Chapter 34

The following day Ron met with Joe Costello and his wife Maria to discuss the pizza parlour. Maria was happy that we were prepared to finance them.

"Mr Ron, for years Joe and I have had our dream of having a pizza parlour, when Joe told me that the store would soon be available I thought we could not find the finance to start. Your generous offer overwhelms me, I'm so happy."

"Maria, Joe, this town is very important to my family, we want to see it grow, helping you get started gives us a lot of pleasure plus it is also beneficial to us as a business deal, we all benefit by it."

Ron had drawn up all the documents and explained to Maria and Joe all the details; with both of them satisfied they signed the agreement.

Ron had a busy day on his first day back from his honeymoon. He arranged a meeting with Peio and myself to discuss the proposal of a housing estate.

As it turned out Peio and a couple of local builders had been loosely kicking a similar idea around. Their plan was to build a house and then sell it, buy another block of land and start all over again. They had in mind to use three basic house designs but vary the appearances via Peio's prefab walls.

Ron and I indicated that we were interested in investing in such a project and also we had several lots of land available close to town. Peio suggested he get in touch with the two builders and if they were interested we could have another meeting. All in all a productive day.

With Jess back in the saddle I decided to take some time to look around the Milk factory, the place intrigued me, it was noisy, busy and the not unpleasant smell of milk hung in the air.

I talked to Mike Hall for a while and then told him I was going to wander around and acquaint myself with the running of the place, he wished me luck and warned me of keeping clear of the machines.

I started off at the entry point for the milk, as I walked down to the loading bay the milk tester looked up, {what's this prick swanning around here for? Probably never done a days work in his life, people like me have to work like hell to get where we are and this bastard has it given to him on a plate}.

Hmmm a definite need to play this one by ear I thought. The best defence is offence, I walked up to him and stuck out my hand, "Jimmy Watson mate, mind if I stick with you for a bit, I'm interested in the running of the factory and it seems like this is the best place to start."

For a moment he seemed stunned, then with a bit of bluster asked "what would the likes of you want to know about this end of the business, you'd be more at home in the office than down here with the workers."

"Hmmm, I'd have to disagree with you on that point, if you're involved in a business it's imperative to know what goes on you're a fool if you ignore it, don't you agree?"