THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER

We have been on a trip top Australia for two months, and unfortunately we could not pack Jeeves in our suitcases. So we handed over the keys to Tim and hoped he would keep Jeeves running and happy in our absence.

These lovely moments were captured by Quinn Bisset on Tim and his trip to the White Cliffs of Dover. We think it looks like Jeeves is having a pretty good time.

On the road

Jeeves and Tim by the romantic sun set.

The Dover Team

EPPING FOREST

 A few weeks ago (well actually a few months ago) we went on a little adventure to Epping forest. We would like to say that we wanted to get some fresh country air, but the truth is that we needed to give Jeeves a good drive as his battery had seen better days from lack of a nice long drive. Too many short trips around Hackney was not doing him very good. So here are a few snaps from the trip.

THE ROYAL WEDDING DAY

It was Friday 29th april, 2011 and declared a bank holiday thanks to the royal wedding.

 

We hosted a little tea and scones event at our place on Broadway Market in the morning and in the afternoon we decided to take Jeeves for a spin around town to see what was going on.

Darwin enjoying a little indulgence

Jeeves with his Royal bunting

Mia making sure the royal bunting is properly attached

First we went towards Old street and whilst we quickly checked whether the congestion charge was being upheld on this royal occasion, we drove a few times around Old Street round about. Luckily Boris had given us the day off the Congestion charge, so we decided to cruise on into town to see how far we could get before chaos ensued.

Jeeves with Jacqui

We decided to pop into Soho where some friends were having a few drinks on Old Compton street, so we joined them for a lemonade and gave Suzie who had been up all night camping to get a prime position for the wedding, a lift to Charing Cross station for her to get home. Jeeves quite enjoyed having a cab full of people and on this Royal occasion, calling out to friendly revellers on the street was more than acceptable.

Susie, Gary, Scott, Paul, Mia, Jacqui and Jeeves in Soho Square

Here we are in Soho Square where we found a nice spot for Jeeves to park by the mini Tudor house. All in all it was a very fun day out in town. A spontaneous little trip turned into a royal social afternoon.

HAPPY EASTER

Jeeves was given a spring clean recently, and that must have started something, as we receieved an image from one of the Mini-Jeeves' scattered around the world. Below you can see yet another Swedish mini-Jeeves (build by Mia's parents) going for a invigorating car wash as he is getting ready for the easter holidays.

A-peeling car wash

Mini-Jeeves then got all dolled up, to take part in the easter festivities. The tradition is that you dress up as a little witch and go around giving easter cards to people, hopefully receiving candy or maybe some lovely air-fresheners in exchange. 

Jeeves hanging out with the easter witch and some chicks

Our non-nordic readers might want to notice the snow still in the background. It might be summer here in England, but there are still pockets of snow in the north of Sweden. This trio of little people are off to Blåkulla to have a proper witches easter feast. And as they will of course travel by broom stick, Mini-Jeeves can have a little rest too.

SPRING CLEAN

Here in London there has been such an amazing summer weather lately that you could almost think it is june already. But we are still in april, and with Easter coming up we thought it was high time for a spring clean.

We drove past the garage on Kingsland Road in Hackney and got an excellent hand wash and a very thorough vacuum and clean on the inside for £10. After a moment of worrying if it might be the dirt that kept some of poor old Jeeve's parts together, we saw that the guys were doing a really good job and it was like having a new car. He has never been this clean for as long as he has lived with us!

Getting a shampooing

Jacqui stayed put in the driver seat during the wash, but I had to jump out after discovering that the passenger seat door was a little less sealed than wanted, giving me a good shower too. 

Get all that dirt off me!

We were charged the same price as a 'normal' car even thought they would have charged a bit more for a 4x4 or similar size. So we were very happy about that! One of the very helpful guys even got the 'tire-shine' out for us as a final touch.

Jacqui has been caught in the shower

JEEVES EARNING HIS KEEP

We are proud to tell you that Jeeves is no longer just another retired cab who thinks he can get away with just hanging around being fed diesel when ever he likes and going on nights out flirting with Mini Coopers. The other week we made use of him by picking up a friend from the airport. Catherine came carrying suitcases so massive even Jeeves got worried they might not fit in. But of course they did, and we even received a donation towards Jeeves' diesel habits!

Jeeves is back in the fold

JEEVES THE SNOWMOBILE

There might be little signs of spring out there, with blossoms on the trees and occasional kisses of warm wind in the air, but winter is not over yet!  We received this image from snowy Sweden, showing the troubles of being a very small Jeeves in the claws of Father Frost.

Who forgot to change to winter tires?

This mini-Jeeves was built by Stefan, Mia's brother-in-law and is really being put to the test by the elements! We might send a 'Build-your-own-tow-truck' to save him!

THE CAR BOOT BUG!

We have definitely caught the Car Boot Bug and have yet again been to sell our worldly possessions for a penny a piece. Our local car boot is Princess May School in Stoke Newington. Its run by the London Car Boot Co. and is a really nice and friendly one with lots of returning customers and sellers.

Welcome to our shop!

This Sunday was a little empty at first as rain was predicted, but we still made a good profit as more people showed up later on. We are looking forward to a few more of these, especially when the weather is warmer.. brrrr! Jeeves makes it so easy to stick everything in the back and drive down. Once you get over the fact that you have to get up at 5.30 in the morning! And Jeeves loves to earn his own money.

Some of the carefully selected items on display

We also had great company by Jacqui's brother Kevin, his girlfriend Suzana and also Shawn and Carling who were all trying their luck in the car boot business.

