A few boats from us on the canal is Cakes on the Cut, a pop up canal side cafe.


That’s a fairly obvious business to set up where there are a lot of people moored. The boat next to it also does food (toast and ice cream) but has a sideline in hand airbrushed T-shirts…

and a range of mugs.

Close to them is a boat making art out of old gramophone records.

I went by and the guy was cutting away at an old album with a manual jigsaw. That’s a terrible thing to do to vinyl. I just hope he only works on old Abba albums. She’s the dancing queen, she’s just… CRUNCH! Yep, best thing for them really.

There are all sorts of businesses run out of canal boats. For instance, if you are in a long term mooring and don’t want to move your boat, you can have diesel, propane, and solid fuel for your stove delivered by another boat. There are lots of other boat accessories you can pick up from boaty businesses as well. Here are some we have gone by earlier in the trip.

If you need protection, rope fender makers are all over the cut.

How about a solar panel?

Or a planter shaped like a narrowboat?

Perchance a barometer?

Or even a new paint job?

Some random hippie stuff?

A new tiller pin? This is the guy we got our battle swan tiller pin from.

Maybe you’d just like a mobile billboard?

Perhaps you’d like to rent a bicycle?

Boatbuilding and alpacas? That’s right son, if the boatbuilding business doesn’t work out, at least you have the alpaca farm to fall back on.

A couple of other restaurants.

An art gallery.

And finally, a place to get your chainsaw sharpened.

OK, change of subject. When I was a kid, behind the label of Robinson’s Marmalade was a paper gollywog, a strange creature drawn from the lurid and probably drug-addled imagination of Enid Blyton. I think she hit the nitrous oxide at the dentist one time too many. If you collected enough paper gollywogs you could send them in and get an enamel gollywog badge. Apparently, these were a vile racial caricature, even though they regularly played cricket, rugby, and the bagpipes. Robertson’s Marmalade is now promoted by Paddington Bear, a strangely anthropomorphised predator drawn from the lurid imagination of a BBC cameraman.

I suspect that in another generation animal rights activists will have everyone appalled at the idea of dressing a bear up in clothes, and Paddington will be as extinct as Ringling’s elephants.

While going through earlier photos for this post I came upon this.

If I were a toilet supplier called Shufflebottom, I would probably change my name. Perhaps it is all part of the business, though. The Shufflebottom Special, a lavatory with built in vibromassage.