Eeeek.....!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a good idea must be in want of a damn fine plan.

And so it is, that in recent days, from my convalescent spot on the sofa, in front of a roaring fire, plans and ideas have been flowing onto my notebook.  Having finally made the decision to wind up Tower House Dolls I now have to make it happen, and thereby hangs a curly tail.

Apparently (who knew?) you can't just close your business doors and that's that. 

No by no nonny no.

There are no end of bureaucratic hoops to jump through and it's going to be much less painless and more involved than I'd hoped.  Having perused all the information on the HMRC website about closing a business it's clear that it will take most of the remaining 110 days to sort out if I'm to get it right and not incur any financial penalties.

Things like closing the website are relatively straightforward.  It will simply disappear into the ether when my hosting package expires in April, triggering a point of no return.  At that point my Tower House Dolls email address will also expire.  That will then render my business PayPal account invalid and a cascade effect will ensue.  I will then have to close my business bank account.

To fulfil my statutory obligations to the taxman I will have to inform him/her/it in advance, of the date of closure and submit final year trading accounts.  I will need to do a final stock take of all the business assets (hopefully there won't be any left) and tie up all the loose ends. 

There's a LOT to do, on top of the practicalities of clearing my workroom.  Unbelievably, having listed my kiln and all my dollmaking equipment for sale yesterday I already have a lovely buyer, who will take possession in the New Year.  That will free up loads of space and I can then downsize my storage units.   I've also made a start on my last ever sale list which will be hopefully be ready sometime in January.  It will be a doozer.

I can't deny that I've been fantasising about what to do with the liberated space and transforming my workroom into an occasional hobby/craft room.  That's the fun part which will take some of the stress out of all the other 'stuff to do'.  I already have Pinterest on standby. 

So the plan is, by my 65th birthday in April, to have everything done and dusted and be sailing off into a well-earned retirement.  And by sailing, I'm thinking 'luxury cruise'.... 😉