what a start!

Fantastic weather this morning down here at Norbury, what more could we ask for, but what a start to the day! It all started lovely until the worst customer in the world arrived, as we were opening up there was a hire boat hovering by the wharf, the chap off the boat was standing on the wharf and a plump lady was steering the boat, he enquired as to weather we did diesel at the 60/40 split, which I answered yes, that was the end of the niceties, the woman moaned that she couldn’t get the 60 foot boat in to the 100 foot space, after they had been served the diesel and some gas she came in to pay, no problem so far, until she asked for a receipt which I gave her but that wasn’t good enough as she wanted a 'proper' receipt, the one I gave her was a VAT receipt with our company details on and a breakdown of the goods shed had, she then refused to pay, then she refused to give me her details for the declaration for the diesel , there was only one thing for it, I rang the hire company where the boat was from, the poor lady on the end of the phone just sort of whimpered, expressed her sympathy and apologised for this woman’s behaviour and went on to say that she didn’t used to drink until this mad woman took the boat out! This plump woman wondered off and then rang the hire company and enquired if she should pay, she then came back in to the shop moaning but would still not pay, in the end her partner got that frustrated with her he disappeared and came back with some cash to pay, eventually she waddled off moaning about the terrible holiday, the boat, the canal, the hire company, us, me, her partner, the diesel, the gas, other hire companies; we watched as her partner pulled the boat off the wharf and I could still her moaning at him on the back of the boat, poor fella!

It was a busy morning as we had three day boats out, several breakfast baps to get ready and a buffet for twenty people so that kept us all busy for a couple of hours, after they had all been sorted it quietened down and has been another quiet day on the wharf, a few more boats around compared to yesterday but still quiet, the phones have kept me and Angela busy, bookings for next year and general enquiries about hire boats, the some of the lads have been busy, Fred with blacking and tidying up the wharf, simon has been working on yard vehicles and Lee has finished the prep work on the next full paint job, and thats the lot!

Until tomorrow
Simon