So, what’s it like to escape the clutches of the wine trade? If you spotted my gurning face in last month’s issue, you’ll realise that at best I managed a holiday before the black hole of wine retailing sucked me back in. 

As it turns out, the five-years-in-the-planning (thanks Covid) holiday I had planned for June was just what was needed. We spent a week on a boat travelling to New York. Having nothing to do except watch the changing shades of blue (and sometimes grey) on the water was quite restorative, really, and much needed after the chaos that had preceded it.

I returned however to a Winchester that no longer felt like mine. I was no longer a member of the business community and given how involved I had been (or perhaps more accurately, how much we all loved a good gossip) it felt like I’d lost a part of myself.

I’m suddenly not chatting to people who work on the same street as I did, who I had regarded as my colleagues – or, more correctly, my peers (certainly I’d spoken to most of them daily for 13 years). Because what is there to talk about when I can’t share in the mutual happiness of a good Christmas or the commiserations of the tourists filling the city yet spending no money? All those probing questions and honest answers that used to be a part of day-to-day conversation are now gone, slowly retreating into the standard responses that I used to give to customers.

Though I have these moments of mourning what is gone, it is rather nice not to have to think about a business anymore. As many of you know, it really is bloody difficult and all-consuming. Some of you did share your own struggles with me – thanks, it was nice to exchange stories and hear your thoughts.

Leaving behind all of this, it is of course time to look forward. I now find myself in gainful employment at The Naked Grape, basing myself out of their Alresford shop, which was an unexpected but lovely outcome. 

While sullying my own fine reputation (“hostile and unreliable” as one of my friends so lovingly puts it) was perfectly fine, I don’t think that I should set this new working relationship on fire quite yet. I am trying to prove to myself (and perhaps some of you) that I am not unemployable after working for myself for so long. Some might argue that I was unemployable well before I started my own business. For instance, in a previous life working for a large chain that no longer exists, I was the reason all the sales managers were barred from the weekly sales meetings.

Anyway, my job now involves very little interaction with the general public and plenty of contact with some of my favourite, genuine customers. So, I will (probably) not be regaling you with too many inappropriate stories from this particular workplace. You will however be relieved to know that I still have plenty of stories to tell from my own time on the front line of retail. 

I am of course still running – training hard for the Marathon du Médoc currently. By the time you read this, I will (hopefully) have completed the race, as will Mr B, who has done amazingly well at his training – he’s going to smash it. I have to be nice to him just this once. I called him a shit pedestrian during a run a few weeks back and (not unreasonably) that didn’t go down well.

So, have no fear. Something resembling my normal sweary service will resume.