Where to next?

We have plenty of travel coming up in the months ahead. First, I’ll fly to Melbourne at the end of the month to set up our stand for another Australian Toy Fair. Then in April, Garry and I are flying to Bangkok to meet one of our largest suppliers. We last visited their factory in 2016 and haven’t seen them in person since they stopped exhibiting at Nurmberg in 2020.

We also have Matt and Shelley scheduled to visit in early April for a week. We’ll take them to the airport when they leave and depart for Bangkok shortly after. While they’re in town I’ve booked all of us in for an overnight stay at Taronga Zoo’s luxury Wildlife Retreat. I scored a great deal on rooms before Christmas, a 30% discount, which makes the whole experience way more affordable.

What a difference a decade makes

We’re back from another year walking the halls of Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg. It’s hard to believe we’ve been going to Germany annually since 2016 (COVID hiatus aside). This year’s event was as busy as ever. According to our iPhone apps we’ve walked more than 75,000 steps over six days.

Sadly, we missed out on our First-class points upgrade when we came home this year. However, we did secure the first two bulkhead seats in Business that offer extra leg room, so all wasn’t lost. This year we caught a late flight from Frankfurt to London and stopped overnight before continuing to Sydney.

We made the most of our stopover with a day trip to Windsor. The day dawned with clear skies and sunshine making it ideal weather for an outdoor activity. We arrived in Windsor shortly after noon. We walked along the Thames before embarking on The Long Walk. This is an arrow-straight path extending from Windsor Castle to Snow Hill an elevated statue of George the Third on horseback 4.2 km away.

The walk took more than an hour each way. Thousands of people were out doing the same. The statue on Snow Hill was impressive up close. The monumental bronze statue, larger than life size, is about 7.9 metres high, and is mounted on a rugged stone plinth 8 metres high. The view from its base, looking back to the castle, is impressive, to say the least.

However, one sight continually captured our attention. Windsor Castle lies directly under the flight path for Heathrow's southern runway. As a result, low-flying passenger jets descend like clockwork over the northern end of The Long Walk every few minutes. The stream of aircraft was unrelenting. I've read that up to 37 flights an hour pass overhead. I'm surprised the Queen enjoyed staying at Windsor as much as she did.

Once we’d completed the walk, we decided to return to London. With an hour to fill before heading to Heathrow, we decided to try out Vagabond, a wine bar on the Grand Canal we’d spotted the previous week. Using the bar's unique self-vending wine wall, we toasted another successful business trip. We've returned home with two new brands and a greater appreciation for all we’ve achieved over the last decade.

We’ve developed some wonderful friendships with people from around the world. Our suppliers have become friends, and we regularly encounter people on the trade show floor and at the airport who treat us with enormous respect. We’ve certainly become known as established players in our own right.

This was evident on our final night in Nuremberg when we organized dinner for an eclectic group of industry colleagues. Our table included a supplier’s trade show team, distributors of similar brands and other industry contacts. Nations represented at dinner last night included Australia, The Netherlands, Canada, the UK, Belgium, and Italy (plus two expats, one from New Zealand and one from Ireland).

It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years this month since we met John Daniels, Artiwood’s former owner, and decided to buy his business. What a ride it's been!