Nick, Peter , Marion and me are here at the Celtic Manor resort for the CEDABOND workshops. There are over 40 of us exhibiting and we all have 19 booked slots for discussions with consortium members. Arriving for our first appointment bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8 a.m was not easy for us but we managed it only to find that our customers didn't. The next customers also failed to turn up twenty minutes later. Now I don't want to sound ungrateful to CEDABOND as some of our very best customers are in their number but we have invested over £2,000 in this, which works out at about £110 per session. From the number of no shows I anticipate that we may well only see ten of the alloted nineteen which will make those meetings very expensive indeed. At least we can meet people at the networking sessions but if 40 plus suppliers have made the effort it would have been appreciated if the customers could have done likewise.
One small benefit of the no shows means that the resultant early finish will give us time to sample the pool (above) which looks very nice.
There's a fantastic Chinese vase at our local auction house today but as I am here at Celtic Manor I can't bid in person. So I have booked a telephone bid. That's something I haven't done for years. One benefit is that nobody will know it's me bidding as some dealers seem to delight in running prices up against amateur collectors and eBay sellers like me. I have a feeling that the price will soar well beyond my limit but you never know. It has a small chip which might put people off.
I felt very sorry for ardent Chelsea fan Nick Oryino from Carford Catering who was watching the Barca game with us last night. Nick already had his room in Rome booked and it looked like a repeat of last year's final until that last minute shock. I am a bit surprised at all the controversy today. I didn't think that any of the penalty claims were that strong and Barcelona played for over 15 minutes with ten men after a dubious sending off so how could the ref be biased? The game's possession stats were over 67% Barcelona so their equaliser was probably earned.
Off to take that phone call from the auctioneers now. And then off to network.
Stop press: Got the vase £520 plus commission. I think that was a good buy. Will soon see when it's listed on eBay.
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