Comment: Is spring sprung?

Warmer weather always makes people positive and perky after the long winter chill and it wasn't just the Mothering Sunday dafs pushing skyward in the warm spring sunshine this weekend.

Followers of the Optician Index can't have failed to notice the upward movement at the right hand end of the lines on most of the charts (see page 34) in our own business barometer.

We may have to wait just a little longer to be sure, but after a year of steady decline it looks very like the market has turned the corner – and not before time.

It is a dangerous game, and not the habit of journalists, to call the market but a number of comments have led Optician to believe that the Index is reading the runes right.

As well as the numbers in the Index, which show a clear, if short, trend upwards in most of the primary indices, there is documentary evidence too.

The current waiting time for an eye exam, in this area at least, is a fortnight. Among three people interviewed this week all have noted a positive trend among practices. One citing volume, one citing the emergence of new independent practices and another pooh-poohing the negative effects of the Section 60 changes.

Television advertising and media promotion is more active than it has ever been and the Optician Awards is heading for a sell out.

These are all views, actions and events that don't take place unless people are feeling positive and proactive. March's Index will be watched with renewed interest.

All we have to do now is wait for dem boidies.