In a moment of weakness I agreed to deliver a Balloon In A Box locally, for a customer who lives in France, on New Years Day. Like all the other gift delivery companies we were closed on New Years Day because the only possible way to deliver anything was to take it there ourselves, not to mention the fact that we fancied a day off! However, the delivery address was only ten minutes away by car and the only plans that Alison and I had made for New Years Day were to have a lazy day and recover from a little over indulgence the night before so it was no real difficulty to take a few minutes out of the day to deliver a balloon. The only flaw in my logic was that John (Alison's husband) had the only car in the household - and he was in Lancashire, with their daughter, visiting his mum.

It was considerably more that ten minutes away by foot, but I had agreed to do it and we didn’t want to let the customer down! So we decided to go for it - kill two birds with one stone and take Jade for a walk, clear our booze muddled brains and deliver the balloon. The fact that the address was opposite a very nice country pub called The Fox and Goose helped clinch the decision.

So we walked, and walked, and walked! Jade had a great time, but hindsight is such a wonderful thing, I think we may have been a little adventurous. The field we cut across was really really muddy and by the time we'd made it across it our boots felt like they weighed a tonne.

My head ached, my legs ached, I had blisters on my feet caused by the totally inappropriate footwear I chose for the trek, but we got the balloon there much to the delight of a lovely little boy who had just turned two years old. We popped into the pub, just for a rest of course, stared at a couple of Jack Daniels and Diet Cokes for a while then began the equally arduous return trip. But even though the walk felt a lot longer than it really was it certainly cleared the cobwebs and apart from the blisters I felt much better for it, and it was worth it to see the look on the birthday boy’s face. Now, where else could you buy a gift from and get it delivered on New Years Day? Don’t say we don’t go the extra mile (literally) for our customers

Welcome to 2006!

Cathy :)