I’ve
just returned from an all-expenses paid long weekend in London – but there’s no
such thing as a free holiday – it was The France Show again. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and having
spent a long afternoon at Olympia putting up the stand, we walked to the hotel
to check-in. Of the three rooms we had
booked, one was OK, one had no windows and the other appeared to be a
cupboard. Anna and I sat in her room
(the OK one) while Eve went down to sort things out. 30 minutes later she reappeared, having been
shown a variety of alternative rooms and causing chaos at reception with her
french accent as she had asked for ‘hairy’ rooms rather than ‘airy’! By this time we were all too tired to go
shopping (an expression I never thought I would use) so we headed straight for
the bar and discovered that it would be £9.50 for a large glass of wine! Eve did some quick calculations, realised that
we would obviously need 2 glasses each and decided that it would be more
economical to order a bottle of Champagne – I think that is the french
definition of being ‘frugal’!
The
opening day of the show passed by in a blur as it was extremely busy and we
were on our feet and talking to clients from 10am until 5pm. Most people still want to be ‘within walking
distance of a Boulangerie’ even though I am sure they have never walked to a
local shop in their lives; others start chatting about wanting a property with
a pool and a large garden to run a Gite business and then deliver the killer
blow that their budget is just 80k; and many others are just there to start
their research and are not yet ready to buy, and when I ask why, the usual
response is that they are waiting to sell their house in the UK or have to wait
for their retirement – but I particularly liked the response from one man who
(in front of his wife) stated that he was just waiting for his father-in-law to
die! Despite our aching feet (and after
a quick stop off at the bar) we managed a short shopping trip then retired to
our hairy rooms for an early night.
The
show is split into two sections – We were in the Property and Sensible Stuff part
and on another floor was the Food, Wine and Can-Can dancer department (probably
not the ‘official titles’ so don’t quote me!).
Access between the two floors was by lift, and our stand was opposite
the lift doors. The good news about that
was that ours was the first stand people stopped at on arriving, the bad thing
was that every time the lift arrived there were the most delicious smells
wafting in from the various cookery demonstrations going on downstairs and by
lunchtime it was just too tempting. I
managed a quick visit to check out the stalls downstairs and I have to say it is
a great advantage to be wearing a big ‘Exhibitors’ badge because it means you
don’t get heckled by people wanting to sell you ferry tickets, caravan holidays
or magazine subscriptions. Having spent
several minutes gazing at jars of Confit d’Oignons and speciality bread I
suddenly remembered that I actually live in France where products like that are
readily available and what I really wanted was Cheddar cheese and smoky bacon
crisps!
On Saturday
night Eve and Anna said they hadn’t got the strength for a big shopping
expedition but just wanted to head back to Kensington High Street in an attempt
to track down Paddington Bears for their children. I politely declined their kind invitation to
join them as I had discovered that the biggest shopping mall in the UK was just
a 20 minute walk away from Olympia – so I jumped in a taxi and spent 2 hours
(and not too much money) in my idea of heaven!
We met up in the hotel bar later (sadly
they were bearless) and enjoyed some excellent fish and chips washed down with champagne
(still being frugal)!
On
Sunday morning many of the exhibitors were very quiet to start with (having
apparently spent more time drinking than shopping the night before). Not least of these was a gentleman who I
shall call ‘George’ who treads a very fine line between being a ‘loveable old
rogue’ and a ‘dirty old man’. He always
seems to be staying in the same hotel as us - which explains our early nights
rather than staying in the bar as the more he drinks, the more attractive we
get! During the shows he seems to spend
more time in the wine bar than on his own stand but on this last day I pointed
out to Eve that he was there, and holding a mug of coffee – when she pointed
out that while he might have been holding a mug, the chances of it containing
coffee were remote! The day passed by in
a flash and having spent 30 minutes dismantling a stand that had taken 4 hours
to set up, we arrived at Heathrow in plenty of time to visit Hamley’s and stock
up on Paddington Bears (them) and to check out the Ted Baker sale (me) and then
collapse onto a plane and sleep.
Same
time next year!
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