Fit to Drive?

As you will have noticed from my first few blogs, I grew up in the garage business and although I was always surrounded by cars, I only started driving when I was 17 - the legal age in the UK. Thankfully, with lots of driving practise between driving lessons, I passed first time within a few months. I did have an incentive, in that I was courting the young lady who became my wife, with whom I share my life with still.

So, before I get all sentimental,

Read More

Using DoDo for Claying

This is the final part of the mini series on how I prepare our cars for weddings and executive travel and specifically steps 5, 8 & 9 I mentioned in the first blog on the series a few weeks ago. 

  • Use a clay cloth with juice to remove the deeper road grime

  • Apply deep polish to remove swirls etc and polish off with clean microfibre cloth

  • Apply deep carnauba wax to lock in the shine and give further protection and buff up with clean microfibre cloth

Initially, it is all about preparing the surfaces ready for polish, which is done with

Read More

Its All About Timing

My initial plan this afternoon was to snow foam 2 cars, shampoo, rinse and dry off. This is following a family pick up from Heathrow T5 with loads of luggage in the silver XFS and take back to Gloucestershire. The weather early this morning was wet, so the car became very mucky.

However, as I applied all the snow foam as discussed in my last blog, to both cars, it was raining a little, and as so often happens in our country, the rain turned into what can be loosely called

Read More

It's Snowing in Summer!

Continuing the mini series on preparing our cars for either weddings or our executive travel services, one of my favourite stages is applying the snow foam.

So why do I use snow foam as the initial step and is this done every time and what is it? 

I snow foam only when the car is

Read More

Washing Day Again!

I mentioned at the end of last week’s blog since our family holidays in our blue S Type, that she has been given a deep clean and now that she is only used for weddings. This leads me to answer what many have asked me since we turned professional - how often do you clean your cars as they are always pristine?

Well, to state the obvious, they do get

Read More

Why Jaguar?

On my travels and at the networking meetings I attend, I am often asked why I chose Jaguars. When I purchased our first Jaguar 11 years ago, I was working within a global corporate company and previously owned a Vauxhall Omega.

At the time when we needed to change our family car, which was also used to travel for work, Vauxhall no longer manufactured Omegas and didn’t produce anything near the size that we had become used to. So, having driven Vauxhalls for many years, I had to go on the search and test drive many different cars.

When I was being chauffeur driven for

Read More

Presenting.....

During the corporate jobs over the past 15-20 years, I was required to do many presentations, stand up and address varying people of different levels in the companies. As I've mentioned in past blogs, travel was a big part of my previous job. I was required to go Milan, Italy a few times to do some training and presentations, although there is one trip I will not forget. 

The day I was travelling I

Read More

Enter Mr Bean!

During my time working for a company that was in Swindon, I was given the opportunity for overseas travel, visiting a number of countries including regular trips to Copenhagen. My three daughters and I had made an unspoken deal in the family that each time I went overseas I would bring a gift I could only get from that country. Some times it was special Danish cakes and other times wafer thin chocolate that I thought was only available in Denmark. Years later my eldest daughter

Read More

Dazzled by the Light

Around 2001, when I was working for the software company, my employer had a job for me in central Manchester which required me to stay over during the week. As it happens, my younger sister and her family lived in nearby Preston. One evening, after work, I popped in to see them. On my way back to my hotel in Manchester, I found that I was unable to actually see the road signs indicating which junction off the orbital M60 motorway to come off. In fact, they were dazzling bright and I realised I could not focus as everything was a blur! This was very frightening

Read More

Keeping The Balance

Fast forwarding a few years, in 1983 as a couple, my wife and I settled in Royal Wootton Bassett and had 2 daughters. I was still working as an accountant for various different companies in the local area (not at the same time!), and progressed through many disciplines of accountancy roles. At the company where I worked as Group Chief Accountant in Swindon, I reported to a person with the same name as the then current Prime Minister,

Read More