Tinpot Alley: Stainless Steel Planters & Custom Metalwork

If there’s one thing I miss about dear old Blighty it’s the late-night kebab - or key-bob if you happen to be an American - run after allowing oneself to get a little too tipsy. Whether you need counselling in the form of comfort eating after being blown out more times than a worn tyre or just need something to soak up the beer, there’s nothing quite like unknown meat in unleavened bread covered in a bevy of sauces.

Unfortunately, most kebab establishments tend to be, shall we say, a bit cruddy. Obviously most neither notice nor care due various stages of blindness brought about by inadvertently taking jelly shots to the eyeball. However, it’s nice to see that certain kebab joints are bucking the trend with snazzy stainless steel counters:

You can see a few more pictures here.

I’ve well and truly learnt my lesson about spouting my mouth off, counting chickens and all that palava after the many disasters that have befallen mostly me to be fair.

Things like:

The Canary Wharf Garden Show. (Rubbish, sold bugger all and half-wrecked the hire van.)

Free photo shoot in Gardeners’ World. (They took the photos but never told us that the planters weren’t going to be in, but we still told all and sundry to buy a copy. (All and sundry then laughed at us.))

Planters on the telly.(Rushed around like loons for a paltry link from the Channel 4 website.)

Those three things are the ones that stick in the mind, but there’s one or two other things that also crashed and burned.

And the one thing they had in common?

I bleated mercilessly about every single one. I’ve become so convinced that any prior mention on this blog renders a project useless that I’ve decided to stop doing it so I don’t put a hex on anything. (I must be more superstitious than I let on.)

So, it’s with a certain amount of relief that I can report we’ve finally been approved for a NeedIT grant to invest in computer stuff and e-commerce.

This means that we’ll have a far better computer setup and we’ll finally be able to trade properly online and show our full product range as opposed to leaving it to your imagination.

We’ve spent enough time now with a computer that’s more tempremental than your average menopausal fishwife; it also has to be said that we’ve been awfully slack with things like brochures and other offline marketing efforts aswell - or at least that’s the conclusion me and John came to in the pub after six pints of Kronenburg. (You really don’t want to know of any conclusions drawn after that.)

It also just so happens that Robo-bender Matt and Deadly Derek have finally sorted out the press tool to make up square planters without the need to get them lasered. I think we might just have the production side screwed down. (More on that another day.)

It obviously would’ve been bloody marvellous if we’d sorted out the grant and the tooling before the spring/summer as opposed to afterwards, but the point is it’s sorted.

I’d also recommend using your local Business Link, who were extremely helpful and efficient in doing our micro business review and sending us down the right path.

You might be wondering why there’s been very little mention of what’s been happening at Butler Sheetmetal and Tinpot Alley as of late.

Whilst you might be right in thinking that an ocean is quite a barrier to internal company communication, it’s had more to do with the fact that I’ve misplaced the lead to my camera and am unable to upload any of the pictures I took before I left. Either that or the dogs have been flossing with it.

In the absence of a photographic crutch I’ll just have to fall back on that other trusty canvas - wordplay.

Last month saw the Trawden Garden Festival take place for however many times it’s taken place, but this year was the first time that my sister and John had taken part. Now Trawden is a funny place owing to it being a village, albeit a rather sizeable one. And, as with all villages, it’s a law unto itself.

The Trawden Garden Festival’s main thrust is a scarecrow competition where all the natives make a scarecrow of some description and plonk it in their front garden for all and sundry to see as they drive through. Ideally your scarecrow should be a character, but so long as your Blue Peter skills are finely honed then you should be OK. Although, this past couple of years, they’ve received grants to run scarecrow building workshops.

Unfortunately, the website for the event hasn’t been updated properly for this year’s competition so I’ll just show you an older picture instead of the type of thing we’re talking about.

Michael Jackson?

Whilst Amanda and John - well Amanada and the kids - built a scarecrow Geronimo for their own display, they also entered the container competition with one of our rusty planters, which, like I mentioned before, I don’t have a picture of.

It managed to romp home in first place smashing all the other entrants to all four corners of the village.

Well two corners of the village seeming there were only three entries to the competition including John’s.

But, as they say, you have to be in it to win it.