Back In The Old Routine

The holiday is over and Marion and I are back into our working routine. As with our previous holidays of late, we have returned to nice tidy desks so thanks again to Jenny for keeping things ship shape. We enjoyed the holiday and, after days of rain, actually had a bit of good weather at the weekend when we visited friends in Llangollen. The plan was to go for a couple of country walks but the temptation of a pub lunch and a read of the weekend newspapers was too strong and the boots remained in the boot.

The Guardian Pick the Score ended with a runaway win for store man Tony Lowe who finished with a very impressive 285 points. After leading for most of the season, Sales Director Nick Neal had a scare when Sheet Metal Worker Dave Horrocks overtook him but Nick stormed back to finish second with Dave in third. I will be presenting the prizes at the next staff meeting. After winning last year I ended well down the field probably due to my habit of putting a defeat down for Manchester United and a win for Liverpool for most of the last few months. The full Instanta Sports league ended like this.

1 Tony Lowe (clarettoe) 285
2 Nick Neal (Melvis) 274
3 david horrocks (mr aitch) 273
4 Jenny Wright (jenuwin) 267
5 Peter Brindle (claret4ever) 260
6 MAX VIDAL (maximus) 244
7 Craig Buckley (craig-imus) 243
8 John Brassey (lfcchampions) 242
9 peter barlow (manc) 240
10 Dave Wilson (NorthernGunner) 235
11 Gavin Ford (Rossi46) 230
12 michael chubbs (chubby's champ) 225
13 andrew fyles (babyfyleszy) 221
13 neil horrocks (neilydone21) 221
15 david boutle (dbarcle) 140

We also opened another league up to friends this season and Simon Smith of Dunk Ink was the highest outsider finishing 2nd. Mark Jones from Workhouse came a very respectable 7th with Dave Sweeney from City Servicing taking 8th place. Thanks to everyone who joined in. We hope to run it again next year.



It's not quite been a typical day as my eBay sale of the century finished on Sunday and I had to get up early to pack things and was here at Instanta at 7.45 with a pile of boxes and tape gun at the ready. The sale was a bit of a curate's egg with excellent results for some Chinese pieces but break even or even a loss on some of the other antique pottery and porcelain. If I had just sold the five best items I would have made only a fraction less than I did by selling seventeen and saved myself a lot of work to boot. The trouble is how to know which will bring results. Fortunately the huge Chinese vase sold to a very pleasant buyer in England who has agreed that I can deliver it next week when I am in the area rather than risking it getting smashed and losing £1,200 by sending it with a carrier.

Poor Craig Mercer from our machine department went for a night out in Southport at the weekend and ended up at A&E after a brutal attack by a group of thugs who smashed a glass in his face. This is the second time that one of our staff has ended up in A&E after a night out in Southport in the last five months. When you realise that we have a pretty small workforce, this is a scary statistic and not a great advert for the town.

Craig took orders for almost 200 boilers whilst we were on holiday last week. If we could repeat that 52 weeks of the year that would be great. The girls in the office are now busy stuffing Newsletters into envelopes. We've got 2,000 envelopes to post before the end of the week. The newsletters are promoting the new Sous Vide equipment and our special June offers which will appear here daily throughout next month.



I have not been betting on Betfair lately but I will have to have ago with "Britain's Got Talent". In each of the first two semi finals the two to get through into the final stood out so far that they were as near to dead certs as you will ever get. This is the first year that we have watched this show and, whilst it is a production triumph, the quality of three quarters of the acts is dire. Having said that, the quality of the remaining quarter is very high. Marion and I are rooting for the two dance groups Diversity and Flawless and we really can't choose between them. As for Susan Boyle, is it just me or is she a bit odd? Here's an American take on the show. Pretty accurate in my opinion.