The Beginning - Rachel's story

10th March (one month ago)

It's 8am on Tuesday and I am on the train to the London Book Fair, a trip I had not even envisaged even 10 days ago, but suddenly our new venture is a step closer and so here I am. I used to live in London but I haven't been in over a year and have barely left Shropshire since Christmas, so I feel very country-mouseish as I crawl out of bed and haul my aged car (heating on the frtiz, slow puncture) over the hill towards the station. I have forgotten how to be on trains, I have forgotten how to navigate around London transport, I have no idea what to wear in a city, and I am exhausted from hours of hard graft writing a business plan to try to persuade people to give us a bookshop, on top of doing my full time job and keeping up my little bar job because we're going to need every penny to make the dream come true.

The thing about business plans is that no one seems to quite agree on what they should be, all the templates are different, and really, they cannot be anything other than a work of fiction, a hope that, should we open our doors, x people will spend y pounds on books and cake. Who knows? I fret as I fiddle with the Year 1 cashflow spreadsheet that runs month by month down 90 lines - utilities, staff costs, book sales and coffee machines and book groups and bar nights. Quarterly VAT bills, closure in January for flood season, bacon sandwiches for cyclists, all of these stories we have been telling each other, all these things we want to do, distilled into a final summary sheet that will hopefully say to our landlords that yes, we can do this, that we know what we're doing. It is a strange charade on the one hand, but on the other it has been an invaluable lesson in understanding what our creature, this bookshop we are birthing, will be, how it works, how its bones hold it up, how its heart beats. I now feel deeply connected to this dream, and the fact that we are not yet able to claim it as ours leaves us in a strange limboland of hope/not hope, excitement (maybe), and, in my case certainly, trying and failing not to tell everyone I know that it might be happening because holding it in feels impossible. It could be so very beautiful.

While we wait to hear from the powers that be if we can take on this lease, we must distract ourselves and keep our own shows on the road. Polly has a proper job as a teacher, with additional responsibilities as a union rep, a family she loves, and a new play she co-wrote that has just debuted in London and has been well-received. On top of my two jobs I have a funeral to write (I am a celebrant) a trip to Amsterdam booked, and we are both attempting some form of leisure - singing and Pilates (me), dancing and gardening (Polly), reading (both of us) - in order not to lose our minds. It is a lot.

So I am sitting here on the train, knackered and kinda wired, trying to allow thoughts such as 'is it crazy to start a business with this war in Iran going on?", 'we need to start a company, how do we do that?' and 'we'll have to feed our volunteer helpers' to pass through me without lingering as I look at the sunshine (the sunshine!) and the landscape and prepare for the day ahead, meeting publishers, looking at till systems, getting advice from the booksellers association, and identifying myself with the line 'we're hoping to take on a bookshop next month.'