Looking forward to a hectic week in London

Here I am down in Olympia, setting up for the BETT Show which begins tomorrow and runs through until Saturday. They're expecting in excess of 25000 people through the doors this week which is about as many as will see Partick Thistle at home all this season!!

Its been a bit manic as ever but working in the VIP area should be OK and not too stressful. Just hope the foreign contingent can understand my accent.

On another note my best man, Dek, only stays a couple of miles away. Maybe its a guy's thing, but we only seem to see each other about once a year. Met him on Friday with his three boys to see what he was up to and tell him a few stories about setting up on my own. As ever we left with promises to meet again soon, have a game of snooker and maybe sink a couple of pints. Anyway where is this story going..... sitting at the airport today waiting for the flight down to London and meandering my way through the Herald with its lead story about the alledged failure of the McCrone agreement for teachers. The chartered teacher system came in for a bit of criticism and who's ugly mug and words of wisdom was there to back the chartered teacher process, the bold Dek. And I thought he only went into teaching so he could have numerous holidays throughout the year!!

Another new partnership to build on.

If you've been reading some of the previous posts then you'll have gathered that being stuck in the house day in day out was driving me around the bend. Some people who know me may be surprised that it took me so long to figure out what they had thought about me for years but I'll save that for future rants.

Anyway, Tuesday is nearly over and its been a really good day. Had a call late yesterday afternoon from an old contact to see if I could organise a product launch for her at Gleneagles Hotel. Unfortunately it's being refurbished, well that was the excuse given, and we've settled on the Hilton Dunkeld House hotel. All Anne has to do now is get the go ahead from her financial director and we'll be heading into Perthshire in the middle of January for the Scottish launch of a new educational product. Once it's confirmed I'll post some more details about the event.

Also spent the afternoon back at LT Scotland at the first meeting with the various parties who will take forward the organisation of next year's Scottish Learning Festival. I'll be working with Elaine from LT Scotland and people from Meeting Makers who are going to support the logistical organisation of the event. Their key contact today was their joint managing director (maybe I need to get myself a title like that) Graham Samson and we seemed to hit it off so hopefully, together, we'll put on another successful festival in September.

The beauty about going back to LT Scotland today was that I hadn't been around for a few weeks and with Christmas and all the holidays coming up there was a chance to meet up with old pals to see what they were upto. A couple even said they kept up to date with the blog so thanks to Tracy, Jackie and Heidi - there's the mention I promised!!!

Anyway, even although its late on there's naff on on the telly so I'm going to do a bit more work on the BETT blog.