Tuesday 31 May 2011

All promises.. no trousers!

Well they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and today I could quite believe them. It started out a day full of promises and not quite one of them has come into fruition.'All promises and no trousers' as I like to say.

Anna and I had planned to meet in Woking for a meeting (insert "chat over a coffee" for the word 'meeting' from this point onwards) and to go over some admin. We have our first official customer and this meeting could cement our sales processes that we have agreed but are still very much 'in theory'. But Anna needs hot water in her new home so she stayed in waiting for new plumbing parts (I'm not brave enough to insert a joke here about her being pregnant and needing new plumbing but one day I will be). So our meeting was postponed until Friday. Then I find out the lovely Old Rectory blankets were delivered to her new address... "plumbing parts" indeed!

So I went on the great customer hunt! Yes those illusive beings that are lurking out there somewhere like mythical beings (fairies or gnomes perhaps?). Having managed to find someone interested in purchasing one of the lovely kantha blankets from www.unikgifts.co.uk I spent today hoping DangerBaby would sleep so that I could make that all important call. All went well as she napped at lunchtime - perfect, the 'customer' would be available and near a communication device... The lunch hour was full of promise and sales opportunities! BUT noooo foiled by the pesky invention of voicemail.

At least aforementioned pesky voicemail let me gaze at the ceiling while leaving a message...which is when I spotted the skylight had leaked in the recent rain. Hence the call to Paul the Carpenter, who had promised to come round for lunch and never appeared. Oh well he's all promises and no trousers, a bit like today really!

Monday 30 May 2011

Is it me or do all Dr's become handsome when they say 'your child is going to be fine'?

Launch day could have gone better. Betcha money I don't have that most launch days aren't done in Paediatric A&E? Well apart from ones that are about paediatric emergency medicine...

Anna has carried all her babies (The Naughty, The Bump & u_ni_k) today. She deserves a medal. Perhaps I'll make her one in my non existent free time.

Why did I leave her in the lurch?? Well, because a well meaning NHS Direct nurse said - SHE MUST SEE A DR TODAY!

So Daddy DayCare, DangerBaby and I have spent the day in and out of hospitals. Yep The Spots, Calamine Lotion, BunnyBunny, WoofyDog and the only clean romper I could find at short notice went on a tour of Surrey's finest hospitals.

End result - antibiotics for the infected few spots and a very handsome young Dr who specialises in babies saying the magic words 'your baby is going to be fine'.

Did I mention the handsome dr?? There I am, stressed out crazy Mummy with hair (slightly green after changing the home hair dye to a new brand) not brushed, no make up on, smeared in calamine lotion, and wearing the fat jeans (couldn't find a belt and all other avocado covered jeans in Mt Washing somewhere) around my lower hips coz today wasn't a fat day.. and in walks young, clean, handsome baby dr.

Taking one look at me, handsome Dr says.."and this is your second child..?".

DangerBaby is our first.

I am never, ever, ever leaving the house without wearing spanx, make up and at least taming the mane into a ponytail ever ever again. EVER.

Sunday 29 May 2011

Spots everywhere...

Well I've been slogging away all day in the cold (north facing and gable), dark (again north facing but the blinds are down - it helps hide the dust), and techno-gadget filled study. Putting the final touches to the website for launch tomorrow.

Launching a website is a bit like having coursework, it seems that you have it all done - and then some friendly well meaning people point out 14 pages worth of corrections and it seems that you are back at square two (not quite square one as you have something to correct!).

So I'm screen blind, and if I look away from the lovely shiny laptop all I can see is spots. This maybe because DangerBaby has very very very many chicken pox spots (awwwww bless her little cotton socks) or because working in a cold, dark, gadget cave (study) on a shiny laptop does more harm than good to your eyes.

Then again I may have seen too much of CBeebies lately - as that seems to be full of spots as well: Mr. Tumble's spotty bag, The WotWots are spotty, as well as those little dancing yellow bean bag things. Nope definitely probably more to do with the very itchy spotty poorly DangerBaby.

Better go and make an appearance so that Daddy DayCare knows I'm still alive.

Saturday 28 May 2011

We must be mad...

So it's official we'll be open for business on Monday. I expect we'll be flat out taking and making calls from all our potential customers...(fingers crossed).
It's all go, go, go here at u_ni_k and when we're not busy finding those fabulous products, we're keeping ourselves busy.
Anna and her family moved house a few weeks ago (and at 29+ weeks pregnant that's no mean feat!) and are currently trying to unpack, manage the tetter-tottering "Ida The Naughty", make the jungle (garden) baby/toddler friendly (they recently discovered a very old and stagnant pond eek!), and plant those tasty veggies ready for harvest in September. Oh and hold down the day job and start up a new company. All in a days work for a superhero (aka Mum).
Sarah & the Crazies thankfully finished their house renovations late last year, so we're just trying to de-buildermen the garden. This week has been normal run of the mill bonkers; DangerBaby went from crawling to walking in one swift movement. None of this; "stand ... see if I can balance" malarky.. nope just "I found this in the ironing pile Mummy, do you want it?" pick up a bath mat and walk 3m across the room to Mummy. Crazy Davies Mummy needed a lie down that day. 2 days later, after hosting a lovely Mummy Club day, DangerBaby breaks out in itchy blisters. Yep Chicken pox at 13months. Time to phone the Mummy Club Mummies, bet this means we'll be thrown out of the club now!
So instead of taking the well earned and much needed rest, Anna and Sarah are launching u_ni_k this week. First 10 customers will receive one of our lovely gift vouchers to redeem against a future purchase. We'll be giving away the money we don't yet have. We must be mad...

Friday 27 May 2011

10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1.. BLAST OFF!

u_ni_k official May Madness Fayre: Monday 30th May. Come and join Anna & Sarah at www.unikgifts.co.uk for exclusive launch offers!

Sooo excited

Anna and Ida are coming over. They're bringing some of the u_ni_k items with them and we're going to start our launch plan. Oooohhhh exciting.

DangerBaby is upstairs with Daddy DayCare making themselves sort of presentable after Marmite & toast facials (DangerBaby had the facial not Daddy DayCare). While here at u_ni_k IT geek central it's still PJs and cold coffee time as I try to sort out all the remaining bits and pieces ready for Anna and I to agree it's all systems go.

So let's do our final checks:
>> Does the house looks like hurricane DangerBaby has been and reeked havoc? CHECK
>> Champagne in the fridge? CHECK
>> Is everyone clean and presentable? Errr.. better go!

Techy geeks rule the world!

Well OK, I've managed to set up this blog. I've failed to host it on our lovely website. It's taken days, no really literally days, for BT to admit they don't support "proper subdomain hosting". Their actual words. How's a Mummy like me supposed to conquer a world of techy geeks when they will not admit the failing is on their side and not mine?
Here I was thinking I was not doing something quite right and had missed the point. When low and behold... they come up with "we don't support that".
I will learn how to put this blog into my hard fought website. Us Mummies can do it!