Output

I once put in a pop-up sprinkler system to water our garden. That was in the days when it was sprinklers that were pop-up, not restaurants. 

The first stage involved measuring the water flow rate. This was done by using two scientific implements, a watch and a bucket.

I filled the bucket with water and timed the process.

This gave me the flow rate in litres per minute, and that told me how many sprinklers I could have and what length of pipe etc.

And so I put the sprinklers in a great big arc around the cup-shaped large back lawn, pointing inwards, and they all intersected in the middle.

And thus, I looked upon it and it was good.

And apart from a blockage at one point, it continued to be good.

But changes were afoot.

The last sprinkler in the line started to fail to pop-up. The next to last one started being reluctant. And in the middle the arcs stopped intersecting, leaving a dry bit.

Why?

I thought there might be blockages. Or that sprinklers were wearing out. Or that we had a leak.

After investigating all of this, I decided to just retest the flow. And it had dropped by a third.

Why?

When we installed it, we were only the third house existent in our street. By the time it had dropped, there were ten.

“Our” water pressure was being shared. And there was nothing we could do.

What’s the lesson here from this analogy, folks?

If you have more houses, you have less pressure? Don’t buy sprinkler systems (they are illegal here now anyway) before your street is full? I never state something in one sentence if a long and rambling analogy will do? Too many outlets reduce the output to any one outlet?

Ah yes, it’s that last one.

Some readers of my blog have suggested that my output has dropped alarmingly. And yes, it has.

Why? Too many houses.

• Our tea business has gone a bit ballistic. Here in our local market, we have rapidly expanded our activity. So much so that we are about to move to a new warehouse.
• We have new food products coming out in the Australian market, and have written a cookbook around them.
• I am writing a book, and have diverted my writing activities to that.
• We am preparing for many exciting US activities in an upcoming tour
• Our HR business is very busy.

It’s a balancing act, and at this stage the blog is getting less attention. In fact, the video blogs have stopped altogether.

Going back to my analogy; I could have easily fixed my flow problems by burning down some of my neighbours houses.

In this case, I don’t want to burn anything down, so I shall continue to juggle.

This may mean that many of you get less sarcasm; less tea-related abuse, less intransigence, less opinionated clap-trap on this site than you require.

I can but apologise. Normal transmission will be resumed as soon as possible.