The Hon Peregrin Widdrington. What a guy!

While taking a short break in Lancashire at the weekend we came across the lovely medieval church of Mitton near Clitheroe. There were a number of memorial stones within the church but this one particularly caught my eye.It is a eulogy to the Hon Peregrin Widdrington who died in 1743. It is so gushing that I wish I could have met him. If anybody writes anything like it in my memory I will be reet chuffed (the weekend in rural Lancashire is rubbing off). At least I would be if I was around to read it. Here it is in full

"The Hon Peregrin Widdrington was of so amiable a disposition and so ingageing that He was belov'd and esteemed by all who had the honour and happiness of his Acquaintance being ever ready to oblige and to act the Friendly part on all occasions Firm and Steadfast in all his Principles which was delicately fine as Good as could be with'd in any Man, he was both sincere and agreeable in life and Conversation"





We stayed at the award winning The Ashton in Lancaster. Positioned just below the famous Ashton Memorial, this excellent small hotel offered an outstanding level of comfort and the host James was charming, attentive and a very good cook. We went with friends who were celebrating a wedding anniversary and a very pleasant time was had by all. Check out The Ashton here. You won't be disappointed.



And, thanks to host James, instead of driving around aimlessly on Sunday, we went to this beautiful garden on his recommendation. The garden of Gresgarth Hall opens just six days every year but, to our good fortune, yesterday was one of them. It is the home of garden designer and writer Arabella Lennox-Boyd and it is quite magnificent. The WI were serving home made cakes (very Jam and Jerusalem) and the whole event was so quintessentially English that it would have been no surprise if Miss Marple had wandered into view. The Head Gardeners are looking for volunteer gardeners and Marion was keen to enlist.



I am delighted with the interest in our Sous Vide equipment. We may not have sold many yet but enquiries are flooding in and we are stepping up production in anticipation of turning the enquiries into firm orders.

I'll finish today with a Polish Yeti. Why? Why not!

The Sun Has Got His Hat On

I know, I know. It's hardly earth shattering news that the sun is shining today here in Southport but after several dreary, wet and dull weeks it feels like it is. So here is Instanta with not a cloud in sight. I had to photograph it as goodness knows when we will get another day like this this year.



Let's hope it's tomorrow as we've been invited to join some friends for a wedding anniversary celebration and plan to have a trip to the Trough of Bowland followed by a night at The Ashton near Lancaster. It got a great review in the Guardian so we are looking forward to it.



I spent all morning discussing our pensions. It's not easy at 55 is it? Especially with interest rates as low as they are at the moment. We talked over all the options and came up with............nothing!




If you are in our Guardian Pick The Score League, don't forget that, after a week off it's back this week. Usually when this happens there's someone who forgets.It's early days yet and nobody has broken clear of the pack just yet.


Channel Four is devoting an hour to Derren Brown's explanation of his lottery trick tonight. An hour! Here it is in under a minute. Have a good weekend.

Phew

Blimey it's twelve minutes past four and I have only just got around to the blog. I seem to be losing my touch or maybe we are simply too busy. I haven't even had a lunch break today. Marion won't have a lot of sympathy as it's usually "I haven't even had a work break today" but anyway the reason? Annual Accounts. And I am pleased to say that they are now done and balanced (well they were 99p wrong but I'm not going to waste hours looking for that).The upshot? We ended the year with sales 0.4% down on last year. However the overheads were also down by a much larger figure so the next result is that profits were up (hooray!!). And bearing in mind that this is after we shared out £13,200 in productivity bonuses compared to £3,600 last year I am pretty pleased with the results. Next step is to discuss the staff annual wage round based on these results and the inflation figures.




I hear that Derren Brown correctly predicted the lottery results last night. Or at least he did a brilliant trick to give the illusion of doing so.He's a great magician and he's going to tell us all how he did it on Friday.I can only imagine that it involved a stooge who was very carefully hidden.Son Paul went to see him live a few months ago but we have never got around to discussing the show with him.Or perhaps Paul just had the illusion of going to see him.



