Being a chatty Cathy with Indie Knaresborough

Last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by a local businesswoman who has decided to start a podcast called Indie Knaresborough, with the aim of promoting the Knaresborough business community, and help listeners gain an insight into what it’s like to live and work in Knaresborough. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what it what going to be like. As I have said previously, I am not a fan of my own voice when I hear it back, and to be frank, I really couldn’t see what was so interesting about me and my little shop. However, I’m all for supporting Knaresborough and highlighting what it has to offer, so went along with an open mind and a full cup of coffee.

Sarah’s day job is as a podiatrist and as owner of Knaresborough Podiatry in Green Dragon Yard. I have known Sarah ever since we first opened Number Thirteen, and she quickly became a regular customer (we were just around the corner from her earlier place of work - Castle Clinic). It was in her clinic that we did the recording, and she just said it would be an informal chat, just a to and a fro, without any prescriptive questions. I think after the first couple of minutes, she may have regretted not having questions.

I will freely admit that I am quite an open person when it comes to different aspects of my life. I don’t see the point in keeping things hidden, and believe that usually, honesty is always the best policy. I will also admit that when I am slightly nervous or anxious, I tend to waffle, and probably over share. I don’t see it as a bad thing and I don’t regret it once it’s out in the world, but I do think that sometimes people are taken aback by my candidness or by the amount of detail I tend to go into.

This was most definitely the case with this podcast. After a warm welcome and introduction from Sarah, she asked how I had gotten into the coffee shop business, and I was off. I think I may have talked my way through my entire professional life, from the age of 15 working for Off the Rails Bistro on Knaresborough railway station, through to my experiences working for various coffee shop chains, my university days, moving to Sheffield, my time living in New Zealand, and finally we started touching on Number Thirteen and how it came to be.

However, by this point, I had been waffling for over half an hour, and Sarah’s sessions are usually only 30 minutes long. We talked a little about some of the issues coffee shops and many other hospitality businesses face, like staffing and the cost of running a business. We also touched on what its like running a business as a parent, as my daughter was born 4 years ago and that changed many aspects of working life for me. At this point, I veered off and started waffling about my daughter and the choice I made to have her using a sperm donor – something I am very open and candid about, but it’s not really something that comes up when discussing your business!

As a side note, completely separate from the podcast - I think this perfectly illustrates the point that when you own a small business, your working life and personal life are inevitably intertwined. It’s pretty much impossible to separate the two, and in some ways, I think it would be detrimental to even try. Our customers love that they know who we are. They ask after our family, in the same way that we ask after theirs. They love to see my daughter in the coffee shop, have a conversation with her, and watch her grow. I also love that my daughter can have these experiences, taking with other people outside the family circle and interacting with them. It has given her such a level of confidence for someone so young, and I do think it has helped with her development and speech too (a blessing and a curse!).

Yes, there are challenges - the balancing act of deciding what needs to come first is always a difficult one. Laura from Painting Pots has also done a podcast with Sarah and voiced the same feelings – sometimes the business must come first. It sounds harsh but its true. The business is what puts food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. But, on the flip side, owning my own business has also given me a freedom to be with my daughter that I wouldn’t have been able to do with a ‘normal job’ - especially as a solo parent. I have been able to choose my own hours, take time off when my daughter is sick, work from home and include my daughter in the running of the shop. There aren’t many jobs that would allow you to take your daughter to work at one year old and have her in a carrier asleep while you serve coffee. Or have her behind the counter at three years old, working the till and taking customers orders. There have to be some perks…

Anywho – back to the podcast (you see what I mean about waffling). We talked for a couple more minutes, and Sarah pauses the recording and says that we should probably wrap it up there for now as we had been talking for almost an hour. She said that we would definitely need a part two, another session to actually talk about the coffee shop, and that she had loved the conversation so far.

After Sarah had stopped the recording and we started packing up, she said how much she loved chatting and how interesting it was to hear about the different facets of my life, and I started thinking that maybe, the way my life has worked out thus far isn’t that uninteresting. It’s not normally something you generally think about – you just go about your business, living your life, going from here to there and get to where you want to go. But as they say, it's not about the destination, it’s the journey that’s the interesting bit, and I guess it can be just as fascinating for other people to hear about it, as it is living through it!

If you fancy having a listen to me chatting way too much, search for Indie Knaresborough on Spotify and Acast and give the podcast a follow!