For these past two weeks, I've been working at an English magazine based in Brussels for work experience, as I'm interested in going into journalism. It was fantastic to see how the company worked, even though I spent a lot of time fiddling about aimlessly on my laptop, trying to find things to do - but I still learnt a lot and had a great time. On Wednesday I saw a very different side of the company, however, as the publisher has recently bought a vintage ice cream van to use in an advertising campaign for the magazine, and he took me and the other intern along to an old, slightly dingy garage where it's parked - our job was basically revamp it ready for an event this coming weekend.

The van is a seriously vintage 1950s model, with all the original gizmos and in full working order. However it was absolutely covered in stickers showing ice cream prices, so we spent two afternoons peeling all those off after blasting them with a hairdryer for about 5 minutes first. Then we scrubbed the paintwork inside and outside with white spirit to get rid of the gluey marks that were left behind. It was quite messy work, but the end result was immensely satisfying!

This is what the van looked like after one day's effort. There were still quite a lot of stickers left on, but originally all the windows were plastered with them.