Saturday, 11 January 2025

Idle musings...

     Well all work 'til at least Tuesday has been cancelled for the moment as the ground is rock hard with the ice and snow showing not much sign of receding as of yet. Though surprisingly, although still bereft of finances, I am coping rather mentally well at the moment.

    Today I have given the workshop clearance a miss and spent a quiet yet productive day with my G. We have booked two weeks holiday down in Cornwall for my impending month of May 'big birthday', although gawd knows how we are going to pay for it if this monetary stagnation continues. I actually braved the torturous bathroom device to weigh myself and have unexpectedly lost five pounds in weight (have not got that amount in sterling pounds) in just under two weeks, even after our visit to the chippy yesterday (miracles can happen!). I tried in vain yesterday to find any books on Tai Chi in the library as I want to find something different than my physically challenging work to help with my bodies 'modification', so I guess I will have to search the rabbit's hole of You tube for some instructional videos, though I did come away with a rather hefty tomb of one hundred classic ghost stories and a book on the Viking history of Britain.

    I have even managed today to get around Facebook's marketplace way of stopping people advertising their services, such as my own machinery servicing and repair sideline, with a cunningly worded advert. I have to admit that more and more things seem turned against the small sole trader like myself. I cannot advertise my services upon Facebook. the council has banned sole traders (well any traders) from using refuse sites, it just feels like that there is no support for small businesses like my own whilst large conglomerates can reap as much as they want from the world. Apologies as I don't usually become 'political' but sometimes frustration at the status quo gets the better of me. Anyway, already today I have the promise of three lawnmowers coming to the workshop this week, though I do not count my chickens until they indeed arrive. It appears that all the effort of late clearing part of the workspace may well begin to payoff. Hopefully this will mark the start of the Orc's Workshop becoming a profitable source of income running alongside my gardening adventures. Keeping upon this theme I have a website that I originally setup for the gardening business though I have not kept up with it for some years now. I am considering revamping the website and use it to advertise the Orc's Workshop. The workshop, in the long run is not going to be solely dedicated to garden machinery maintenance but rather split between that and other projects such as wildlife home construction (bird boxes and the like), furniture and hand tool refurbishment/upcycling. Basically using my skill set to its full limits from my engineering skills to my artistic skills. Perhaps your thoughts upon this proposed venture would be appreciated?

    So tomorrow will be spent once again in the Arctic coldness of the workshop with even more of the hokey cokey of moving, sorting and organising the sodding mess that remains there. Oh and I dug out my old bridge camera today so hopefully (after I learn to use it again) I will be able to share some half decent pictures of my adventures with you. So for now stay warm folks.

John



14 comments:

  1. Have you seen Kev's blog, http://www.englishhomestead.com/, he's a carpenter and small business, he would probably give you some hints, he's a great guy as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank for the heads up Poppy, much appreciated

      Delete
  2. good luck diversifying - often lots of small streams of income make a positive difference. They all add up and when one goes quiet the others help fill that gap. x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for the kind words m’dear, the workshop has had a good response to the advert and the first lawnmower for repair turned up this evening. Hopefully having a couple of sources of income will improve things a tad

      Delete
  3. Commenting has gone all fubar but I said I bet you could make money offering general handyman services as well as the gardening and repairs to wotnots! Rachel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ahhh Miss Radiostar I presume ;-) got to be honest there are too many offering “handyman “ services around this neck of the woods m’dear and it’s something I don’t really fancy. But thanks for the suggestion lass, always appreciated

      Delete
  4. Are you allowed to put notices up in stores? Here there are many stores which keep bulletin boards for public notices. Small businesses, lost pets, items for sale, etc.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not really Debby, there’s only a Spar and a quickie Asda in the next village down the road and neither have such a thing. I found that with my gardening work once I’d proved myself to be reliable (“and damned good at what I do” he said bashfully) it is word of mouth that brings me work, so hopefully after finding a few clients for the service and repair business the same may prove to be true

      Delete
  5. Shoutout to Kev's blog as well. He is a great guy and runs a small business in the UK as well.

    It is not just town councils - from what I understand, the Overlords of the Search engines are messing with search results and advertisement revenues.

    Great job on the 5 Lbs loss! I hope you post pictures of your away time in May!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers TB, indeed it seems that its ever more difficult to be the “little man “ these days

      Delete
  6. Your choice of library books is very similar to mine! We're self employed too. We live very thriftily and plough our own furrow. Arilx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Aril, obviously we are similar folk of good taste m’dear ;-)

      Delete
  7. Well done on the weight loss John. It's always nice to see movement on the scales, even though I've been told to pay them no heed. I hope the ground has thawed and you've been able to get back outside.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Scarlet, thank you m’dear, I do try not to weigh myself too much but it is nice to sometimes ‘see’ the results of the effort in black and white.
    Yep the ground has thawed at long last and I’m back grafting outside….trouble is that after the enforced snow break I’m now playing catch up and I’m bloody knackered t’boot!

    ReplyDelete