Sitting tight during the inclement weather at Aldreth

Moored Aldreth, River Great Ouse

Blimey it sure did rain last night, but by this morning it had stopped with the wind dropping a little.  I got some bits and bobs sorted on No Problem early then set off with the K9 girls, Meg and Lucy, across the fens, hoping that the wind would stay away for a while.

No chance, and I had only gone for about half hour when it started blowing a gale in my face as I walked.  I hate the wind.. well not totally hate, but hate it when it blows so hard… It was OK though towards the end of my 7.5 mile walk, it was behind me, then I got hot!!

The dogs had me for the morning, then it was feet up time to watch the Olympics in the afternoon.  I love that red button on my channel changer giving me a choice of which events I want to watch.. I like that, and chose the showjumping phase of the three day event.  Well, as a family, we have had showjumping competition ponies throughout our life, so it is of tremendous interest to me.. and hey two bronze medals.. great stuff!

Here is our mooring today, I took this pic this evening, you can see that there is still a lot of water about from the downpours of last night…. look at that black sky though! 

Dave Wood left a comment on yesterdays blog which reminded me, I forgot to say yesterday that No Problem got slightly hung up on the chains in St Ives lock.. not nearly as bad as the incident at Yarwell in 2005, but bad enough to wonder once again why these chains are in the lock.

I did speak to new boy Malcolm (started work with EA a couple of weeks previously) at Godmanchester lock the other day asking him why they were there.. seemingly to grab on to by boat crews.  I had quite a long discussion with him about them, and told him of the dangers of narrowboats in particular getting caught up on the bolts that secure them.  They do stick out a long way, and the little lip on the bottom of narrowboats can get caught.

I asked if a survey could be undertaken to find out how many people actually used the chains.. and if EA did that and found out that the percentage was very low, would they consider removing them.  Malcolm made lots of notes to pass on to EA, so I await a reply to that.

Oh yes, and do you remember this….

I said I would let you know how this loaf tasted.. well it was the first one that I had made in my new breadmaker.. one that only took an hour to make.  My last breadmaker took 2 hours on turbo to make a loaf.. this one is great. 

I had a lot of people ask what this loaf was like, well it was smashing.. lasted three days, and tasted really good.  I have made another since and once again it was perfect even after I had put the ingredients in the tin in the wrong order!

Eric Wilson from California (will reply to your email tomorrow Eric) is not having a lot of luck with his breadmaker.. but there are a few secrets to making these turbo loaves.. the recipes must contain at least 65% white bread flour, it is no good trying a brown loaf as there is no time for wholemeal bread to rise.. Here is the recipe for a large loaf..

350ml of lukewarm milk (cold liquids will make a shorter loaf, hot liquid will kill the yeast)
1 egg (beat it a bit)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
600g white bread flour
2 tablespoons dried milk powder (skimmed)
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons sugar
5 teaspoons easy blend dried yeast

Notice the amount of salt is reduced as it retards the yeast activity, and the yeast content is increased to ensure a rapid rise..

Put the ingredients in the tin in the right order, keeping the salt well away from the yeast.. try this out if you have a turbo button on your breadmaker you will be well pleased!

Probably gonna stay here tomorrow, although not seen the last forecast yet.. This morning the weatherman said very windy for tomorrow, we shall see..