London in glorious spring sunshine

Well I said it when I started and I said it when winter arrived, I suspected there would be more smiles, thank yous and posts in the spring and summer with the sunshine than there are in the gloom of winter and I was right.

Spring arrived in London in glorious fashion; the blossoms seem more abundant and perfect that ever.

Now you may or may not have heard of the London Book Fair, and if you haven't it's a trade fair for people in publishing which for the last few years has been at Earls Court in West London, (it's moving next year to Olympia), anyway, all you need to know is it's an enormous trade fair that descends on Earls Court in April.  

If you can find half an hour or an hour to get out of the Fair at lunchtime, everywhere in the Earls Court Road is packed and used to dealing with one time customers; either people attending an event at Earls Court or tourists passing through so it's not known for it's service.  That is until I discovered Gusto this Fair.

Gusto on the Earls Court Road, (corner of Kenway Road), was such a pleasant surprise.  It looks like any other sandwich bar from the outside but when you step in, you're greeted with smiles and excellent service.

We were in a serious rush and Milo and Sonni got us in, served, and out again in the time we had while not only not feeling rushed, but feeling cared for and looked after.

Milo didn't want a picture so here's two lovely smiling ones of Sonni.  Thanks and thumbs up to you both

(p.s. we liked it so much we went back the next day too!)

Day two of the Fair and my route to Earls Court on day one was a disaster so I decided to get the Overground from West Hampstead to West Brompton.  Good decision.  Not least for the journey time and comfort but because I started my day with a lovely smile from Alan at West Hampstead station and a nice chat.

One of the downsides of people wearing headphones is that they can't hear you when you say "excuse me".  I could hear my train pulling in so I went to run down the stairs at the station but the woman in front of me wasn't catching that train and because of her headset was totally oblivious to us behind trying to get past her to catch it.

Fair to say unfortunately, due to her obliviousness, I missed the first train but Alan, who was on the platform and who saw what happened came to chat.  

The sun was shining, picked up lots of good gossip about rumoured tunnels to link the three stations at West Hampstead, (currently the tube, the Thameslink and the Overground all go from separate West Hampstead stations which can be very confusing if you don't know where you want to be), and I was still an forty minutes earlier arriving than the day before so all in all, a great start to the day.  

Thank you Alan and a thumbs up to you too.

Don't forget, if you want to say thank you to anyone, just send us your post and we'll get it up in the future.

p.s. If you're trying to follow the blog, apologies, Google is having an issue with all blogger sites and the follow button.  We hope they'll resolve the issue shortly but if you want to complain, write to Google,  thanks.

an idea for a blog

So my idea is to start a blog bigging up those people we come in to contact that help make our days nicer and, also, to possibly shame those that are rude and discourteous.

The question will be, will I have the nerve to ask the nice guys if I can take their picture and get their name and whether, those rotten ones, if it'll mean anything without their names and pictures?  Time will tell.

To start, I would like to give a shout out to Theo in Vodafone Baker Street who yesterday not only helped me in the way a good sales person should, but was fun and a good laugh.  Thank you.

On the other hand, the driver of the 82 this morning heading towards St. John's Wood from Swiss Cottage at about 09:50 who drove straight past the woman running and waving for him to stop at Queen's Grove, shame on you.

Also a quick mention for the nice security guard at St. John & St. Elizabeth Hospital in Grove End Road who always has a smile and a nice word for folk, thank you.  I'll try to get his name and a picture for a future post.

Ooh, that's an idea, we can have kiddie emoticons for the good and the bad, so, Theo at Vodafone you get a (y) and number 82 driver this morning, you get a (n)

Okay, that's not working, I have to speak to a blogger to find out how to give Theo his "thumbs up" but rather than chicken out of this idea, I'll publish now and work on design and content of this blog as we go along, together.

Okay, another idea, if you come across someone who has been really good in their job or who has made you smile, let me know and let's mention them here.  

Comments, suggestions and guest posts welcome.


P.S. from a fellow nice blogger, some tips on emoticons, let's see if it works....    - yay!  so for Theo and the as yet unnamed guard, a
   each and to the bus driver this morning, .

And of course to my helpful blogger acquaintance, you know who you are - (although I might have to source different artwork than you!)