Greetings from Sheffield, UK.
I’m back at the heart of Ancient Wisdom.
Coco flew back to China on Tuesday. She had a bit of a nightmare.. delayed in Istanbul 12 hours. But she wasn't stressed in the least; she just took it in her stride.. and worked from a lounge.. And yesterday I caught an easyJet flight from Málaga — from sapphire blue skies and sunshine to foggy Manchester. Also, not stressed, it is what it is.. My Uber driver struggled over the Pennines to Sheffield in thick fog. Quite the contrast. Still, it’s good to be home. There’s something grounding about being back home in Sheffield, back where it all started.
From this...
So much is happening across AW right now.
Before I left Spain, I spent time with Toni, who is still right in the middle of our Spanish warehouse move. And when I say middle, I mean the kind of middle where everything feels like it’s going wrong at once.
Feels like one drama after another.. I was there the other day in the new office when we heard the most almighty crash from the warehouse.. The racking company we contracted to move existing racking to our configuration had been moving sections of racking via a two-forklift manoeuvre (to avoid dismantling and reassembling). This went badly wrong, causing a section of the racking to come crashing down and wrecking it. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but it could have been serious. So, the racking company was sacked.. have to find more professional people.
On top of the a racking company fiasco! - Key staff off ill at the worst possible moment. - Boxes in the wrong places. Plans are changing daily. Deadlines that don’t move, even when everything else does.
If you’ve ever moved premises — or tried to grow a business while keeping customers happy — you’ll know that feeling. That moment where it’s totally messy, … and you just have to keep going. The thing is, Toni (and his team) is on a deadline.. he has basically two weeks to fix everything. Because... Well, I'll explain next week.. There is a lot more DRAMA to come..
I’ll leave that story right there for now… because it’s not finished yet. (and yes, hopefully there will be a happy ending.)
So TODAY!! Here in Sheffield, I’m catching up with teams, customers, plans, and the year ahead. Containers are coming like crazy, we have one container every day for the next 7 working days.. new products are landing, and behind the scenes we’re laying foundations that won’t be obvious today — but will make a big difference in the year ahead.
And on top of that, we are in the Season of Love (SOL), kicking off with the big V-Day—Valentine's Day—almost upon us.. Holly has been getting all inspired by AW classic and new products selected for Valentine's Day and beyond. Check out the video.. if you are looking for ideas right now..
As always, thank you for trading with us, growing with us, and sticking with us — even when things are a little chaotic. Especially then.
More news soon.
Warm (despite the cold) regards,
David
Founder – Ancient Wisdom