A bit of a murky day here with intermittent rain. I waited all morning for my hire van to be collected and when nobody arrived phoned only to be told that they were coming tomorrow. Not a problem, but I was waiting to go out and a phone call would have been appreciated! I'm beginning to sound like Victor Meldrew but honestly!! Any way I finally got out and went to see Sian and Jacob. Poor Sian is still waiting for the baby to put in an appearance I think it must be too comfy and not keen to move out. Can't wait to see Jacob's reaction when he is presented with a brother or sister I hope he won't be too jealous, we will just have to try and make sure he understands how special he is as well.
When I was at the Baby Show I collected names for a news letter and did a small survey to try and find out about my customers. I found that about 95% of respondents were in the 30-39 age group, were regular internet shoppers and bought other organic products. Not too much of a surprise but very interesting.
On the way to see Sian I was listening to a discussion on the radio about the increases in petrol and diesel and the effect it is having on people. Many listeners were phoning in to say that they could no longer afford to use their car for outings etc. An expert on the programme said that economically speaking petrol was no more expensive than in 1971 this was in relation to average wages. The main difference now is that so many more people have cars and need them for work etc. Although the cities and towns have public transport it is almost non existent in rural area's and it's the people who live in these area's who are really suffering from the increases. They have no alternative, this is certainly the case for us as just going to Inverness to the supermarket is a 100 mile round trip. I think that the problem is that small businesses have died over the years and there is less and less local employment so people need to go further afield for work. What is the answer? I don't know has anybody got any thoughts on this that they would like to share? It was interesting to read in the paper that small shops are still thriving in France whereas here villages are dying. Look foward to hearing from you.
Linda
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