'Tis the season to be jolly.

'Tis also the season when not a lot gets done in terms of business. These days, Corfu, like everywhere else, seems to close for business from Christmas day until January the something. One can’t complain, everyone deserves a break, but it is frustrating when you are trying to crack on with launching a new business. Our most pressing need is to get into our new premises in Kontokali which is shown here. This is necessary mainly because we can’t actually form the business until we definitely have a business address. We did go to the property owners solicitor just before Christmas where everything was agreed, so we are not actually worried, but would like to get things sorted. Ho hum. Anyway, it appears we will be OK for mid January at the latest so it’s no disaster, but……

In the meantime we have not been idle. We’ve been busy updating our websites and getting the Shopping Cart online ordering sorted out. This is a lot of work and fortunately Jon from Truetype Web Solutions has been working over the holiday period so we have been able to meet several times and make progress. This is a learning curve for us and very interesting. We should have something ready soon so that will be an exciting development. Having decided on our product categories we are expecting to post twenty different categories from fresh fruit and veg to beauty products, probably around 2000 product lines to start with. Eventually we expect to have in excess of 5000 products online. Phew!

We are delighted to note that both our websites are now very high in the search engine rankings, largely thanks to hard work between ourselves and Jon. With the new summer season looming this is good news and we look forward to a successful year.

We did allow ourselves a day off on Christmas day and were invited to lunch with friends. This was a lovely surprise and many thanks to George & Rothoula (pictured) Kontis of Hawaii bar in Pelekas and their family who treated us like, well, family. (They always do). We had traditional beef stewed in red sauce, spaghetti and roast turkey. Oh, and lots of wine.

It was a lovely day and took our minds off the stress for the day. We also managed to speak with lots of friends and family around the world enjoying their Christmas, many on the piste! Lucky chaps, although you can keep the snow, thanks.

So, we hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that your new year celebrations are fun. We are hoping for the traditional firework display in the village here to bring in 2010, which we hope will be happy and prosperous for all.

Seasons greetings from Nick & Sally.