The North Wind doth blow...

Heck it's cold here in Kent...

I know March can be pretty variable weather-wise, but this lot is coming at a time when we really do need a few days off to start to get better times in view...

Years ago, we had a national off licence client, and we used to do several surveys of shop sites in one day. They would phone us up in the office about 4:00pm, and tell us to be on a new site at 9:00am the following day, and some weren't that close either! Ivybridge springs to mind, and Torquay and Plymouth.

One day, we had to survey three sites in East Anglia. I can't remember the first two, but I do recall that the last one, at 3:30pm was in Sheringham, on the North coast... When I arrived and met the others, we did the work - it wasn't a lot really, just a look around, several notes, and some measurements, then a decision on the specification as to which brand they were going to apply to the property, like Peter Dominic, Bottoms Up etc. We all got on pretty well, and I actually enjoyed the travel, the friendship, and of course, they always paid on time, being a decent national firm.

I'd never been to the place, but one thing which always stuck in this old grey head (it was brown back then...), was that the North Wind always blew like hell there, as my dear Uncle and Aunt often went on holiday to the place.

I still have a small blotter, one of those chaps which look like a lemon wedge, and you used to roll them over the wet ink. When they popped off, we all took a few momentos of the lovely couple, and I finished up with the little blotter, which still bears a mirror image of their handwriting - which was down to the innumerable letters and cards they always wrote to everyone.

It's a treasure, and I've never forgotten my Uncle Ken telling me that 'It always blew like hell up there'!