Whilst Derren was predicting the lottery The Faroe Islands were messing up my football accumulator by actually winning a match. Flushed with success of taking my Betfair kitty from £150 to £800 in the last few weeks I had a seven team accumulator on the World Cup Qualifiers and The Faroes messed it up. Fortunately I had a back up of another accumulator which won but my £800 is down to £750 now. Never mind.




And here's why we missed Derren. We went for our regular Orange Wednesday film visit to see District Nine. I know that it was supposed to allegorical but all the allegory stuff seemed to disappear very quickly and it turned into a shoot em up. But it wasn't a routine shoot em up. It was a really good one and Sharlto Copley in the starring role was outstanding.

I'll have to finish now as it's almost time to go home. Here's how people reckon that Derren did the trick. Don't watch it it you don't want to know.

A Big Happy Birthday To Dave

It's been a very busy week of celebrations this week with Tony's 50th, Jenny & Craig's wedding and now Dave Horrock's 33rd. Dave (above) joined us sixteen years ago and is an integral part of our sheet metal working team. Dave lives with partner Emma and is the proud father of Cameron and Jack. He is a very keen Evertonian and we always look forward to his funny messages on our Guardian Pick The Score Website after they have had a particularly good result. Sadly these are few and far between but they are worth waiting for. Have a good day Dave. The lads are having a whip round for some fridge magnets.

I promised some of our happy couple Jenny and Craig's wedding photos. And here they are. I don't pretend to be David Bailey but Liz's husband Mark saved the day with his (they're the good ones). It was a really pleasant service at the Town Hall and the marquee reception was lovely.









And here's our buyer, Assistant Director Gavin Ford with son Nick.



It's Nick's first day at school today.He's a really happy and very funny little boy and I'm sure that his teachers will love having him in their classes.

Not a lot of time for blogging today. I had to run my mum to the station as she's off to london for a wedding and this afternoon I have to take my mum-in-law to hospital for a six month check up. That means I can't decide on tonight's Orange Wednesday as her appointment is a lottery. We might be seen at 2.30 (pigs might fly!). Last time it was 6.15.

When Jenny Met Craigie

Instanta's own love story comes to a culmination today with the wedding of our Stores And Office Manager Jenny Wright to Salesman Craig Buckley. Jenny and Craig met here at Instanta in 2001 when the tall shy young man started as our Office Junior. Romance blossomed several years later and we hope that they have a wonderful today and a great future together. Look in on the blog tomorrow for some photos as Marion and I have managed to take time out to watch the big event.



My love affair with Mercedes ends tomorrow when the lease on my lovely CLS320cdi expires. Having driven a Merecedes of some type or other for about twelve years now I will be sorry to see it go back but I was being hypocritical banging on about green issues whilst at the same time driving a car that does 30mpg (if you drive it extremely carefully and slowly). So the Toyota Prius hybrid beckons. Sadly that is three months away but in the meantime my mum has driven to the rescue. My knight in shining armour has come to my aid with her Nissan. She's off to Spain and won't be needing it for a few months. Stop Press: Phone call from Mum. Nissan been involved in accident. AAAAAAAAAAAAAggggggggggg.



The phones have been going mad here this morning. It's gone midday and I haven't finished the blog yet. Same happened on Friday when I didn't even get time to start it. Something wrong there. I can't be getting my priorities right. Nice to hear the office so busy though but I'm looking forward to a breather and not so much hard work.



On a chilling note I take back all my criticisms of the security procedures at airports after reading the reports on the soft drinks bomb plot. I've no plan to travel by plane in the near future because its just too much hassle nowadays but I can fully understand the reasoning behind it now. I just thought it was yet another case of British overkill but if the intelligence services hadn't handled the case so well the overkill would have been the number of innocent transatlantic passengers.

I'll finish on topical note. Let's hope that Craig's best man is not so clumsy.

