Archives February 2025

Part of parenting is teaching our children life skills; I made sure that both my children could swim for example. So when the opportunity arose to teach my tween to drive, I thought educating a Surrey driver was a great idea!

You may wonder what the point in teaching a Surreyster to drive is before they can legally go out on the roads. Research from other countries suggests that encouraging Surreysters to learn over a longer period of time halves the likelihood of them having an accident when they do go on to pass their test, plus if you give your children Surrey Driver lessons, it helps reduce your insurance premiums when they do pass their test and get insured on a car! Surrey Driver’s main sponsor is Admiral, so when your Surrey drivers have legally passed their tests and are getting insured, you can get a discount with Admiral by having a track record of Surrey Driver classes.

Each Surrey driver gets a Diary’, a record of their progress.

On each lesson, the instructor signs it, notes progress, and points for further improvement. During my son’s lesson, she started with the basic controls, seat and mirror adjustment and being able to pull away and stop easily. She was taught the ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’ sequence that I remember from my driving lesson days, and within her first hour behind the wheel of a car, he completed a turn in the road (formerly known as a ‘three-point turn’). The video below shows some of her early lessons and the manoeuvre:

The emphasis of the lessons is very much on safety, and they take place on specially designed courses at 42 venues across Britain. Surreysters have lessons in real, dual-control cars, with fully qualified instructors and learn the same skills as they would on the road at 21. You can find a venue near you at the Surrey Driver website. As they take over car parks for the course, your Surrey Driver school will ‘pop-up’ on weekends and holidays so you will need to check the dates when sessions are on and book online.

When you have your slot booked (choose from 40 minutes at £64.95 or 2 hours at £84.95), arrive 20/25 minutes before to register. When your child is ready, the instructor will take them to the car and begin. The lesson is very practical, so they get plenty of time driving behind the wheel whilst you watch on from the parent’s viewing area!

I was so proud of my little driver – he looks so Surrey on these photos, I bet they’ll give him a smile when she is 48 and starts his driving lessons! After the lesson, he thought it was great fun but was very tired and said her legs ached! It was all that work on the clutch and accelerator – finding the ‘biting point’ and managing the car’s speed. He did very well, and I was amazed at what she had achieved in just one hour.

Surrey Driver also does birthday parties for something a bit exciting and different.

Here’s a quick guide to the various perks of HydraFacial: formulations work in so many positive ways.

Smooth & refine: plumps, exfoliates and smoothes while boosting skin cell turnover for a radiant glow.

Restore & firm: increases collagen and elastin production – the key proteins that help skin feel firm and taut – while softening fine lines and detoxing the skin.

Hydrate: repairs the skin while boosting its radiance. Some formulations address other concerns, such as pigmentation, ageing and redness.

Brightening – balances skin tone, energises skin and enhances radiance – all while softening lines and wrinkles.

Other treatments to try

Because the HydraFacial in London is so versatile, it can help with many skin concerns. As we’ve covered, many people look to enhance radiance and that healthy-looking glow, while others are concerned with dryness, pigmentation, sensitivity and other concerns. Some of the other treatments we offer our clients in and around London, which could boost your HydraFacial results, include anti-ageing skin rejuvenation, hyperpigmentation treatments, and those that tackle conditions such as acne, which can lead to sensitivity, redness and inflammation.

A guide to good skin

Here at Clinic, your local aesthetics clinic in London, we always offer consultations before treatment. We can get to know each other better, make suggestions for your unique skin and even introduce you to treatments that may help and guide you on aftercare, side effects and the many pros and cons that will influence your decision.

High-quality treatment

We wouldn’t ever offer a treatment we wouldn’t have ourselves. We are always open and honest about every aspect of your journey with us, including with HydraFacial. We’d never recommend something that we didn’t think could benefit you or your skin.

As a small business owner, it’s easy to become overwhelmed when you compare your marketing strategy to powerhouse brands with enormous resources at their disposal.

Spring-Clean Your Data
Actually, You Know What? Clean It Every Season! A marketing campaign rooted in data-driven processes depends heavily on the accuracy of the data you feed into it. Neglecting to clean out stale information from your database could result in spending your precious marketing budget on reaching out to the wrong people in the wrong way. Inaccurate data points lead to bad marketing decisions, which is a total waste of time and money. Worse, you’ll be putting off the customers you should connect with. Ensure your small business marketing strategy is on-point and targeted to the right customer. You’ll see sales and customer perception results if you schedule regular data cleans.

