The end of last week for me was pretty dark as reality set in. Last year we had Christmas and the trip to New York to distract us and then the USA trip to plan. Suddenly, the enormity and uncertainty of the change we are about to go through, and are currently going through really hit home. I felt overwhelmed but the number of small things I needed to do to disengage from Pfizer and ended up spending two days in my dressing gown in the the office sorting out my personal stuff from my work stuff and transferring my life from my work computer to my personal one and my work email address to my home one. I had a long list of accounts from FaceBook and Love Film to my Bank Account and Credit Cards where I needed to change my email address - essentially I was feeling a bit out of control and needed to take it back.
So what have we been doing? Plan B has been slowly but surely crystallising into a pretty solid plan. We have decided to go down Route 2 and go straight for the Bed and Breakfast idea in term of buying a going concern. We decided the Chalet idea was just another avoidance or delaying tactic and that you don't really need to do courses to learn how to mange a budget and profit and loss account or to cook breakfasts and clean rooms. Work experience still might be useful though. Mike is still pursuing his Barbadian Citizenship although we are increasingly thinking that the time is not right for a move to Barbados just yet and that leaving Pfizer and starting our own business might be enough to deal with at one time, and a move to the other side of the Atlantic might just be a step too far even for us!
So the new plan is to get the house on the market and start researching and looking for a suitable going concern to purchase. Scotland is emerging as the front-runner in terms of location at the moment. We can't do anything until May/June when Mike gets his money so we have a few months to get the various wheels in motion.
In the background I've been selling stuff on EBay as a start on clearing the house ready to sell and I've been writing a little bit of my novel everyday using the Snow Flake Method by Randy Ingermanson which is really working for me at the moment and the story and characters feel as though they are coming together. http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php
I have bought the domain name for my on-line retail business and started to try and set-up a web page but am beginning to think I'm going to need some help with this one. I am a great believer ever in the concept that anyone can do anything if they take the time and put their mind to it but I am struggling with this one.
Mike has been given four two hour sessions with his group of teenage boys and has been working on what he is going to do with them. Today he has gone of for his CRB check in relation to that.
On Monday we drove down to Pfizer Head Office at Walton Oaks in Surrey to meet with an independent financial adviser from Origen http://www.origenfs.co.uk/index.html as part of our redundancy package. We had the option of doing it over the phone but because both of us are affected and it felt like a tough conversation to have on the phone, opted for the face to face meeting. When we were driving down to Surrey and around the M25 we did ask ourselves whether it was going to be worth but we can honestly say it was. Nice young bloke with some really good ideas that we would never have thought of! For example, he suggested that if our goal is to raise enough cash to buy the best Bed and Breakfast we can then it might not be the best idea for Mike to pay his redundancy into his pension and that even if he is taxed on 40% we will still get more tax now if he doesn't do it. He also persuaded Mike that it is cost-effective to pay and accountant to do your tax returns as they will almost always save you more than you pay them. It was weird and uncomfortable being in Walton Oaks. Things are carrying on as if nothing has happened and for everyone else I suppose it hasn't. People were going about their business apparently oblivious to the turmoil we are going through. There was also an irrational sense that we were disgraced in some way and the few people we did meet seemed awkward and embarrassed when they realised why we were there. That said, it was good in some ways to have a final visit there and to say our own goodbyes in our own way........
Another useful meeting we had this week was with a DBM Consultant, again as part of the redundancy package. DBM are an outplacement support organisation who have been doing well recently. It must be odd to measure your success through the misfortune of others. http://www.dbm.com/ Again, a very useful meeting which was worth the drive into Birmingham City Centre on a cold and frosty day. We took some time to explore the market, a thing we have never really done before despite having toured markets all over the world from France to Vietnam. We resolved as part of our new cost-saving strategy to buy as much of our fruit, veg meat and fish as we can form there over the coming weeks.
The main things to come out of the DBM meeting for me were the realisation that we are going through a massive change curve and that it is normal to have extremes of emotion on an almost daily basis, and the need to generate a robust business plan for the Bed and Breakfast sooner rather than later. That will be our number one priority for next week.
We have also been to visit a small quest house and lovely little event venue 5 minutes from home called The Limes http://www.limescountrylodge.co.uk/ We are going to explore the possibility of doing some work experience there although it is not quite the same as our own concept. The staff are friendly and helpful and the owner has built it up from scratch into something quite special. The first step will be to spend a day shadowing the House Keeper in terms of the process and procedures associated with cleaning the bedrooms - how difficult and complicated can that? be I hear you say......well we'll let you know.......
We have also been planning our trip to Scotland in March. We are going to stay for a couple of days at a Bed and Breakfast that we know about through the family and that us currently on the market and do some wider research on the West Coast of Scotland as a potential location, including identifying and viewing a few other businesses. It is also an opportunity to visit some of the places I lived in as a child with Mike, but also to take Mum and Dad back to them too, on a sort of nostalgic Scottish road trip. We also have a few friends in Scotland that we are going to try and catch up with while we have the time.
Life has been getting back to normal in other ways. I have resumed my Burlesque classes this year at the MAC in Edgbaston http://www.macarts.co.uk/, and have graduated to the intermediate group where we have begun already to rehearse for a show in April. OMG! What was I thinking! Seriously it is great fun. Lovely women and Dixy Derriere is a great teacher. http://www.bijouxburlesque.co.uk/home
Mike and I have also resumed our ballroom classes at the Mosley Dance Centre. Again, great fun and great teachers. ....http://www.moseleydancecentre.com/.... we are currently working on the waltz and the quick step for the second time having failed miserably on our first attempt to complete the Friday might beginners class.
And finally, in the context of saving money I have decided to move from our local expensive designer opticians to SpecSavers for my glasses and contact lenses so spent several hours yesterday having eye-tests and choosing some new glasses and making an appointment for new contact lenses - I reckon I am going to save us a fortune!!!!!!
http://www.specsavers.co.uk/?gclid=CLLwh4T-260CFUIMfAodvxSLnw&sissr=1
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