Hi all
Well what a week its been, Im frustrated at the lack of productivity personally, and its mostly due to technology. I wish we didn't rely on it so much in our daily lives, we would all be a lot healthier and moe grounded, but, its a fact of life. Ok, I live on a boat and I can go into the countryside and switch everything off if I wanted, but its so engrained in our human psyche now, that we struggle to live without it. I also cannot run a business without the internet. In my ideal world, I would have a shop and people would flock to it to buy my latest creations, their friends would come, famous people would be paying over the odds for me to make them a one off design. But alas, I cannot afford a shop, and quite frankly, I dont particularly want to be committed to being in a building, day in day out. I much prefer the idea of a floating shop, that travels from town to village selling my wares.
On this note, I'm pleased to announce that after 10 years living on board, I am know the proud owner of a Floating Traders Licence!! In midst of the crappiness this week (will come to that later) my licence arrived to spur me on. When Richard and I bought our first boat nearly 11 years ago now, my long term dream was to be working on the canal, day in day out, and never having to leave it, and this week, my dream has become more of a reality, I feel I am now a legitimate boat trader. Basically this means that I can rock up anywhere and put a notice board on the tow path (as long as its not obstructive) and hang my wares from the boat and sell them from the hatch or outside. People cant come on board (that's a whole different kettle of fish financially and bureaucratically).
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| Floating Market |
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| Floating Traders Licence |
This allows me to take part in the Kennet and Avon Floating Market, August Bank Holiday in Newbury town centre, I feel like I am a proper part of the 'gang' now, the floating traders gang, that spend their days on board creating things and selling them. There are all sorts of business on our Inland Waterways, you have your service providers like the coal and diesel boats, the fender makers (rope work that protects boats paintwork from scratching), and then a multitude of other things for example, there's a wine boat (one if my favourites), a cheese boat, an ice cream boat, even a hairdressers. My next stage is to get an 'A' board and signage ready, I am planning to do some practice runs, maybe in Kintbury and Hungerford this summer holidays as we are not going on the Thames this year. I will attempt to sell my bags, cushion covers, storage hangers and eco kitchen range. Even if I only make a few quid, it will be a fun experience (sitting in the sun (hopefully) talking to passers by) and further advertising for Foxy Lady Creations.
My week started on a positive note on Sunday when I attended the 'zero waste making circle' reusables session. It was a glorious sunny day, and we spent half of it in the sun sewing.
Firstly we made bees wax food wraps, I have been looking forward to this, I can't express in words how exciting this is to me. I had taken some scraps of lovely cottons, and like a good girl I shared them with my comrades, everyone was tickled by the hungry caterpillar fabric. The process was much easier than I anticipated, and I made 4 wraps of varying sizes. They can be used for all sorts, Bread, cakes, cheese, sandwiches. All of us agreed we could have spent all day doing this, its so satisfying.
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| Making Beeswax food wraps |
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| Beeswax food wraps |
We also made drawstring produce bags from muslin. These are bags to take to the shop with you to put your loose fruit and veg in without having to use a plastic bag, the muslin allows the produce to breathe.
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| Muslin produce bag |
We then made kitchen wipes, as a replacement for paper kitchen roll. There are just a square of toweling and cotton sewn together.
On Monday, I was still buzzing from the workshop, and got my sewing machine out and did a few 'how to' videos, for the Zero Waste Making Circle page. I tend to do my videos off the cuff (excuse the pun) as I like them to be natural, and it captures the spirit of my enthusiasm and humour (hopefully).
Unfortunately as Monday drew to a close, my partner discovered that our boat leisure batteries were dead, and then that's when the week went wonky. Unfortunately, I have had great difficulty extracting these videos from my phone due to the size of them, so I can only post one short one today, which is a shame as there was a good bit of humour in them.
No electricity all week! That means lights, fridge, running water and charging appliances, everything. We consoled ourselves with the fact that its summer, and therefore we only need lights for a couple of hours, that we have a stand pipe right outside the boat, and that at least we had the money in the bank to cover the cost of new batteries (£1000). However, it meant I struggled to do anything productive, and got annoyed every time I put soap on my hands I realised that there was no running water.
This is when living this lifestyle, that being adaptable comes in and you have to think on your feet. Ok, I couldn't do any sewing, but I could do some cutting out (3 more dresses), and use my laptop and phone by charging them up at friends or sitting in a cafe.
Whilst sat in a cafe, I was sharing a table and plug socket with the area manager, who was super chatty and helpful. She has a side line business making jewellery out of breast milk. Yes, I had to hear it twice to digest what she told me. She also told me about some apps that would be useful to my business, and we had a good impromptu networking session. I am going to put her Facebook page here as a link so you can see what I am talking about. Unfortunately, its 7 years to late for me, else I would have had some of products myself.
Eternally Cherished - Breast Milk Jewellery
So, I tried to work using my laptop and phone this week, but ufortunately my phone decided enough was enough to, and I had so little storage space on my phone, I couldn't even get texts come through. Aggh, I spent nearly a whole day trying to save space by deleting things and saving them to my SD card, but it wasn't having any of it. So a new phone it had to be. We use the Sex shop in town, sorry I mean CEX shop, where you can exchange your old phone and get another second hand one. I was really chuffed when they gave me over half the money I paid for the phone last year, and I upgraded to something with more storage. Hopefully life will be a bit easier now, as I had been struggling for a while with this phone.
Next door is a cheap hairdressers, where you can get a wash and cut for £11.00, so as I hadn't washed my hair all week, due to lack of running water, I treated myself. I'm not one for fancy hairdos or spending money on beauty, I often cut my own hair or get Rich to do it. I had a friend who had no running water on her boat for weeks, and couldn't get to a leisure centre for a shower, so she popped into the village hairdressers, just for a hair wash.
So Thursday, Rich comes home from work, with a full new bank of batteries, and after all this lovely sunshine we have been having, the heavens open, and it then chucks it down all night. But this will not stop Rich, he and his friend spent the whole evening (even when it was dark) fitting the new batteries, and trying to get the electric going.
The current state of play as I write is that we have lights and running water, but nothing else, hopefully this evening Rich will have resolved it, so I can get on with a 'normal' Friday evening with a bottle of vino and my guilty pleasure... Gogglebox.
Finally, I wrote a poem in 2014, when our batteries died last time, it was a time of year when it wasn't summer, so it was harsher, and Rich had gone out for the evening.
DEAD BATTERIES - NO ELECTRIC
The sun has gone down
and the batteries are broken,
So I have nothing better to do
Than write you this poem.
The sun has gone down
theres a chill tonight,
At least I have gas to boil the kettle
as I write.
The sun has gone down,
and I'm getting chilly.
A hot water bottle is currently,
making for good company.
The sun has gone down
and next days forecast is dull.,
When I was relying on the sun
to make the bank full
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