Viewpoint: Diary of a spectacle designer

I’m sitting on a British Airways flight back from Mexico where I’ve been promoting my business to a Canadian eyewear group. I have to say, it was the best business trip of my life, not just in terms of sales but also fun. Everyone there seemed to think I was some kind of celebrity and I didn’t do very much to dissuade them. I’ve got a glass of wine in front of me and I’ve been musing about what happened in 2022.

Cast your minds back to the end of 2021. We were deep in the fourth wave of Covid-19 with the Omicron variant rampant. The media was talking about how to save Christmas, there was the Partygate political scandal, and the UK was being blacklisted for travel as ‘an area of concern’. I was worried that my plans to ramp up my Catch London line were too big a gamble. Would the bounce-back from Covid-19 keep going or would we all go into lockdown once more?