It Was Fifty Years Ago Today

It was fifty years ago today that a young Anthony Mercer arrived in the world and I am sure that all blog readers will join me in wishing him a very happy birthday in his holiday resort of Alcudia in sunny Mallorca.(He's changed a bit from the cheeky little chappy above) I am sure that Tony will be too busy holidaying to read this so I might get away with taking a few liberties. (Only kidding Tony I know there's an Internet cafe just down the road from the hotel).Tony has spent 35 of his 50 years here at Instanta and has held the role of factory leader for over twenty of those years. Married to Linda and proud father to Gillian, Rachel and Craig and granddad to Craig's lovely daughter Amelia, Tony has led the factory to hitting all production targets in every month of our last financial year bar September. And when did Tony take his fortnight's holiday? You guessed. September. If you are reading this Tony. Have a good one.



He went from cheeky schoolboy to suave and sophisticated with the smouldering look.



And here he is with son Craig who now works in our machine shop and had the sense to support a decent football team instead of his dad's beloved MU.

Have a drink on us Tony.



I learned an important lesson in humility in Tesco on Friday evening. Anyone who knows me will also know that I am not the most tolerant and patient where queues are involved and I can be seen trawling the checkout area in search of the fastest cashiers with the shortest queues. On Friday we found the perfect one - just one customer ahead and a young lady on the till. But we were there for an eternity as the customer she was serving queried the bill and the special offers and the price and just about every bloody thing he could query. I was doing my rolling eyes act, arms folded and shifting from foot to foot when I realised that the poor customer had special needs. The trip to do his own shopping was probably a huge ordeal for him and it was one that he overcame with success. Marion got chatting with him and I felt very small at my impatience.I think that the lesson I learned was to try and think twice before forming an impression. We were still late home with the shopping though.



For fear of looking like a stalker I have resisted the urge to write to Kathryn Flett of the Observer to tell her how brilliant her writing is. So I'll just have to say it here. Her weekly column in the Observer magazine is an exceptional example of humorous writing at its very best and this week's article about her being invited to open an arts festival in her home town of "Random on Sea" was beautifully observed. As a star of "Grumpy Old Women" she was given more ammunition when she was referred to as Random's "crankiest" old woman and introduced by the mayor as Carolyn.You can read the full column here and if you like a good laugh, buy the Observer. You won't be disappointed. PS Her TV column is wonderful too.



Did you see that the BBC has discovered a new species of giant rat? No it's not Chris Moyles but it seems that a Beeb film crew explored a volcano crater in Papua New Guinea and it was like The Land That Time Forgot with scores of new creatures being discovered. Well done BBC but please, whatever you do, don't bring any back here.

I'll finish with a little film for Tony.

A Strange Case Of Deja Vu At Vue

Although deja vu is a topic that runs through all the Final Destination films, my headline today refers to last night's 3D effects at the local Vue cinema. Marion and I have been to three 3D offerings in the last few months, "Coraline 3D", "Ice Age 3D" and now "The Final Destination 3D" and there is no question that the effects are quite spectacular but all three films rely heavily on two effects - floaty things (e.g leaves, burning paper) and long pointy things that zoom out of the screen towards you. I enjoyed last night's film immensely for these effects (it would have been mediocre without them) but, unless the film makers manage to move away from long pointy things and give us a bit of variety, I can see a short life for this exciting new media. (It may have potential for a niche in the porn industry).



It's celebration time next week at Instanta with two big events affecting three of our people. Factory leader Tony Mercer is 50 on Monday but just because he is on holiday next week doesn't mean he won't get coverage on the blog. And on Tuesday it's THE WEDDING. Office manager Jenny Wright is marrying Salesman Craig Buckley.To my knowledge this is the very first Instanta marriage in 52 years and we have let them both have the day off! Look out for the photos on Wednesday.





Our sales team is off the road today as Nick, Peter and Craig are in Liverpool undertaking a training day with Andy Bounds Ltd. I'm really looking forward to their feedback from the day and hope that it gives them some good ideas.





This year's Big Brother has passed almost unnoticed here at Instanta. Last year it was a real water cooler topic and, with Craig, Max and Jenny's advice I managed to win a couple of hundred pounds without watching it. This year nobody has watched it and I stand to win a meagre £22.50 on Betfair if the favourite wins and about £18 if it's anybody else.


We haven't had a competition on the blog recently. But if you like them here's an interesting one with $300,000 in prizes.