The elephant pregnancy

Eating my breakfast this morning I glanced at two candle holders, which sit on my kitchen table. They look like heatsinks. Bits of metal popped into electronic equipment to help keep them cool. Well, my brain bounced around their story and so I decided to share with you.

Back in the 90s and early 2000s I worked for a technical PR agency. We had clients all over the world making all sorts of things from SIM cards to motors and drives, electronic meters to mobile phones and even one that was exploring networking through SMS texting. A new fangled idea at the time, but that’s another story.

So, a Swiss client needed a catalogue to promote a line of heatsink components that their French office was going to source. The catalogue needed to be in three languages: English, French and German. The task fell to me and onward I went to bring the paper document into being. 

The candlesticks were given to me at this time as a Christmas present from my sister and brother in law. They’d seen them in Habitat and thought of my project. 

I had no idea how long the project would take when I started. But it turned into a mammoth task, for me at least. By the end of it I learned that an elephant has a 22 month pregnancy. And that’s how long the process took. 

A trip to Switzerland to start the project. My first proper business trip. I was to meet the French electronic components engineer at Basel Airport and we were to drive to the meeting together. Only thing is my flight was cancelled due to snow at Basel. So, at Heathrow at 5am I had to run to a gate and get on flight to Zurich instead. Oh and tried to find a payphone to get a message, before office hours to say that I would not be at Basel, so not to wait for me. Thanks Mum 🙂  

I like having things around me that are triggers to memories, so the candlesticks did just that this morning. I still have a copy of the catalogue. It did take me 22 months after all. And remembering this morning I am encouraged by the past, the ups and downs and the power of perseverance and the people who I worked with along the way.