Our 'shop' was hugely improved by the use of two massive tables that we borrowed from our friends at Moraes of Manna, who serves up very tasty thai food at Broadway Market every saturday. Well worth a visit!!

The car boot gang and some happy customers

We love car boots! On both sides of the stalls. This time we didn't get anything for ourselves but last time Jacqui found a brilliant Liberty Print shirt. And we are hoping that the guy who we sold these exiting objects to, below, is happy with the purchase. After all, health and safety is key!

The latest trend in face-wear

NAUGHTY JEEVES

It was the friday night of one of those weekends when you just want to stay in.  We had been invited to a party which we were going to drive to later that evening. Mia was driving back from work and parked Jeeves in a spot across the road that should have been fine for the moment whilst we quicky got ready to go out... But, we didn't go out... Jeeves stayed there the night rather than being parked in his proper little house.

The next day was Saturday, and the flu hit bad, we were both feeling sick, Mia was tucked into bed most of the weekend with Mia-flu and I was quite happy to potter around and make hot drinks for the bed bound lady. That evening, I looked out the window to Jeeves but couldn't quite see him around the corner. We thought nothing of it and went to bed.

Saturday came and went... London was miserably cold. We stayed in.

Sunday came and went... London was miserably cold. We stayed in.

Monday came... I went to move Jeeves to his correct little parking space where he has to go during the week days.

No Jeeves to be seen. I stood in the street for a while half expecting him to appear. I ran back upstairs and said to Mia "Jeeves is gone", she laughed and said, 'ha ha thats funny, now can i have some lemonade" ... but he was. He had been taken by the council to the car pound. :(

I bundled poor Mia up as  I didn't have the courage to go by myself to this foreign nasty place to find Jeeves, whats more, we found out on the phone, that yes, they had him, but he would cost £340 to be released... and if we got there after 10.50am, it would go up to £380.

Oh dear, what has Jeeves been up to?

We found out that we had parked Jeeves in a spot which was fine for Friday and Sunday, but not Saturday. From Saturday morning, until Monday morning, he wasn't even there - across the road, but at Limehouse car pound hanging out with the other disfunctional cars... or dyslexic cars that can't read parking signs properly.

Let me out you bastards!

To be fair, the people who towed poor Jeeves away to the pound had a fairly slick operation. They lift up the cars up and place them on huge trucks for transportation without leaving marks.  But for £340, you would hope so! Waiting in the waiting room, we were also treated like hardened criminals, and a word of advice, don't try joking around with these people, becuase they are not having any of it!

Almost free!

We'd like to say that we learnt a lesson from the whole experience but to be honest Jeeves could have done with saving a bit of pocket money up before he decided to go and get banged up. And we  suppose you are not a proper London driver until you lose your car to a nasty money-making pound.

But, for all those black cab drivers out there, the lesson is that there is no special treatement for being a London icon, no-sir-ee, poor old Jeeves was in there with all the other late night ravers.

Free at last! i'm never going back in there again!

We all kept our cool and were philosphical about the whole experience. Jeeves now sleeps in his proper home and Mia and I read signs about 10 times before parking.

FOAM MATTRESS

We had a slightly crazy idea that we could sleep in Jeeves. Make him pay his way in the form of a hotel room. We do plan on a more sophisticated method of making a bed in the back, but for starters we thought we would try a piece of custom cut foam to place in the back on the floor.

Holy moly which foam should we get?

Pentonville rubber is an old-school and great shop on Pentonville road near angel (104-106 Pentonville road, N1 9JB to be precise) They have a huge range of different densities and shapes of foam including tubular foam that was being purchased at our time of visit by a guy who was going to use it to make huge 'spagetti hair' for a prop. 

Trying to decipher the complex world of foam

We were lucky because we were able to get our foam cut to size in about 10 minutes while we waited. In case anyone is interested in this ridiculous amount of detail, the size to fit on the floor in the back is 52cm x 172cm. We chose medium density foam in  3inch thickness which was pretty comfortable for a nights sleep here and there. It cost us about £30 and should "last a lifetime".

Mia with our cut-to-size foam bed

The opening hours are normal working hours during the week 9-5pm, 10am-3pm on Saturdays and its closed on Sundays. 

Stay tuned for futher progress on the sleeping conversion.

ADVENTURE TO RICHMOND PARK

Richmond Park, south London

The autumn is here and the perfect time to get out of the city and smell some nature. Richmond Park felt like a good choice as it is Deer Rut season and we could see some stags prancing around the fields. We decided to go around and pick up a bunch of friends and have a picnic amongst the trees and the dog walkers. 

Mia with the appropriate chauffeur head gear

We drove down from Hackney across Tower Bridge, and made our way to Richmond Park. It was such a nice drive and we fitted everyone into the spacious belly of Jeeves. As we drove through the park there were hordes of deers, so we got out quota of wild-life-spotting filled.

The Deers of Richmond Park

It was also an opportunity to thank Michael and Claire, who came along on the first viewing of Jeeves to be moral support and lend their opinion on the purchase.

Michael, Sam, Catrin and Claire enjoying the passenger area

And yes, those are optics that you can see in the right hand side of the picture. The former owners left them from when they transformed the back of Jeeves into a small bar, and we found them quite handy for our passengers.

After arriving at the park, we even found a car park where everyone could have a little go at being a cabbie.

Milla is testing her knowledge, but Mia and Jacqui are blocking the drive way 

Handsome Jeeves in all his glory

We also got to use our folding picnic table. It fits perfectly in to the boot when folded up, but also fits in the back of the cab when set up for candle lit indoor taxi dinners.

A perfect autumn picnic

The taxi picnic cake made by Milla after Mia dropped the camera in it.