Monday September 8
Kick started the week by travelling over to London for the world premiere of Jaguar's new XE saloon. A hugely important car for the British marque, this is its opportunity to really take on the big German brands. Jaguar is of course currently riding on the crest of the cool wave following the superb F-Type and a new, sportier RS range. Add to that modern re-workings of the E-Type and MkII and you suddenly have a brand that it appears can do no wrong. Naturally so, the XE's launch was far from a sombre affair with transport to the venue via RouteMaster bus and a display of some of its most iconic cars. Entertainment came in the form of Emeli Sande, Eliza Doolittle, The Kaiser Chiefs and I ended up in a heated debate with Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain on the subject of E-Types.
Tuesday September 9
Following the XE reveal it was a reasonably early start in order to catch a flight back to Dublin where I quickly visited Honda and collected a Civic Tourer to drive for the rest of the week. And my first journey in it was back to Dublin Airport to head to Frankfurt with Opel. Just enough time to un-pack and re-pack.
Wednesday September 10
After an overnight stay in Frankfurt with Opel today's destination would be Riga in Latvia for the first drive of the new Adam Rocks - a more rugged variant of the Adam that Opel hopes will attract more male buyers. You can read what I thought of the car here. Even though we didn't do any off-road driving per se, some of Riga's roads certainly did put the Adam Rocks' upgraded suspension through its paces.
Thursday September 11
After a brief morning drive in the Adam Rocks it was time to head home via a quick pit stop in Frankfurt for some plane swapping. Usually I work when flying but this time around I decided to catch up on some shut eye and being silly season launch-wise you've got to catch it while (and wherever) you can. When I land in Dublin I'm also greeted by the first of the Civic Tourer's tasks for the week - helping a friend move house. Funny the way friends normally need to do this when you've got a big car
!
Friday September 12
Issue 3 of our iPad magazine went live so the usual flurry of social media activity kept me busy for a few hours as well as plenty of regular writing too. Test car number two arrived today in the form of Peugeot's RCZ R. To say that it turned heads would be an understatement, helped by its deep red paintwork and contrasting black roof. After even a short blast there was no questioning its potency so a road trip would be required. Thankfully Cars and Coffee Galway was on at the weekend.