Yes, I know it’s been a while since I’ve added a new post but things became somewhat hectic during December and it was almost impossible to find a ’spare’ hour to share my musings. Still, having just returned from a little holiday in Europe, I’m feeling refreshed and ready to go again, despite the prospect of opening the doors as usual tomorrow after a 10 day closure. During my week’s holiday in the Black Forest, I managed to visit the amazing new Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart, more of which I’ll share with you in later posts. One remarkable thing is that I covered almost 1800 miles, visiting France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium and can only recall seeing 3 police cars during the whole trip. I’m also quite proud in that I successfully avoided any of  the following scenarios:

  1. damaging our car (or anyone else’s)
  2. getting a speeding or parking ticket (although we may have been ‘flashed’ once passing a camera?)
  3. getting hopelessly lost (SatNav is the best invention since the car)
  4. getting a puncture (particularly on the brand new Toyo Geolander tyres I’d just fitted!)
  5. getting stuck in the snow (new snowchains remain unopened)
  6. driving on the wrong side of the road (although almost did once)
  7. filling-up with the wrong fuel

All in all, the car plus my driving license and no-claims bonus remain intact. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the inside of our Mitsubishi Outlander! I’ve discovered that traveling with young children (despite having an integrated DVD player and screen to keep them quiet) is a very messy affair. If any readers have any tips about how to remove fragments of pretzel, flakes of croissant, trimmings of ham and small pieces of Gouda cheese from almost every crevice and gap in the interior, I’d love to know. Looking in the back of the car after we arrived home today made me feel guilty for abusing it so mercilessly. After all, apart from refilling the screenwash reservoir with undiluted fluid at a service station somewhere between Achen and Stuttgart when it was snowing and -3 degrees, I haven’t even opened the bonnet to check the oil once. It really has been a wonderful traveling companion and I’ve quite bonded with it now and will be sorry to see it go at the end of the lease period.  Apart from a slightly rattly engine cover, the 2.2 litre TurboDiesel has behaved faultlessly and averaged over 37MPG for the whole trip. Only one bit has fallen off it (the chrome door handle cover on the nearside front), and the driver’s footwell carpet has worn through in a couple of places.  I reckon that after a full valet, you’d never know what it had suffered over the last 10 days.

Speaking of suffering, it’s back to reality tomorrow and time to get busy with repairing our customer’s cars that did go wrong over Christmas. Let’s hope it’s a busy month as there’s nothing more painful to a small business owner than closing for a few days (even if he did manage to squeeze in a little holiday).

To all my readers, I’d like to wish you a happy and prosperous 2010 and if any of you were thinking of spending £300 on membership of a gym, don’t bother - just book your car with us for a full service instead - it’s a much more satisfying experience!

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