My WiFi Nextdoor

Now that we are well into our second year of running our own business from home, our friends (if we had any) would lean over the bar of the local pub (if we had one) and ask the following question : "How on Earth do you cope working together all day as husband and wife?".

Well, the short answer is that we don't.

Thanks to the magic of Wireless Internet I am able to work in my back bedroom office and back bedroom photographic studio whilst Mrs Rine "hot desks" it with the laptop in the kitchen. We haven't reached the stage of corresponding by emails yet but we do use the internal phone for important business exchanges such as where a particular item of stock has disappeared to. (Every room in the house contains a certain amount of stock - or "old shite" as Oz refers to it).

When we do have to meet up it's a bit like we are working in a "proper" organization where the office politics come to the fore. For example, when I have my imaginary "Head of Warehouse" Brown coat on and am knee deep in corrugated cardboard, I base my character on a dangerous amalgum of Stan from Dinner Ladies, Arkwright from Open All Hours and Victor Meldrew from One Foot in the Grave. When Mrs Rine appears with a query that something cost twice as much to post because of the excess packing weight I turn to my imaginary colleagues (or Oz) and say things like "Those girls in that office just have no conception of the need to add protective packaging to our valuable items. They were moaning last week because I got through 17 rolls of brown plastic tape! I ask You!".

Mrs Rine bases her working persona on the entire female cast of Dinner Ladies with the exception of Twinkle, who is played by Lily.

Honestly, the days just FLY by!