There was I, worrying about the next gas bill, when along comes the EU and thumps an invoice for £1.7bn on the UK’s doormat. It’s kind of put things in perspective for me.
It also made me think that every cloud has a silver lining (albeit an expensive one) because the bill reflects the ground the UK economy has made up in the last year or 18 months.
There was tangible evidence of the recovery – for international as well as UK companies – at last month’s Timber Expo (pp22-24). There was a definite buzz about the place and it wasn’t just the noise from the adjacent W14 exhibition.
It also wasn’t just down to the 30% increase in visitor numbers to the show – although, of course, that helped. The buzz came from the genuinely positive vibe among the exhibitors, many of whom reported a marked pick-up in business and had new products and services primed and ready to take advantage of the better times both now and ahead.
The really interesting dynamic is that, having bobbed about in the doldrums for the last handful of years, those companies that have come through the recession are now ready to hit the ground running – all at the same time.
"Everyone has arrived at the start line together," said Epicor’s Andrew Wilkinson, speaking at the exhibition. "An enormous catapult of a race has just gone off and everyone is hurtling towards the first bend."
Negotiating that first bend and hitting the straight ahead of the rest of the field will depend on a company’s fitness, he said, adding, "there will be winners and losers". Mr Wilkinson said that businesses had come out of the recession not just wanting to blow the dust off machinery that had lain idle, but wanting "to do things better".
From his perspective, this has focused his customers’ attention on the gains that can be made by investing in software systems but it’s a similar story in other industry sectors.
Timber treatments providers reported an increase in demand for their products, mouldings manufacturers noted "substantial growth" and primary processors and manufacturers flagged up new products that would allow merchants and distributors to differentiate themselves from the competition.
On the construction front, European companies were promoting engineered timber and building systems for all they were worth and the Structural Timber Association’s Andrew Carpenter was so upbeat about the sector’s prospects he said he hadn’t experienced an upturn like it in all his years in the industry.
I emphasise the feeling of optimism because it really wasn’t that long ago that that particular noun was always preceded by the word "cautious". Perhaps we – and timber – really are out of the woods.
But then there is the small matter of that £1.7bn bill to worry about…
