the insider
Loitering within tent
Kevin Willis packs up and beds down until the pandemic passes
W
hether to choose Amy Schumer or celebrated an 80th and a 21st birthday and got royally drunk Wile E. Coyote is probably the biggest reminiscing on the good old days of 2019. decision I’ll have to make this morning. Now, before you all even contemplate thinking about Writing this article on so-called Freedom following in my footsteps you should know that this lifestyle Day (Monday, July 19) it feels very fitting to have my choice isn’t all a bed of roses. I miss my granddaughters back in of t-shirt be my only real issue. This much anticipated day, Kent a lot and, the other morning, I had to shave while some with its many push-backs and threats of cancellation, has bloke emptied his bowels of campfire-prepared curry not six survived to signal the start of a return to near normality feet behind me. after 18 turbulent months. Wifi and mobile signal in the countryside is in urgent Not for me though. For my wife Nicola and myself, our Kevin Willis need of ‘levelling up’ and I haven’t come close to winning a ‘freedom’ day came around a month earlier for, as promised single game of tent Scrabble as yet. in a previous column, we have finally sold our house, most Outside of England’s failure against Italy in the Euros of the contents and set forth to travel this marvellous Everyday problems final, the night our airbed sprang a leak and resulted in us island called Great Britain with little more than a tent and from the operator’s trying to sleep on bone hard ground with our feet stuck in a determination to test every friend or family member who point of view... the air riding a stubborn air pocket ranks as one of the low ever uttered the words “there is always a bed at ours should points of the trip. you need it”. Business does, dare I say it, seem to be making a tentative Covid-19 has affected everyone one of us in some way or another though comeback and I will no doubt be back to what I enjoy doing most… though thankfully, I haven’t personally lost anyone close due to the virus. What later, rather than sooner. We actually struggled to cover a job last week Covid has achieved is something Maggie Thatcher, the wars in Iraq and 9/11 because a lot of our usual guys were already busy. That is as encouraging as failed to do and that is to render me redundant, and I hate that. the Whatsapp groups pinging back into life looking to cover work. For 22 years we have worked our fingers to the bone to build a relatively My little concern, Chirton Grange Ltd, had over the past few years successful chauffeur business, and then BOOM! we get completely focussed our business toward the inbound American market with tours of blindsided when some greedy git decides to eat a deep-fried bat in a Wuhan this green and pleasant land, so all I am doing really is a big old recce, as street market. Other conspiracy theories are available. any good chauffeur should. Discovering new places to visit, new eateries to Two factors helped shape our decision to cut loose: the first was born enjoy and fresh experiences to offer travel-hungry clients as and when they from the fact that I have always made my own decisions. I got some right and a hell of a lot wrong, but they were at least my calls. Now I am forced to are allowed to cross the pond again. sit and wait for a virus to stop mutating before it determines our future, so Fortunately, I no longer wake up in the early hours worrying on how I am no thanks. going to manage my outgoings, even if I do wake to a high-pitched hissing Secondly, in my opinion, all of this “we are in this together” and “be kind” sound and a definite sinking feeling. I also accept our choice of lifestyle codswallop the banks and mortgage companies have been extolling from is great while the sun is shining and will be a whole lot different come the behind their fixed smiles and Zoom-call waving will judder to an abrupt end freezing, wet December mornings. Time will tell, but I have always believed as soon as we are all double vaccinated. that sitting still gets you nowhere. Also (I know this will be the third thing when I claimed two but one of the In the early days of my business I would go to the airport with no one to reasons I drive a car for a living is that I am crap at Maths), Nicola and I had meet knowing I could get chatting to someone about something that might always planned to take six months off to see Britain properly so are simply create a job or contact, so who knows what ideas might turn up as we travel getting it done earlier than anticipated and while we can still walk unaided around. Why only today, while taking coffee in Kirby Lonsdale, I noticed a and can remember each other’s name. snaking line of middle-class cyclist types queuing for ‘Organic Cow-to-Cone Sitting in the evening sunshine at Allington Lock, Maidstone on our first Ice Cream’! night of homelessness we order a bottle of cheap wine and proceed to spend Instantly my idea leapt to take this concept one step further. Customers £20,000 in 20 minutes clearing credit cards, car finance and other bills put three ice cubes in their mouth, a squirt of caramel (vanilla or chocolate) which was a damn sight easier than clearing the house was. The crap we syrup and then kneel to suck directly from the cows udder as the beast gets had hoarded is utter madness! oscillated on a vibrating floor. Currently, I am asking £250.000 for a 5% stake Following two whole weeks of packing, lifting and carrying, my arm in ‘Teat Out to Help Out’ (patent pending). Get in on the ground floor as this muscles tremble as I attempt to raise my glass up to my lips, and with my lift is going all the way up to the Penthouse! tired eyes as dark as a weary panda I glance at a party of teenagers at the A connected world means we can continue on with the job from our next table and growl “I was young once, look at me now!” mobile office. I am still too young and not ready to retire, also the equity the For the first time in my married life I have no mortgage, utility bills, Sky house released won’t see me through old age, so we will be back fitter, leaner TV subscription or building insurance, though to prove I haven’t gone totally and hopefully wiser. mad I kept Netflix. And I chose Wile E, Coyote. Sorry, Amy. Before getting started on the scenic part of our trip we visited my family in Newcastle, who needed long-overdue help arranging social care n Kevin Willis runs Chirton Grange, for our uncle who is lost to us through severe Alzeimer’s. And we met up contact@chirtongrange.co.uk with my sister in Southport and Nic’s family in Lytham St Annes. We have
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