Muscovy ducks make great pets

My muscovy duck, Tara, is sitting on her nest at the moment. She has five eggs which she has hidden beneath straw and soft white down plcked from her breast. I have had her for only a few months after buying her to keep another muscovy company. The previous one, Rosie, was sadly killed, presumably by a fox on the evening that I brought Tara home so they never met. Muscovies are odd looking fowl with a bright red mask above the bill, pink feet and blue eyes. The male of the species is particularly strange with a knobbly texture on the red mask which makes them look a bit fearsome and ugly. They make a chirruping noise and they perch on walls and gates rather than sitting in the pond as my other ducks do, in fact, they don't like water much at all. I recommend them as pets because they are full of character and very friendly. Tara comes looking for me in the mornings, chirruping for either food or a bowl of water and signalling quite clearly what she wants. If the eggs hatch they will be hybrids as we don't have a muscovy drake. This means the ducklings will never be able to reproduce - they will be sterile. Watch this space for news on the offspring.

Discretion or Web 2.0?

People are doing their own PR with Web 2.0, whether they know it or not, and discretion has gone out of the window. I read recently how parents are anxiously following the adventures of their offspring on Facebook and how salespeople hungry for new business are watching Twitter for clues about how to approach company buyers. Is it time that a little discretion was called for? Do you really want to broadcast the intimacies of your life to the world? PR specialists are employed by the rich and famous to ensure that their best faces are presented to the public, and even this can go disasterously wrong as we see in the red tops every day. So how can the great unwashed hope to manage their own public images with any hope of success? Or perhaps they simply don't care.

On a completely different topic - don't you just hate it when tasks are delegated to people then their decisions are interfered with or completely overidden by the bosses who delegated the task to them in the first place? Let me know if I'm ever guilty of that please team!

Upturn and building relationships

Good afternoon all. Today I visited a client in the motor trade. They have noticed an upturn in new and used car sales, which is encouraging, especially as they deal with luxury marques. During the depths of last year, their business was maintained by marketing the vehicle servicing aspect which they developed to support the sales side. Revenue has been affected of course but they have survived and they are now ready to tackle the plans to grow that they put aside as turnover was dropping. The interesting thing is that the customers with whom they have forged relationships by servicing their cars are already starting to look at trading them in for newer models and they will more than likely buy from the outlet they have come to know and trust. I won't preach about how companies should market themselves consistently through good times and bad - it's pretty obvious that would be my view - but it's great to see how business owners gain confidence when they get a return on what they do. Relationships are the key to good business and they need to be fed on a regular basis or they'll wither and die. Lecture over.

Friday customs

It is our custom at Alpha to enjoy a sandwich break together on Friday mornings. I see from Twitter that Kevin's horrible pitta sandwich has attained notoriety. It's sad that some of us have reached the age where we have to forgo the FB (full breakfast) that our younger colleagues can munch happily without regard for their waistbands. Actually, Kevin has breakfast at Rotary on Fridays before the sandwich break so the healthy pitta is a bit of a smokescreen really! Anyway, no matter what we eat, it's good to sit round the table and talk about non-work topics. Have a great weekend everyone.

First time

Well, there's a first time for everything. Blogging. Our new website is live and everything in the Alpha garden is coming up rosier than it's been for many a year. It's year 20 for us and, although we've been going for most of the life of our youngest team member, it feels as fresh as ever. Am I supposed to do this every day? Not sure. I will defer to my more webby colleagues. See you soon. Elaine.