Bags of Interest

Sorry not to have posted for a while. It’s been quiet enough here to encourage sloth which usually leads me to indulge myself by posting nonsense yet exceptional levels of quietness have resulted in prowling line-managers checking carefully what we’re up to hence no posts.

It’s summer here in Scotland and we’ve enjoyed 3 days of continuous sunshine. This may be of no moment to you if you’re reading this in the US where your summers are more summery and your winters more wintery than we on the edge of the gulf stream commonly experience but to your average Scotsman 3 days of sunshine equals High Summer. Truthfully, some years 3 hours of sunshine equals High Summer. Don’t get me wrong, Scotland is a beautiful country – perhaps the most beautiful of all, for after all there are few Capital Cities anywhere in the world to rival Edinburgh, with its castle right in the middle of the town and an extinct volcano visible from the main shopping street– but in all honesty we can’t as a nation make any claims of reliably good weather. It is apt to rain and/or be windy…and cold. This is why Scotland produces so many fine waterproof things, such as the original Macintosh coat, the wax cloth for Barbour (which used to be made in Arbroath), Goretex and lovely woolly things, such as the Harris Tweed and Shetland Wool beloved of J. Press

In such a climate it is necessary to own a waterproof bag. Most of us would use a fishing bag with a rubber liner, such as those produced by Brady, Hardy or James Chapman. An alternative is Sailcloth.
For some time I’ve been desirous of a nice tote bag. As a long time customer of Mulberry I may have been expected to shell out my hard earned coin on the Mulberry Tote pictured above but old Cyclo is feeling the financial squeeze and therefore can’t justify the high price of this avowedly Luxury Tote. LL Bean kit isn’t really available in the UK as the carriage charges from the States make the prices prohibitive unless you buy a lot all at once and then there’s the delay in receiving stuff from such a distance and the difficulty of returning things if they don’t fit. Lands End do have a UK presence and ship from inside the UK too but for some reason I can’t or haven’t gone through with an order yet. One day while researching something else I came upon this website and these products http://www.canbags.co.uk/
This Bucket Bag pictured above looks more like the thing and at £20 rather than £200 quid it’s in my price range more than any other. It seems a bit odd that these kind of bags are in almost universal use in The States but nearly unknown over here. I'll post details on these if and when I buy one....

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