When you’re a small, family-run business, sometimes it feels like there’s never enough time in the day, and especially so when you’ve been off ill, getting back on track can seem like an insurmountable task. We aren’t often all ill together, but of course often when you live and work together, it’s just one of those things- we all get it- and despite avoiding covid for the past two years, for the fourth time we all caught it again this summer. Our policy with illness like covid, flu, and other viruses, is to not go into work to avoid spreading it to each other and our customers- and so when we’re all feeling under the weather, unfortunately for our customers safety, we’ve had to down tools and closed the doors for a few days to recover.
When you factor in ongoing chronic illness/disability on top, getting back on track can be hard work. I’ve been working from home, catching up on paperwork, while our friend/colleague is over from Denmark, assisting Richard in the workshop, as well as one of our older boys is working with us part-time, and couple that with Richard’s assistance dog being ‘signed off sick’ and under a specialist rehab vets, it seems as if there’s no time in the day at all!
Our new showroom at 6b Hepworth Park doesn’t have a ceiling yet, I’ve not got an office space built yet, and there’s still boxes everywhere, but slowly we’re making progress, and it’s nice to have less stress now- not only is there plenty of parking for us and our customers, we now no longer have to argue with the ‘just 5 minute’ parkers, who used to block us in constantly outside the old shop, and often become abusive when they were asked to move out of the car park entrance so we could leave or get in. We made the decision to move premises for several reasons, but knowing we can actually get in and out our shop when we need to now, is a massive relief. The stress of this, and other factors related to there, was really taking a massive toll on us all, and moving premises has been a very positive step forward!
