First Kounoyama... then the world!

Spot of tea, old chap?

We started back at work today, but with one small difference. We're no longer just an English school, oh no, we are now tea merchants too. Well, sort of. Our first friends in Abiko, a Japanese-Sri Lankan family, have received a licence to import tea and we said we'd be happy to display their wares and try to find some customers for them. It's all part of the plan. Sort of. Margaret asked me what my five-year plan was the other day, and I said we haven't really got one. If you had asked me five years ago what I would be doing now, I couldn't have predicted how my life has changed. But it got me thinking. I don't know about five years, but here's my ideal result:

• We are a well-respected English language school.
• We have our own premises with a lively tea and coffee shop on the ground floor.
• We operate a thriving English language bookshop from the basement.
• We have a small publishing operation in the attic, producing original teaching material for profit and the odd novel or two for kicks, and for sale in our bookshop.

In short, I'd love to see us develop into a cultural centre for English. It's possible, after all, the British Empire started with just a liking for tea...