading
Kindest regards
A.


Is it a true story? One has a few doubts. But come on.... it has style, it has humor, it has plot and she's put a lot of effort into writing it. I think she at least deserves to make the short list, don't you?

Oh, yes, what's a Walker Viva trailer tent anyway, I hear you ask? This....



Anyone want a trailer tent? I am taking applications.....!

4 comments:

blueadt said...

I think A deserves it even if just for taking the time to make you smile!

We've been de-cluttering as my new job means I'll be working from home so our box room needs to become an offer. I've had so many people ignore 'taken' messages & others that don't bother to show that I'm fed up with them all. However I have made 3 people VERY happy as I search all the 'wanteds' before making an offer & 3 months after their wanted post, offered them want they needed.

The rest is going to the charity shop by Wednesday as I'm fed up with it hanging around....

blueadt said...

See I've got offers on my mind. I meant to write that the spare room is to become an OFFICE :)

Anonymous said...

Oh I think she should get it.
She mentiones lambs, and unless she stalks your blog, she wouldn't know about your spinning obsession/enthusiasm.
Good idea to search the Wanted ads, Blueadt, I hadn't thought of doing that.
My blog is about Freecycle today too (and baby-poop green).

Anonymous said...

That's the best freecycle email I've seen, I think. Which list did you post it on? You should send that, anonymised, to the moderators, that's the kind of thing we liked to share with other mods, when in need of a laugh, which is often, when you moderate freecycle.

And I can't imagine you'll get a better response than that!

And I guess I should be glad that you didn't give it to us last year, because then we wouldn't have made £200 profit on our ebay bargain, right?