Lockdown Mooring 1

My Dad, Fatso (as I used to call him), had a saying as he cut a slice of bread and passed it across the dining table speared on the end of the bread knife, The stuff of life at the point of death. Well we’ve not reached that point yet, but today I had a request to make some bread. Some full fat, glutenous bread. Luckily for Mick the baking drawer had a bag of flour for such emergencies, the use by date the end of the month.

Whilst I was at it I woke my sour dough starter up and gave it a feed. My sorghum flour stash was nearly out, so I’m trying to ween it onto brown rice flour, with the hope that it will still be happy. A warm up, feed and it was left to start bubbling and expanding.

Micks loaf was mixed and kneaded then left to rise on the proving shelf, where it did it’s thing in an hour was knocked back put in a tin and left to rise again. Then into the oven, followed by five minutes out of it’s tin upside down.

My friend Graham sent through a quote to build the elements of the set for The Garden. This got me back looking at my budget and getting myself totally confused for a while. I’ll have another look in a few days once the model is finished.

Mick hunted round for some boat insurance quotes, our premium seems to go up every year despite Oleanna no doubt loosing value. Specific questions regarding policies need to be answered before we commit to a company.

My attention turned to the little project I’d started yesterday. I now needed a cast for my little show. The last two years panto photographs were gone through and actors auditioned. Those selected were all made the same size, printed out and then cut round. Placards were updated and everyone fixed in position, so nobody could upstage the others.

Now was the time to film some footage. But where? For it to work I built a little stage out of books on top of the thin cupboard between the galley and dinette. This meant I could raise and lower things. Camera position was next. My sewing box and the shoe box I keep model bits in were just about the right height.

Filming began. I hadn’t remembered my lines, I only had two!

The boat rocked as Mick stepped on and off the bow.

Tilly decided to come home and see what was happening.

The timer on the oven kept binging.

But in the end after numerous takes I got a couple that were good.

The evening was spent editing. I’d hoped I could crop the sides of the footage, but this simply wasn’t within my skill set so I would have to cope with lots of people seeing our mountain of washing up in the background, along with the oven fan and Tilly ringing her bell!

Ten boats have come past today, two winding and returning. One pulled in nearer the bridge behind us. A few boats that have been moored here have moved off, presumably heading to do some shopping. We’ll need to move tomorrow for water and then shopping too. Hopefully we’ll find another mooring that is deemed good for Tilly, although I think a day inside catching up on her sleep is called for.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 cooked breakfast, 65 C&RT notices regarding only essential movement being allowed, 10 boats, 2 kayaks, 1 loaf bread, 1 pizza dough fermenting, 1 fridge nearly bare, 22 takes, 1 edited, 1 whatsap’d for tomorrow, 3 Insurance quotes, 0 news on Jac, bakers dozen cast, 1 cat upstaging, 15 minutes at home, 1 plus friends consumed.