Part 28. Hello, Goodbye

Paul Daniels, fluffy potatoes and killer bears.

Before we start, you may want to pop a like on the end for our Keanu.

Now then, it’s us again. If you have a razor sharp memory, you’ll remember that last week Lozza started working with us and she was a trooper.

You may also remember that we went camping, and it wasn't good.

Now this week, we have some sad news………

You may remember that our Keanu was studying for a degree in Elevatory Sports Diaphragm Disarmament, a very useful subject. Not sure what he was going to do with that degree, actually, I don't think he knew either. But the good thing is, our Keanu had a plan.

Having a plan is important, or I should say, having goals and targets is important. Many people just plod along in life with no purpose, maybe they’re happy with that. But as far as Donna and I were concerned, we needed a goal.

Get this. Imagine a football pitch, centre line, corners and that white spot in the middle of the pitch. And goal posts of course. Then there are two teams, Ouch My Leg City, and Pay Me Double United. Obviously these teams want to score as many goals as possible. But imagine if we removed the goals. Then what would happen to the game? Not much is the answer. The players would be aimlessly running around a field with zero purpose.

Like a life without goals, no point.

Anyway, back to our Keanu. At some point during his degree he had done one of those student exchange things, and our Keanu ended up in the back arse of Canada somewhere. I can’t remember exactly where, but I do remember him telling us that if you drove along the straight roads heading north, the roads stop and became wilderness. Then bears eat you.

But the good thing is, our Keanu loved the place. And he met a girl. So the goal of our Keanu was to finish his degree, save up all the cash he had earned while working with us, then get himself off to Canada and be reunited with the girl.

Now, I can imagine that some people were a bit sceptical about this, I think he talked about this at the time. It was quite a big goal for a young lad. There was a lot stacked against him. But our Keanu was focused, and he had the strength of three Rhodesian Ridgebacks, so he was kinda unstacking those odds.

And so it happened, our Keanu had to give us his notice, he was leaving. I must admit, I was quite sad about this, our Keanu was our first team member, our first born. But he was young and he had to meet his targets, and luckily he gave us a months notice.

That months notice passed very quickly, maybe it was just a week. We arranged one of those staff nights out to say goodbye*, as you do, and we bought him a digital camera. Shows how long ago it was.

Our Keanu went back to his home town of Sheffield for a while, came to visit us one lunchtime a few weeks later with his mother, and then he was off to Canada. He met his goal. You have to give him some respect for that.

And that was that, our Keanu was gone, and he took Tony Cannelloni with him. You see, this imaginary team member was created by our Keanu and I, nobody else could see him, or understand what the hell we were talking about. So he was gone also. We missed our Keanu, but you know what, over the years so many people come and go, you become accustomed to it.

But just so you know, and maybe you’re not interested, our Keanu is still living in Canada. He married the girl he travelled there for and they have a daughter, so all good. He wasn’t eaten by bears either. Isn’t that nice?

Goals and targets, get some.

Right, we don’t want to dwell on the next bit too much because it’s not really restauranty. Here we go. As we had an offer on our house in Stockton on Tees, we had been looking for a house in York, and we found one. It was a little place in a village just outside of York, but all the houses we looked at were little, our money didn't go as far as it did in sunny Stockton.

So we needed to get some mortgage money from the bank. What? A business owner needs a loan? Yea, you thought they were all millionaires didn't you?

So we contacted the bank who we had our mortgage with at the time, and asked for some cash. Now, in the past, this was a simple procedure, you have an idea of how much they’ll give you and you complete some forms. Then they agree to give you some money.

But not this time. Oh no, this time it went like this…..

“Yes no problem. If you pop into the branch and bring your ID and three months payslips we can have a look.”

“Errrrr, we don’t have any payslips, we’ve opened a restaurant so we work for ourselves now.”

“OK. Then you’ll need to bring in two years business accounts.”

“But we haven’t been open for two years, so we don’t have two years accounts. We don’t even have one years accounts.”

“Then I’m sorry, we won’t be able to give you a mortgage.”

If you think this is ok and fancy dropping three squid for a coffee, then this is the link.

That’s it. Just like that, everything stops. We needed to halt the house sale. We needed to withdraw the offer on the York property, and worst of all, we’ll still have that hour drive home at 11:30 pm.

Maybe that was karma. Maybe the bank knew that we lied to them and used the loan which was meant for an extension to open a restaurant instead.

See, what goes around, comes around.

But we couldn’t just give up, there must be a solution. Were we supposed to just put our head down and let it go?

Nope!

So who could we ask? Was there anyone we knew who could talk to us about numbery type things?

Yes. Howard. This was the accountant who sorted our accounts for us. We liked Howard, as a person, but the problem with him was this. He made us do stuff.

“We’re missing seven invoices from July. Where’s the petty cash receipts from last week? How many miles have you covered in your car which are related to restaurant work? You didn’t send the cheque stubs last week.” He was probably just doing his job, but he kept steering us towards paperwork.

Well, Howardio didn’t have an answer, but he did recommend someone who could possibly help us. Craig!

Craig was, and still is, a financial advisor. Or something like that. He knows all about stuff like carbon credits, mini bonds, wealth management, temporary permissions regime, pension unlocking and all the other things which are even less exciting than watching a bucket of water evaporate.

So we called him and explained our long winded situation.

“So we’re a bit stuck you see Craig. It seems that we can’t have a mortgage.”

And in one small sentence, Craig made everything happen, as he has done on many occasions.

“No problem, I can organise a mortgage for you.”

WHAT? How did that happen? We thought we had no chance. According to our bank the doors were closed.

Well, Craig explained that the interest rate would be higher, but it was definitely possible, he could start working on it straight away. Brilliant. Craig was, and still is, a financial Paul Daniels.

In your face karma.

Right then, one last thing, something funny to help you get over the trauma of our Keanu leaving. Behind the restaurant was a bit of an alley and some no mans land. This was where the wheelie bin lived, and this is where a sheet of toughened glass stubbornly sat. This is also where we met people from other businesses and caught up with what was going on in the area. Sushi Simon was always there, peddling idle gossip. But when you walked a bit further back, there was another small clearing, this is a place where we grew prize weeds.

And this area backed onto a shop called Sarah Coggles. Their outside area was great, they had fancy chairs and lounge tables, no weeds.

Anyway, Sarah Coggles sold very fancy, and expensive, fashion clothing. We’d been in to have a look, it was a smart shop.

Now, the story behind this shop goes like this. There was a solicitor in York who had been having an affair with his secretary. So because of this, his wife filed for a divorce. After the divorce, the then ex wife used a big chunk of the divorce settlement money to open this fancy designer clothing shop, and she called it Sarah Coggles.

Sarah Coggles wasn't her name though. Sarah Coggles was the name of the secretary her husband had the affair with.

Right, next week is the Monthly Foodie One, and it’s gonna be about spuds, yea, beautiful, muddy, fluffy potatoes. But apologies, no dull stuff like stuffed jackets or how to make the best roasties.You’ve seen all that before.

Thanks as always, Andrew and Donna.

*Did you know? In old English, when you parted company with someone for a short period of time, you would have said, ‘God be with ye”.

Over time this became shortened to, ‘Goodbye’.