Monday Oct 7
Mondays, as you may have gathered from our wittering, is the day most Irish motoring journalists change their test cars, so it's often a hectic day. This week things were made a little easier for me as Paul dropped 'my' Citroen C4 Picasso back and left me a black Toyota Corolla for the week. Automotive Team, the excellent logistics company employed by some of the distributors, also deliver a gleaming orange BMW Z4.
Having not made it to the international launch myself, this was my first chance to try the C4 Picasso and I came away very impressed. The looks will split opinion, but I like that it's different. The interior, however, should attract universal acclaim. It's usefully spacious and flexible, but it's the unique layout of the dashboard and tactile materials used that really grab my attention. And the kids love that the rear picnic tables come with their own individual lights! The new seven-seat C4 Grand Picasso should be even more compelling.
The afternoon was taken up with a meeting of the IMWA (Irish Motoring Writers Association) and a discussion on the cars eligible for the 2014 Irish Car of the Year awards. There are about 50 cars in this year's competition and plenty that would be deserving winners.
Tuesday Oct 8
First job of the day was to write up a report on the Volvo V60 D4 for Diesel Car magazine in the UK, then spend time planning my Sunday Business Post motoring for the next few weeks. Ahead of the Budget there'll be a piece on Swappage and what, according to Cartell.ie, it could mean for the car industry. I also submitted a first drive of the impressive new Opel Insignia.
The afternoon was spent meeting our IT guru, Phil, to discuss future plans for CompleteCar.ie's website and more that I can't tell you about just yet...
Wednesday Oct 9
This week I'm not travelling abroad at all, which makes a nice change, so it's catch-up time in terms of getting content for the site written, subbed and uploaded. Our traffic numbers are climbing steadily as ever and there's a lot of interest in any story to do with tax, driving licences and the Budget.
Spent a bit of time on the road in the Toyota Corolla today too. My wife reckons the black paintwork and chromed grille don't suit it, but I believe it's the most distinctive Corolla in generations. The interior is huge and well put together and it's comfortable on the road too. The 1.4-litre diesel engine is adequate, but I can't help but feel that Toyota needs a 1.6-litre unit now.
Thursday Oct 10
Once the kids are dropped off at the crèche I hightail it down to Mondello for a chance to catch up with the Citroen Ireland team. It's running a customer and dealer event where there are passenger rides in a DS3 R3 rally car (at the hands of Cork man Frank Cronin no less) and a chance to take the road cars on circuit for ourselves. I stick to the DS3 Racing and DS3 Cabrio for the track work and the latter is surprisingly not out of its depth.
Back at my desk, the afternoon goes way too quickly. There's seemingly never enough time to write everything up. I file my weekly Evening Echo copy (a review of the Fiat 500L this week) and give myself an evening off.
Friday Oct 11
We hinted at working with the Sunday Times before and today we deliver a large batch of copy to the Motoring Editor there. It's going well and we'll soon be able to reveal all.
Other than that the day is spent subbing copy from the other guys in the team and planning a few other projects we have up our sleeves. There's a lot of focus on next week's Budget so it'll be interesting to see what happens in it.