Brian is a Volkswagen Transporter Campervan, born in the Netherlands on 29th June 1988. We found him in Utrecht in June 2011 and took him on a three month adventure around Eastern Europe. We were hopelessly naive about campervans but we at least gave him a really good clean before blowing the electrical circuits of an entire Belgian campsite.

We learned to live with his inability to climb hills, wing mirrors that bent in the wind, a gearbox that defied logic and a handbrake that only worked on the flat among many other endearing features. We never did master the internal electric system though, which became more of a problem when we ran out of gas in Croatia and found that our Dutch bottle could only be replaced in the Netherlands!

On the upside, we only had two minor bumps and when one of our tyres was about to explode on the Autobahn we did find a garage just in time. After such an adventure we couldn’t face parting with Brian so we left him safe for the winter near Utrecht before being once again reunited for another adventure that you can read about in my Life With Brian blog.

You can also learn more about Brian and follow his most recent adventure in my book, The Tea Leaf Paradox, available from Amazon and featured on the main page of this site. Here are a few photos of our Brian for you to admire.

The one on the left is taken at Hoddom Castle Camping and Caravan Park near Lockerbie on the first night of the Scottish brewery tour that led to the book. The picture in the middle was taken on Skye and was used for the cover of the book. The one on the right shows Brian looking out across the Firth of Forth.