With only 10 days to go until I leave leafy Worcestershire for Molly's Hebridean Adventure, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been part of this thread and given me so much useful information and so many tips. As you will see below I have taken a lot of these on board.
I have just collected Molly from Pickersleigh Road today where she had a pre road trip service and check over. I borrowed a new Plus 4 for the couple of days that she was there. It was my first drive of the new model. I really liked the engine, with a noticeable improvement in performance and a lovely exhaust note especially when blasting down the lanes. The car I borrowed had some seats with lumbar support which were really comfortable. I didn't like the new dials as much as the Smiths ones on my 2007 model. Borrowing a car with a press stud roof also made me realise just how much I love the hood on Molly which takes a fraction of the time to put up and down.
As well as a service, I had a Librands footwell locker fitted. I know from other threads that people think these are expensive and I should have forged one myself out of steel. However, I am a ham fisted pen pusher so it is more important to me to spend my hard earned cash paying people who are good at making such things and others to fit them! It looks great.
The factory put together an emergency bulbs/fuses/breakdown set for me. Included in the bag, mysteriously is a 500g bag of 75mm galvanised nails. I have no idea if this is a practical joke against the company's former auditor that I am missing or just a mistake and the construction of some vital partition in the factory might be held up for the sake of the missing bag of nails. Time will not doubt tell.
My cigarette lighter has been useless at holding a plug in it since the car was new so I had that changed over to a power socket which will be much more useful for powering the satnav on my iPhone and charging the Pebble battery charger which will keep my gadgets going when I am climbing up a few hills or looking at the yardages of some lovely links courses on Golfshot.
I had my tyres changed a few weeks ago. Whilst my mileage wasn't high, they were perishing a bit through age. I got a new set of Avons from the wonderful A44 Tyre Station in Worcester. If you have not used Eddie, Dan and Russ at A44 you should. I do not know another business that I have used (and I include some pretty fancy hotels around the world on business trips) that has provided a better around service to my family than A44. They are hyper polite (it's like stepping back into the 1950's), good value and amazingly straight. How many tyre places do you know where you can be sent away 4 or 5 times with "come back in 1,500 miles and let's see how we are doing then" before they sell you some tyres? They were saint like in dealing with my barking mad late father who had his tyres checked every week virtually despite doing about 1,000 miles a year - nothing was ever too much bother for them - he probably drank more of their coffee than they ever made in profit from him!
They have engineered their own tool to fit on the balancing jig to cope with wires because the number of Morgans they service.
The result of all of this is that Molly is looking pretty good I think:
www.flickr.com/photos/85842657@N04/sets/72157646291985509/
(Please can someone remind me what I am meant to put in [ ] for a link such as this - I could't find the answer but I know it is there somewhere).
As well as my satnav I have bought an up to date version of the brilliant Philips Road Atlas - Navigator Britain which at 1.5 miles to an inch shows lanes and villages better than any others.
On your advice I have bought some Avon Skin so Soft to beat the midges. It did a bloody good job when road tested in Ardnamurchan in July so I'm hoping the Hebrides in September should be easier.
For my luggage I have bought a Boot Bag which seems to fit the bill nicely, and again on your advice, have bought an Overboard waterproof duffle bag. It looks so good I'm tempted to leave it out in the rain just to prove a point!
Given my need to keep a pencil bag of golf clubs out of view in the passenger footwell where possible whilst en route around the islands, I have taken your advice on making better use of my tonneau. Having not used it much at all previously I have used it a lot this year and enjoyed it.
Anyway, enough waffle from me, just a big thank you for your help. I will be posting some updates of my trip on Twitter @biffosmith14 and doing some blogging on
www.ianjcsmith.blogspot.co.uk when I set off on 1st September.
