And so we did our research...

Every sensible move starts with research, right? You find the sites online, you read the books, you seek out now worlds and new civilisations, basically you look for somebody who knows what you need to know; is it do-able? Will we go under? Can we survive on a drop in wages before the cash comes in?

For Mr Mr, he went looking at the Law Society, picking up the books on how to run a law firm and how to run a small law firm in particular. He wanted to know that the mechanics of it would be easy enough, that the red tape (love that legal red tape that's really pink!) wouldn't be a killer.

Me, I looked at whether I could have a role. Everything about the firm needed to be done on a budget... that's a budget of pennies, not pounds as well, so for me looking at securing the best deals on everything was crucial. There were a lot of lists going around, a lot of  brainstorming and word clouds and 'missioning' (if you know what I mean; who are we serving? How can we be accessible? Do we do an office or a home office? How do we see clients? Where is our client base coming from??? The list went on and on and on.....)

And all the time I was covering supply in a few schools, no more than 2 or 3 days a week and some weeks completely empty and Mr Mr was working in the firm and coming home less angry than he used to because he had begun to dig a hole. Only a small hole, but a hole and he could see how escape was just about possible.