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

JEEVES LOVES HIS SHEEP SKIN STEERING WHEEL COVERS

This year Jeeves got special Christmas presents from his Swedish extended family who are very experienced with the trials and tribulations of sub-zero weather conditions. To say that these steering wheel covers have been life-changing would be an understatement. He is like a new taxi! We LOVE them!

Mia falling asleep at the sheepskin wheel

The product warning should read: "Beware: Drivers may accidentally fall asleep at the wheel"

Over the last few months Jeeves has been lucky enough to have a secure lock up, courtesy of Lee and Kathryn from the fabulous Lock 7 cafe in Broadway Market. They so kindly let us part Jeeves there whilst Mia and I get our act together and sort out some more permanent parking solution.

Jacqui modelling our summer steering wheel

As we mentioned earlier, we got a front passengers seat installed when we first got Jeeves, this was probably the best thing we ever did. This is me modelling what it would be like if the guys down at the taxi garage could also install an extra steering wheel. This would be extra helpful for the times when Mia falls asleep at the wheel.

The steering wheel cover is so soft and fluffy, who could blame her?

There she goes again. She works too hard!

BUILD YOUR OWN JEEVES

We found this little Jeeves craft kit at the London transport museum, and thought it would be a great christmas present for people in general... and dads specifically. In fact, the London transport museum was a great place to find lots of goodies related to... London... and transport.

Build your own black cab for just £7.99!

Below you can see the finished result, as put together by Jacqui's dad in Sydney. Stay tuned for more mini Jeeves's from other parts of the world... specifically Sweden!

Beautifully crafted

We are not obsessive or anything... but LOVE cab stuff, so if anyone has any links or other pictures of Black Cab memorabilia, please send it to us and we will post it here to share.

Crafty Cab

It's been Christmas and New Year, so first of all; a very happy 2011 to all of you!

I decided to do a little cross stitching as a Christmas gift for Jacqui, and what better inspiration than Jeeves.

Jeeves immortalised in thread

She took it all the way to Australia were she was visiting family over the holidays, so it was almost like sending a little effigy of Jeeves to test if he can deal with the warm climate (and floods, as it looks at the moment!) in case we ever manage to, in some epic way, drive all the way there.

Jacqui and her brother Trevor at Bondai Beach

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.

BUTTONS AND KNOBS

This post is all about the buttons and knobs inside Jeeves... they operate everything from whether the car is ready to be started, heating and lights to the cappuccino maker, passenger ejection seat, and the all-important turbo button... good for the motorway. More on that later in this post.

First, we want to introduce you to our winter friend, the little blue box. We tried starting the back window de-mister as it fogs up a lot when its cold, but it didn't seem to work. We went to see our friends at the garage and they told us that there was a small blue box that should be plugged in, but was missing. This magic box makes the de-mister work. 

The magic blue box in situe

Mr friendly mechanic got us one from a dead taxi which was so nice of him as the are usually around £50 and often 'go missing' as ours had. Our back window will now stay clear and de-misted all through the winter. The de-mister works on a timer for 15 minutes as people used to forget to turn it off and drain their batteries.

The blue box

The buttons below are just on the middle of the dash board and and indicate various lights. (from left to right)

Button 1: interior light for the back passanger area
Button 2: interior light for drivers area (front)
Button 3: don't know as it doesn't seem to work (clues welcome)
Button 4: hazard light (thank you button for people behind)
Button 5: don't know, but same symbol as button 1 (clues also welcome)
Button 6: back window de-mister

All the little buttons on the dash board

The hazard light which is nice communicator with fellow drivers

The magic turbo button

So, back to the all important Turbo Button. This button basically allows the car to go into the fourth gear. It is the small square button next to the gear stick, in the picture above. When you press it the green light (in the picture below, to the right of the steering wheel) turns off and you can swoosh down the motorway like all the other cars.

Start indicator lights

These lights also indicates if the car is ready to go. When you first start the ignition the orange and the green light comes on and then when only the green light is on you are ready to go!