nursery matters JOHN BARKER Image source: pexels.com
Barking Mad Pramland’s John Barker has a feeling of Déjà vu : The feeling that one has lived through the present situation before – either that or glitch in the Matrix. Sadly it’s not the latter, welcome to Lockdown 2.0 one and all!
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o, here we are back in our stores, doors bolted shut, stock still coming in, telephones ringing off the hook with concerned parents to be and a slump in another quarters numbers. The introduction of a second lockdown has alarm bells ringing more than the last time for me. The systematic destruction of the high street continues and this time we are getting even less support. The pittance of a grant available to qualifying business represents a drop in the ocean. As per the previous lockdown the nursery industry has been forced to hunker down and go in to hibernation whilst the supermarkets and Amazon become the big winners. I can only speak for our actions (I’m sure this will apply to all of your stores too) but as the months have passed our Covid policy has remained steadfast. We have maintained our strict cleaning standards, continued to operate by appointments and have successfully managed to limit access to the store in order to remain safe.
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On the flip side the supermarkets seem to have adopted the “we aren’t being forced to close so why bother?” strategy. Remember the supermarkets in Lockdown 1? They had queues outside, they had one way systems, social distancing and people telling you that the aisle was closed. Not anymore! Some stores I’ve visit over the past couple of months have really slipped and now we are the ones forced to remain closed. On a couple of occasions I have found myself in a store and have said to Mrs B “there’s way too many people in here for this to be safe”, to which I was told “stop being a miserable old f**t”. Ok so we may have played it over cautious but I would rather do it that way. Better safe than sorry in my book. In my mind the nature of an item being classed as essential or not is poorly based upon it being sold by a “preferred retailer” or not. Nursery goods are classed as essential as they can be sold by my local supermarket but we can’t open as we aren’t a
this all As far as I’m concerned we’ve done th e before. To pa raphrase Jay from m ed ate”. Inbetweeners “Lockdown? Completloc own If anythin g I feel th at this new mkds and will be easier, we developed syste we just figured everythin g out months ago, aga in. need to slip in to those old shoes
john@pramland.co.uk