It's not such a bad life...

Mad morning of phoning to try and boost my appointment count for this weekend with little success, except one customer near Wyre Forest I spoke with earlier in the week who has got a veritable tribe of family and friends who tried her first order in the summer and want their own!! - so should be good sale with new customers (:
Then rushed into Sutton library as I'd not brought enough "WTE sheets" again so needed to print off extras... then rushed over to Rugby, Southam and Coventry for tastings... The blip is near Napton, Southam in Warwickshire - like last time, felt like a lovely genteel but laid back, down to earth place... As I stood on the bridge thinking of a blip, this houseboat came under the bridge, with rough sounding fag-smoking lady calling out a running commentary to her bloke inside... just had a little glimpse into another person's very different life (which I get a lot with my job) - a little jealous in some ways of this "life on the water with a soul mate" but then reflected that my life isn't so bad really...
Looked up what canal it was (you can use the 'show on map' facility on blip locate blips, which I love to do, but only works if the blipper has location enabled on their phone / digital camera, which most don't), surprised to see it is called the Oxford Canal... so followed its route on the map (surprisingly twisting for a canal) back through Banbury (birthplace of my grandma), then back right past my college in Oxford, to the Thames just further South...
Three tastings: (1) poor OAP customer who wanted to chat (said as much beforehand)... nice chat about Rugby and rugby and some of his past life... he surprisingly put in a small order from the Christmas catalogue... (2) posh, moneyed 6 person tasting with extended family in lovely barn conversion with views over countryside... loved a number of the wines... but decided not to buy "at the moment" but "we have your details if we decide to buy some later". Yeah right... (3) a 50-something bloke on a council estate in Coventry who'd roped his non-wine-drinking 18-25 year old kids into a reduced price tasting from Wowcher... just went with the flow, tried to give them an interesting and fun time knowing a sale was unlikely... wife and daughter watching Strictly on large TV in same room... big dog constantly bouncing up to me to get me to play with him... son with can of lager under his seat which he swigged between wine servings... you can picture the scene... At the end Dad wanted to buy a couple of the bottles, but we do 6 minimum (and £10 shipping charge means a 2-bottle order adds £5 per bottle...). He clearly wanted to, but didn't have the money... especially as he is taking his wife on a retirement-treat trip of a lifetime to New York before Christmas... so his family all chipped in £20-25 each, and he ended up getting £190 order with a selection of his favourites... you could tell he was dead chuffed, both with the wines / port / liqueur he bought, and with the whole experience, and with his kids' generosity...
Another example of how preconceptions of who will and won't buy are so often wrong in this job...