Lockdown Mooring 4

Tuesday, yes it’s Tuesday.

Living up to the forecast it rained today. Not huge torrential downpours, the sort you get just as you have started a flight of locks without your waterproofs handy, but just constant rainfall. Tilly wasn’t too bothered to start with, but soon found the stove more attractive than being outdoors.

Time to try out the new loaf of bread. As much as it was tempting to slice it open last night, it is best to let the loaf cool down fully. Gluten free bread doesn’t have the large air pockets you get in ordinary sourdough, it has a moist crumb to it too. I’d have liked a little bit more rise in the loaf, but once sliced into it looked okay. The bottom didn’t look quite as dense as the sorghum loaf I tried before.

Toasting a couple of slices takes far more time than ordinary bread, Mick always gets concerned with the amount of gas being used. Someone has suggested toasting it in a dry frying pan. Might give that a go sometime. Having taken an age to toast it also retains it’s heat very well, I like my butter to melt into toast so there always used to be a rush, now I can take my time so as not to burn my fingers.

Verdict. Very tasty. I prefer it to the sorghum loaf. Worth waiting for, well I wish I hadn’t had to keep the starter going so long, hoping for more bubbles. We’ll now see what happens with my starter the next time I want to bake, I’ve gone for the scrapings method!

In the afternoon we had a walk up the locks together, across the back of the reservoir to the post box. Then we walked a touch further along the road to reach the layby where the egg farm lives.

Approaching from the road we got to see more signs. I especially loved this one.

Still stocked up with eggs we didn’t need any, but if there is going to be a cooked breakfast on the cards soon I quite fancy a poached ducks egg.

In the back field were lambs with their mums and today we spotted by a pond some Mandarin Spring Roll Ducks along with others that were something other than Mallards or Muscovy ducks.

The day wasn’t conducive to working. Instead we went to the theatre. The National Theatre, to watch Twelfth Night with Tamsin Grieg. A modern version with a pyramidal revolving set which almost had pages that could be opened in different ways to provide different locations. Tamsin as Malvolia was brilliant as was the rest of the cast, some really rather lovely suits on stage too, I wonder how much detail the audience sat in their seats could see.

We watched the first half in the afternoon, followed by the news conference from Downing Street, our evening meal and then we watched the second half. I much prefer Shakespeare’s Comedies, if it had been a history play I don’t think we’d have bothered. A great production, costumes, acting, set, music. Well worth watching before it’s gone.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 damp walk, 1 scraggy woofer, 1 amendment posted, 2 slices, 1 nice loaf, 2hrs 40 minutes of Shakespeare, 2 twins (they tend to come in twos), 1 revolving set, 1 good show.