Hi! It’s Jo! I’ve taken over from Helen for a bit now with the blog. We are writing this retrospectively, as we have been busy building the business, so forgive me if the chronology is a bit out of whack!

Obviously, the next big event was taking ownership of the stuff – it’s one thing to sign on the dotted line and quite another to get the stock. I’d like to say that I was part of the crew that day but, at that point, I was still working in my other job. I sent strength from afar and all good wishes for good Manual Handling and Health and Safety Assessment (see, all those hours spent in training sessions weren’t for nothing after all!)

It sounded like Alan, Emily, Matt and Craig had a super organised assembly line going with pick-ups, drop-offs, second journeys and whatever else the day entailed (tea breaks I assume!). And, by the end of the day, the storage container was full to bursting, the trailer was empty and everyone needed a good shower!

Not long after that, it seemed only right to get together and erect our first bell tent. But, of course, it was November and bell tents are fair weather friends so we knew it would be a race against time to beat the rain (not least because we had one hour between children’s clubs and other weekend fun to get the job done). I might add that there was a little built-in competition because we wanted to see if we could beat  – or at least match – the time that Emily and Alan said it took them to get one of these beauties up! Not being the most logical of people, I did rely on Craig and Matt to give me step-by-step instructions but – even by our own admission – for a first attempt, things didn’t look too shoddy! Clearly, if you’ve come here for a master class in bell tent erection, you are sorely disappointed – but return in September and it will be a different story!

Eurrggghhhh. Looking through my gallery for these pictures, I see that around that time is when ‘The Van’ came into our lives. It’s still a swear word in our house. More on that later.