Firstly I would like to thank Eye on Spain for all their help and without them I have no doubt I would not be writing this follow up story.
Well one year on and what a year. www.travellinlite.com, Baby Equipment Hire, has grown slowly but surely. I now have returning customers and personal recommendations as my reputation of a good and reliable service has gone from strength to strength. My stock has grown so much I have had to move out of my garage and hire a separate storage.
I even have ‘T’ Shirts (I know some of the regular Eye on Spain members will be jealous of that) even if I did have to wait a Spanish 3 weeks which was actually 8 weeks for them to finally arrive.
I cannot believe that a year has really passed, time has flown and I feel that finally after 4 years of being in Spain we are finally getting somewhere.
Obviously we are still in our infancy but I have Eye on Spain to look up to which after only 3 years young just look at what they have achieved.
I have added new items to my website and had an image change to my home page which has made it more elegant and professional but still friendly I hope. My newest additions have been wheelchairs and kids ID bands, which after the sad events of Madeline McCann have become very important for holidaying families.
I have also added some new safety products including carbon monoxide detectors and normal everyday things like socket covers which are extremely important here in Spain due to there being no earth in the sockets or on off switches, meaning that electrical sockets are always live.
All these new additions have been successful in their own right.
After a busy June and July and then an absolutely manic August I have had one disaster which was an absolute blow and shock. For anyone who uses a computer be it for work or pleasure please, please heed this warning………back up your data! You must back up your files.
My hard disk had a boot failure and to some they may know the severity of this but I didn’t at first until I was informed that I had lost everything, all my contacts, all my photos, everything, simply because I had not backed up my PC.
You cannot believe the sleepless nights this gave me. I was so upset, all my invoices, spreadsheets, everything that I have worked on over the last year gone, just like that.
Then it really hit home that I had lost all my photos, all the photos of my baby girl from when she was born up until now, I was devastated. We were burgled once in the UK and it feels a bit like that once I realised over a few days just exactly what had been taken.
This is the same everyday, you remember something that has gone and cannot be retrieved. I learnt a VERY, VERY big lesson; please do not do the same.
I was going to send a birthday e card to all my clients that I have had over the last year but I can’t now, very sad.
Well anyway onwards and upwards, we must move forward. I picked myself up, bought lots of rewritable disks and I am backing up everyday and keeping my emails on the server not on my hard disk.
Just before I go, after giving you a run down of the past year, I wanted to let you know that Travellinlite is not standing still. We are moving on and hopefully soon setting up a shop where I will be running the Baby Equipment Hire and in true Spanish style ‘Rent a desk’ and secretarial services and property management and PO Boxes.
I hope I haven’t bored you to tears with my catch up of the last 12mths and I hope I will be able to keep you updated on the new venture.