Oops, that shouldn't have happened.

There's a reason I've been a little quiet on Twitter recently. 

On January 21st, I went to WH Smith to buy a copy of the Beano (for my kids obvs), and when I went to pay for it, my card was declined. 

Oh, that's odd, I thought and I paid with some spare cash I had in my bag. 

Then, a little later in the day, I found that I couldn't access my Paypal account. 

Oh, that's VERY odd, I thought. 

So I logged into my online bank account to see what the heck was wrong. 

It all looked fine, but it seemed that I couldn't transfer any money, or take any money out. 

So I gave my bank a call. 

After a few security questions and pleasantries, my bank informed my the The Big Green Bookshop Ltd had been dissolved and all the assets of the business were now the property of "The Crown". 

And sure enough, I looked on the Companies House website and there it was. 

Well, I don't know if you can imagine the feeling, but it wasn't pleasant. 

I had bills to pay, I had to pay my suppliers on the 31st January and I had a series of direct debits and standing orders to account for, and also there was the obvious stuff like rent and food and all that. 

And I couldn't access any money. 

Yikes!

So the following morning I spoke to Companies House, and they were very helpful indeed and explained the reasons why it happened. 

It seems that it happens quite often, and they also explained how to resolve the situation. 

Then I had a lovely chat with my accountant...who then got to work at sorting this monumental disaster out. 

To cut a long story short(ish), on Thursday January 30th, after brilliant work from the people at Companies House, The Big Green Bookshop Ltd became active again!

It has cost a little over £1,000 and has been something of a distraction from bookselling, but I can now officially tell you that, as of about 11.05 this morning, I finally have access to the bank account and things are back to relative normality. 

The bank has been amazing and what could have taken weeks, they sorted out for me in a matter of days.

As well as all the thanks in the world to the bank and to Companies House, I would like to give a special mention to Laura (@lozziepop89), who came to my rescue on Twitter after i'd just found out, despite being at a Stormzy gig at the time. 

So, there are lessons to be learned. 

I hope I have learned them. 

Anyway, I thought I should probably tell you.