when it rains, it pours

Following the decision to close Tonic and focus on other ventures, things got even more crazy. Closing a business is not as straight forward as it seems, and there was a lot of admnistration involved. I was also keen to make sure that no businesses that supplied us products would lose money, so I paid them out of my own pocket. I also then realised it was going to be much more difficult to end the lease finance agreements. The shop fit out and equipment cost nearly £70,000, which I had taken on multiple lease finance agreements. Prior to formally closing the shop, I tried to ask each of the lease finance companies what would be the best way to do this so as to ensure that all lease finance agreements were settled in the best possible way without them or myself losing much money. Unfortunately the standard response was that they couldn’t discuss it until I actually defaulted on payments. A bit stupid if you ask me, but in the end I had to default on the payments through Tonic, which was inevitable since the business stopped trading. At that point they all kicked in the personal guarantee that I had provided and demanded full payment, including all outstanding interest to the end of the term. There was no way I was going to accept that and to start a long and very annoying process of negotiation to bring down the total amount they would need to walk away. What was annoying was that if a lease had a 5 year term, and we were only one year into it, they still wanted interest for the remaining 4 years!! In addition they were demanding VAT, which I could no longer claim back as the business had closed. I found out from some other people that they were not actually allowed to charge me VAT in the case of a settlement, but that didn’t stop them pressing for it and threatening legal action, which would have been even more costly for me. The one piece of advice I would give to anyone starting up a business like this ideally, as stated previously, start on a shoestring. The second thing would be to avoid entering lease finance agreements, especially if it is a high-risk venture, because in the event that the business doesn’t work, you’ll end up paying out more in settlement that it would have been to buy everything outright in the first place!! And never, ever sign personal guarantees until a business is fully established (and even then you should avoid it).

While trying to deal with all this, my wife and I had some health issues we were dealing with as well which made it more tiring, and Abbey road had completed so we were starting work on that. But then, out of the blue, one of my cousins passed away completely unexpectedly. This really shook the family and we had the 13 days of mourning, so we were making daily trips back to Pinner. This was a real shock and once again made us realise the fragility of life. Like many people, he had many unfulfilled hopes and dreams that would not be realised now and served as another reminder to just set your goals and go for it because you never know when life will end. And as if that wasn’t enough, my dad went for a routine operation for kidney stones and in the process was found to have problems with the heart. So he then had to go for a heart operation. Talk about things just going wrong all at the same time.

Since he was in a hospital nearby, Meenal and I made a point of being with him whenever we could, evenings and weekends. And once he came out of hospital we moved back to Pinner for a couple of weeks to be there in the evenings in case we were needed. My aunt (his sister) also stayed there which was excellent for him to have company, especially in the daytime. However all of this started taking a strain. As it was we were emoitonally and energetically stretched due to everything that had happened and closing down Tonic, but we were also working full time jobs in the city, and then going back to Pinner each day and when we’d get back in the evenings there would often be guests coming to see dad. We just about had tome to have some dinner, maybe entertain the guests for a short while and then go to bed, wake up and start again. We had to work something out as this was just getting too much and we were exhausted.

In the end, after a couple of weeks, we had to tell dad that we needed to move back into our place in town. He was making a good recovery by then anyway. My aunt was still there and my cousin was also staying there, and all my other family is nearby so it wasn’t like he wouldn’t be looked after. I realised however that it is important to look after youself both mentally and phycially (with all this going on I hadn’t been to the gym in ages and my back was starting to go again as well!!). If you are in a relaxed and healthy state of mind and body, only then can you be of any benefit to anyone else. Otherwise you’ll be no use to anyone, will resent it when people make demands of you and have no reserve energy left for when you really need it, especially if someone needs help. We needed to get back into a routine, with proper sleep, food and exercise and, most importanly, some time out to ourselves.