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Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm

Tide & Ink

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Captivating websites, cracking blog posts & social media that actually works.

📍 Cornwall-based, pasty-powered.
🌊 Helping small businesses get properly noticed online.

👉 Fancy a look?

19/10/2026

Had a drawing competition with my four-year-old son over the weekend.

The brief was simple. Draw a bird.

Mine is the bottom one. (Honest). I’d rather not discuss the result.

But it reminded me of something I often tell businesses about social media.

I’ve seen people spend hours trying to make a post look perfect, when a slightly wonky photograph and a few honest words might have done a better job.

Sometimes the things people remember are the things that look like an actual human made them.

You don’t need to be a professional photographer, designer or writer to connect with people. Just give them something worth looking at.

Anyway, my son has requested a rematch.

I’ve suggested a spelling competition. 💪

🌊

13/10/2026

When I was five, I wanted to be a train driver.

Forty-odd years later, I’m standing on a bridge taking photographs of railway tracks.

No train in sight.

It’s not quite how I’d imagined my involvement with the rail industry, but it’s nice to have maintained an interest.

🌊

12/10/2026

A little Monday tip for anyone running a small business.

Go and look at your Facebook or Instagram page. Pretend you’re a complete stranger.

Can you tell what you do, where you’re based and how to contact you?

You’d be amazed how many businesses keep this information a closely guarded secret.

Some are so difficult to find you practically need a compass, a packed lunch and permission from the National Trust.

Which is an interesting approach when you’re trying to attract customers.

Five minutes checking could make all the difference.

There you go. Free business advice.

I’ll send an invoice if it works. 😆

🌊

09/10/2026

THE END OF AN ERA 🕶️

Some of you may remember the sunglasses.

A bold fashion statement that divided opinion and, for a brief period, made me look like a minor Colombian drug lord.

Well, I’m afraid I have some sad news.

I found them at the bottom of my backpack today. One arm had snapped clean off.

There was nothing anyone could do.

We had some good times together. Admittedly, most of them involved people laughing at me.

I’ve decided not to hold a funeral. Mainly because they’re already in the bin.

I’ll be looking for a replacement online this weekend.

Please respect my privacy during this difficult time.

🌊🕶️

08/10/2026

THE CORNISH BUSINESS MARKETING DEPARTMENT

There are thousands of small businesses in Cornwall doing genuinely brilliant things. Unfortunately, quite a few of them have the marketing strategy of a particularly shy badger. 🦡

I’ve been guilty of this myself, which makes me ideally qualified to lecture everyone else about it.

Here’s a free bit of advice. Next time you finish something you’re proud of, take a snap of it. Put it on Facebook. Tell people what you’ve done.

It doesn’t need a professional photographer, an inspirational quote or a paragraph about your journey.

Nobody needs to know about your journey. They just want to see the patio.

People are surprisingly interested in what other people do for a living. Particularly if it involves someone up a ladder, an enormous hole or a man called Dave looking concerned.

You don’t need to become an influencer. You just need to occasionally remind people you exist.

Anyway, here’s a painting I did with my kids in the build-up to Halloween.

I did the pumpkin.

Quite pleased with it, actually. 🎃😆

🌊

07/10/2026

THE SELF-EMPLOYED ANNUAL APPRAISAL 🙃

One of the advantages of working for yourself is that you don’t have to endure an annual appraisal.

Unfortunately, I decided to give myself one anyway.

✅ Strengths: works hard, great with clients, builds a decent website and makes a proper cup of tea.

❌ Areas for improvement: concentration, administration and a tendency to wander off and look at old bits of Cornwall during working hours.

Overall performance: satisfactory.

Management have decided to keep me on.

Mainly because replacing me would be an administrative nightmare.

🌊

05/10/2026

On my lunch break today, I went looking for some prehistoric holes in rocks.

Stithians Reservoir is ridiculously low, which has exposed a collection of cup-marked stones that normally spend their time underwater being ancient and mysterious.

Naturally, I wore my new lucky sunglasses to get into character. Indiana Jones had a hat. I had polarised lenses.

Found them too.

Nobody actually knows why people bashed all these little hollows into granite thousands of years ago, which is mildly irritating. You’d think if you were going to put that much effort into something, you might leave a note.

Then things got out of hand.

A quick Google became an archaeological report, which became an 1877 map, which became me staring at a hedge on Google Maps thinking, Christ. That hedge is Victorian.

Anyway, there’s probably a social media lesson in here somewhere.

Do interesting things. Talk about them.

Much easier than inventing content.

Right. I’m off to investigate a hedge.

02/10/2026

FRIDAY MORNING MEETING.

Started work this morning with a bacon roll next to the sea.

No agenda. No minutes. Nobody said “circle back”.

Just me, the ocean and a frankly excellent amount of brown sauce.

I sat there for a bit longer than was professionally necessary.

I checked with management.

He seemed fine with it.

🌊

01/10/2026

Well, this is awkward.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time on here trying to convince people I know what I’m doing. Turns out I could have just asked Cheyenne.

I took over a partly finished website, gave it a proper tidy up and sent it out into the world. It’s now bringing her customers.

Which is nice.

There’s always a brief period after launching a website when you stare at it and think, Well. Off you go then. Hope the bleddy thing works.

Apparently this one does.

Thanks Cheyenne. Genuinely made my day. 🩵

I shall now print this out and show it to anyone who doubts I know what I’m doing.

Starting with my wife.

Address

Falmouth

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

https://www.tideandink.com/, https://www.tideandink.com/website-healthcheck

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