I posted this in another thread a couple of weeks ago, but it fits in here very well. The unexpected consequences of the UK being locked down, tiered and variously restricted for the last few months:
At the end of our road there is a park, and last year the town council allowed a franchise for a coffee selling horsebox in the car park. (Time was a horsebox was for horses, but these days they sell coffee and cakes.)
It was supposed to be set up for summer, but there were delays; and then it was supposed to start in August, but there were problems with electricity supply; and eventually it got going late in September. I remember thinking to myself what a cock-up it had been - missing the season completely, a business dead in the water before it could even get started.
Two factors I had failed to consider
- Tell people they have to stay at home apart from limited exercise, and they’ll spend all their time exercising
- If people can’t spend their money in a pub or a bar or a cafe, then hell, a horsebox it is.
Through the foulest of the winter weather, there was not a time we passed by the horsebox when there wasn’t a queue for coffee. What looked like a doomed venture has been a huge success. The owners have had a great pandemic.
Sometimes things turn out in an unexpected way - and that can be a good thing.
j