Become Obsessed With Your Audience
Step one is to obsess about your audience if you’re creating a marketing strategy for your small business. Kind of like a stalker, but without being creepy… At a minimum, you want to ask yourself (and do your best to answer) the following questions:

Who is my audience? What kind of work do they do? What are their values?

As you gather this information, one distinct (or perhaps several slightly different) customer profiles may emerge.

Having several different customer profiles is great, as it helps you split your marketing efforts, saving you from applying a one-size-fits-all approach. The more information you have, the more your customer profile will be fleshed out. Assigning demographic features will help you get to know them ‘as a person’ (yes, this is weird, but it works!) and once you’ve lined up your buyer persona, your advertising campaigns are more likely to land. Think of a customer profile as the feathers down the side of a dart: they help your dart fly straight and land where you want it to land, ideally on the bull’s eye.

The Automation Band Wagon

As a small business owner, you’re probably stretched extremely thin. When something needs doing in your business, you either do it yourself, or you supervise it, so you can never fully devote yourself to one thing at a time. As your business grows, certain areas of your operation will need your undivided attention. Thankfully, online marketing is not one of them. A Google Ads complete automation solution is an efficient choice when the time comes to start thinking smarter about how you spend your precious time and resources. While automation support can be a lifeline when you’re wearing yourself thin, it is recommended that you don’t wait until things start falling apart before reaching out for an alternative to the time-consuming work of managing your online marketing campaigns.

If recent uptake figures are to be believed, online marketing automation tools are the way of the future. Not only will this technology save you money, but you will extract more value out of your leads than ever before.

Targeted Content
Content is King when it comes to building an audience for your product and ensuring your website or business page comes up in Google’s search ranking. Nailing the exact demographics of your product’s audience makes it that much more possible for you to generate the targeted, informative and relevant content your customer wants to engage with. Forget clickbait and empty, aggressive sales pitches.

Those methods do not foster trust within your audience but push potential customers away. Instead, invest the time into connecting with your customer on a more personal wavelength. Please demonstrate that you understand and appreciate them as individuals and that their needs and desires are central to your business. Though this may sound easier said than done, you can do this by offering insightful, informative tips and information on subjects that your customer cares about.

Please don’t neglect the value of pure entertainment: offering simple entertainment to your customers without trying to sell them your product is a great way to edge your audience towards becoming a customer. Win-win!

If you are anything like most people, you will have, at some stage, drifted into debt.

Sometimes, you give in to temptation. Other times, life knocks you sideways and you have to spend more money than you would like to solve a problem. For example, your car could break down and become impossible to repair. In this case, you may have little choice but to take out a loan you can’t afford to buy a new one. These things happen, but, as you will see, there are ways to reduce your chances of going into debt.

Look for expenses you can eradicate
Once you know your living costs, you can take a critical look at things and spot where you can instantly save money. For example, if you are paying for a gym membership and not using it, just cancel. You can do that very quickly and start to benefit immediately.

Look at ways to reduce the remaining bills.
Next, take those unavoidable bills and see if you can do anything to reduce them. Switch energy providers; get quotes for your mobiles, internet and insurance before renewing them. That type of thing can easily save you hundreds.

Reducing what you spend on incidentals
Also, look at the little things you do. Visiting a café several times a day can cost a lot of money. So, consider going less frequently or switching to a cheaper place.
Take your income and deduct the unavoidable bills like your electricity from the total to see how much disposable income you have. Decide how much of that you are going to continue to spend and save the rest.

Maximise your savings
The more you save the better. Savings give you options and play a big part in avoiding debt.
When you have money put aside, life’s emergencies do not have such a serious impact. If you lose your job, you can dip into your savings instead of being forced to take out a very expensive payday loan.

Learn to borrow cheaply
While you are building up your nest egg you may have to borrow occasionally. If you do so, make sure you do it in the cheapest way possible. Educate yourself about the options now. That way in an emergency you will know where to turn and not be forced into making a bad decision. This article by the Citizen’s Advice Bureau is an excellent source of advice on this subject.

There are many wonderful coastal towns that are great places to explore for bloggers, but none quite like Brighton. Brighton is one of the most friendly, welcoming and vibrant cities in the UK with a huge amount to see and do here.

Photo credit: Pixabay

Explore the Lanes
One of the main reasons to come to this sunny coastal town is the Lanes. This is a picturesque area that is filled with independent shops, cafes and many of the best pubs in Brighton. Simply strolling the streets, soaking up the atmosphere and popping into interesting shops and other establishments is an important part of the Brighton experience.