For anyone contemplating a business afloat, the butty provides a
brilliant opportunity. At only half the
licence fee remember. We were thinking
of all the things someone else might use her for and our favourite is: The Chip Butty; no, seriously, the workshop could be fitted
out as a kitchen and the hold area and greenhouse revamped for table covers.
The workshop would also make a lovely studio. It has a large opaque glass roof-light, which
is excellent to work by, and the hold area has been good as a permanent shop,
with the tarps propped out so that customers can view the stock straight from
the towpath. It’s a good viewing area,
from either side, unlike cramming stuff in the cratch, and you don’t have to
pack everything away at the end of each day, with stock finishing up all over
the boat; you just drop the sides, like
shutters on a shop, and go next door, pour yourself a drink and put your
deserving feet up.
Or it can be used as intended.
It’s benched and wired, was completely fitted out with bench tools, and
kept the Bloke very busy. And I’ve
always appreciated how lucky we are to have that space to store all the paints
and paraphernalia and grease and oil and tools and “useful things” that are
otherwise crammed into the engine compartment and lockers. We can work on things and there’s no need to
tidy away at the end of the day.
You may like raising plants and selling seedlings: well, the greenhouse is perfect for
that. We’ve always used it to provide us
with our greens and tomatoes, and it houses the Bloke’s cactus collection. We’ve even got a worm bin up the front and
make our own compost; I made the worm
bin, three trays and a sump, from pallet wood and an old cat litter tray, and
stocked it with worms from a fishing tackle shop. That was about 12 years ago and the
descendants of that original colony are still working hard for us.
And then there’s Christina’s beautiful boatman’s cabin, it has a peacefulness to it that makes for a restorative complimentary therapy space. It has also been a
boon for family and friends: they love
the novelty of it and the privacy of their own boat (we like that too) and they always remark on the cosiness, we’ve even had people stay in midwinter when we were frozen in. We did wonder once about taking paying guests
but never took it any further.
The opportunities are endless really, pretty much anything you’ve
hankered after doing is likely to be possible.
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Incidentally, the boats will be going on brokerage soon and it’s likely
they’ll be split up, so if you’re interested in them as a pair, please do get
in touch, or if you’re interested in the butty Christina on her own, get in
touch about that too, we’ll probably be able to negotiate a favourable price.
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