Some thoughts (largely unrelated to one another).

Some thoughts (largely unrelated to one another).

1. How does a business win nice customers?

We have unbelievably nice customers at G / H. Or, at the very least, they behave beautifully around us.

Charming, enthusiastic, wildly supportive.

In fact, it’s the same with all of our businesses (of which we have quite a few).

We ran our festival The Good Life Experience for a decade. During that time, we never had a fight amongst guests.*

And, almost unbelievably, we barely had a single piece of litter.

Hold that thought. We barely had a single piece of litter.

In 10 years, with tens of thousands of guests.

Initially I was surprised by this. Have you seen the mess left at Glastonbury, which is a ‘green’ festival? It beggars belief, there is a staggering, industrial amount.

*This is more remarkable than it sounds. I once saw a massive brawl at a point-to-point.

But.

I think that the only way to get nice customers is to be nice to them.

Meet them with your eyes, with generosity, warmth, humour and complete respect.

They then meet you with the same.

You can’t fake this. You have to like people and to be empathetic, which our teams are.

People meeting people. Real people being kind and warm.

That’s my first thought for today.

2. What book should you read this month?

I wrote before Christmas with Top 20 books of 2025. If you’re wondering what to read this month then can I suggest one of my favourite novels of last year, The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller?

It’s set in the Big Freeze of 1963, which was one of the coldest winters on record in the UK, covering December 1962 and January/February 1963.

It was short-listed for the Booker and won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

“As softly dazzling as the snow in which the novel is set”.

3. Two other recommendations.

One. Having just lived with deep snow, and then floods, for several weeks I want to recommend a pair of boots I’ve been wearing, that are now in their third winter.

These aren’t British, but then I am not sure that anyone will only own things made in Britain. Certainly, I won’t.

These are made by a German company in Croatia. They are the best outdoor boots I have owned; waterproof, super comfortable, long/tall. I also have a pair which are slightly less tall, and they look better but don’t do quite such a fine job. Find them here.

Two. I mentioned the Metre Candle Company in my 2025 round-up. Since then, I have burned a few, and I love ‘em. I love candles and my favourite British maker, Fairholme seems to have ceased trading.

I don’t know where these are made, but they are sold by a small British company here.

4. Is it okay to make stuff up as you go along?

At best, the phrase ‘making it up as you go along’ is pejorative. At its worst, it implies a casual, reckless disregard for due process; a sort of bumbling inclination to see what happens, and react to that.

But my experience is that an element of ‘making stuff up as you go along’ is a necessary skill if you are running any sort of small business, and particularly one that’s in its infancy.

On this note, I think there are three types of change that are necessary at G / H this year.

First, we need to get much better. We’ve had a terrific first year, but I feel compelled to do a whole lot better. I can only see opportunities here. In particular, we need a better range and better presentation of that range.

Second, we need to add other layers to the business, to keep it fresh in order to keep you engaged. In particular, we need to respond to so many of you who have said that you want us to open a shop.

To this end, my plan is to make it one of the most interesting and unexpected shops in the UK. I have ideas for how to do this, so I’ll keep you in the loop. But I think it will be done by Spring.

And of course, we need to make daily, incremental changes. I love change and I love moving forward. So, we will move forward.

Onwards.

À bientôt, friends.

Charlie.