Yes, today is the day when I carry out the four weekly ritual of handing over the Instanta lottery syndicate tickets for checking by the man at the local newsagent. I stand with eager anticipation as we wait for the magical printing noise that indicates a winner. Over the last three months, the disappointment on my face as he reports nothing obviously affected him as he has taken to handing the tickets back to me so I can check for myself rather than depositing them in his waste paper basket as he used to do. I then hand him another £96 for the next four weeks and leave forlornly in the knowledge that this particular escape from the recession will have to wait another month. Unlike the person who won £110 million in Friday's Euromillions who, it appears, hasn't claimed the prize as yet. Seems that it was sold in a Madrid shop that has a lot of passing tourist trade and the ticket may be in the bottom of a bag somewhere.
At least the man in the newsagent's recognises me on my four weekly visit and greets me jovially. Pretty much like the local post office sorting office where I go every morning to collect our post as it was arriving at Instanta as late as two o'clock which is not helpful to work flow. I know all the PO staff well and they are all very pleasant, greet me by name and hand me the post straight away. All, that is, except for a lady who has been there for eight months now. She always looks at me vaguely and I have to tell her "Instanta". That is until this morning when a flash of recognition came over her face and she walked away from the counter to the piles of mail without any prompting for the first time in eight months. Recognition at last. But just as she reached the post, she turned around, walked back to the counter and said "sorry who's post is it you're collecting". Am I so forgettable?
Today is also the day when I complete the monthly management accounts. Natalie has done all the preliminary stuff this time and it looks like everything is going to balance nicely. Well done Nat, it's not the easiest job. We are in profit for the first eight months of our financial year and sales are a bit up on the first eight months of last year so I am pleased with the figures. Unless things go desperately pear shaped in the next couple of months we should have a good year, recession considering.
With the CEDABOND workshops out of the way, Marion and I can get back into our routine and Orange Wednesdays which this week will be the new Star trek movie. This is just about the last thing we would contemplate seeing but the reviews in all the papers were so good we can't miss it. It scored higher than any other film that I can remember in 2009 in the round up of the ratings from all the broadsheets. So many critics can't be wrong. Can they?
As I write, the lovely Gill from datafile software is installing a new credit control system on our computers. This means that if you now get a nasty letter from us you don't have to shout at Marion or Lauren. You can shout at the computer.
I won't expect the lady at the Post Office to be serenading me with this one.
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