And so now I find myself rising from my bed at 4.30am for today is the day we restart the business. I don’t do this because I want to do this, but because if I don’t, we will lose just about everything we’ve ever worked for. It is a sobering thought but when you put your life into bricks and mortar and a piece of human filth smashes that to bits in a “road traffic accident”, you start to wonder why you bother? You see, the police don’t see this as criminal damage because a car was involved. It is a road traffic accident, so that makes it OK. The Home Office has deemed this crime as such but it is no different than if a man had taken a sledgehammer to the front of our shop is it? Still no contact from the police. Even our loss assessor suspects something is not quite right with all of this.
Equipped with rechargeable lanterns and wind-up torches, myself and The Missus worked in the semi-darkness, the power still cut, sorting out newspapers and magazines and pulling together the delivery rounds. All but one of the newspaper boys turned up, but that’s teenagers for you. You phone them, leave messages and still they can’t be bothered. Oh well, what can you do about it?
The shop can only open during the hours of daylight. Being an ingenious so-and-so, I am running the till and other electronics off a number of car batteries. The shop opens and within the space of half-an-hour two customers come into cancel their newspaper delivery. Some people offer support and are disgusted that the local Co-Op were quick to jump on our bones by starting to supply newspapers on the first day of our non-trading.
The thing you soon realise is that everyone out there is quick to nick your business when you are down. The local newspaper printer/wholesaler put out leaflets telling our customers that they could get their newspapers at another local shop. Completely kill our business, why don’t you?
So today feelings are mixed. There was a strong feeling of comaraderie when we were restocking the shop with newspapers and magazines and it felt good that we could continue, but the whinging and moaning customers who only seem to care about their newspapers being delivered really grind you down.
We are going through the motions until everything can be restored. I feel strange, somewhat detached from proceedings as if I am viewing this through someone else’s eyes.
Is this really happening? Sometimes it feels quite dreamlike.
Today is also The Missus’s birthday. She received a letter from her grandmother wishing us well and it made her cry. Sometimes I don’t think the emotional impact has come out as we have been too busy just coping with moving and restarting the business. The other afternoon, while sitting at some traffic lights, I had a flashback to the accident. I can still hear the noise of the impact when I close my eyes and I now freeze and panic when I hear or see the emergency services and their all-too familiar flashing blue lights.
The wound is raw.

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