One Hundred Thousand Big Ones

Andy came home from work yesterday (like he does) and he said, 'I HAVE A PLAN!' (I write his words in capital letters not because Andy was shouting, well, he was a bit, but because he was excited and I want to convey his excitement without resorting to 'Excitivision TV -for all your exciting television needs.)

'What is your plan?' said I. I thought, we need a plan, because I've had a bit of a narky, aimless day.

'Right,' said Andy. 'Here is the plan. It is a business plan.' He would have done well at my previous school of employment, I thought, where we were Business and Enterprise status, which led to some very tenuous links on the old lesson plans I can tell you. (Once, when I was teaching 'Romeo and Juliet' (the play, not two students called the aforesaid names), it was suggested by the member of senior management who was observing me, that I could link my lesson to business and enterprise by telling the students they could get a package holiday to Verona to see Juliet's balcony. Hmmm...needless to say I didn't heed his advice, nor did I say that actually, Dave, (coz that was his name) no balcony was mentioned in the original script by W.Shakespeare esq., merely a garden. I didn't want him to think I was a pretentious know-it-all.)

'Are you paying attention?' said Andy.
'Yes,' I said, laying aside my washing up gloves, for I was washing up at the time.
'It's a great plan,' said Andy. 'I'm very excited about it.'
'Continue, mon brave,' I said.

'We go to a bank and say we want some money because we are going to buy a bed and breakfast property from which we can run courses in self-sufficiency slash arts and crafts skills slash chicken slash bee keeping and other stuff like that,' said Andy. 'And we can provide conference facilities for outside speakers and you can run educational courses and creative writing retreats and bake cakes...'
'And you will be...' I interjected
'Mine host!' said Andy. 'And running the make a sausage slash hedgerow wine slash elementary carpentry courses.' To his credit, mine host did not mention running sci-fi conferences but I suspect they hover somewhere on the periphery of his keen business mind.

Now, I have to say I, too, was very excited about this business plan. So much so that I have spent a lot of today mulling ideas over in my mind and, more importantly, trying to work out how much extra money we shall need to acquire slash borrow slash steal. I reckon one hundred thousand should do it. Which sounds daunting in some ways, yet oddly achievable in others because I think that once you become driven by a plan, anything is achievable. Also, we have some savings already so we are, actually just over ten per cent of our way towards the target. Plus the two five pound notes I found last week. Minus the thirty pounds I spent yesterday on buying two of the cutest little dresses you've ever seen for Granddaughter Kayleigh who is now 7 weeks and two days old and weighing 11lbs 4 oz.

I said to Andy when he came home from work this evening (like he does) and whilst he was eyeing the vegetarian chilli sans carne with a modicum of suspicion, 'I reckon we'll need one hundred thousand pounds.'
'For what?' said he.

Oh, how quickly they forget, these mine hosts.

'For our business plan,' I said.
'Ah, yes!' said Andy. 'So how are we going to get this money?'
'Well, ' I said, 'if we stop buying newspapers, that'll save £5.50 a week. Which is £286 a year.'
'That'll take us a smidge under 350 years, then,' said Andy, who is sometimes a little too quick in the Maths department for his own safety.

'Obviously we'll have to work out additional savings plans,' I said.

Which is what I'm working on now.

For there must be a way. There must.