Thursday, February 12, 2009
Bad bread
Must have had a bad day yesterday because I woke up this morning to a bread dream. It seems there was a parade of shops on the East side of a square of shops, this last a bit like, but not, the square of shops at Cowick Street in the regional capital of the west. In the middle of the side was a shop that I had been using regularly, I think for a drink - coffee or tea - but which I did not want to use today, electing to go to the baker in the corner instead. Sneak past the shop, trying not to catch the eye of the young girl that usually serves me but fail.
Get to the baker where the bread is arranged on large trestles, like a market stall, rather than the shelves more usual in a proper baker. There is a variety of bread, some of it the white sort that I want. The bloomers are very large and fresh and look as if, although good, they will squash very easily, particularly if I get a bigger one.
I wait while someone is served. The a lady comes in, perhaps 35. I notice later that she is quite heavily pregnant. The baker busies himself about the shop, doing anything rather than serve us. Eventually, the pregnant lady pushes herself forward and gets herself served, despite the tatty fiver I am waving to establish my priority. I give her a short lecture about how it is odd but that it is nearly always ladies who push in in queues. She leaves. The baker continues to busy himself about the shop, ignoring me. Eventually I ask him if he is going to serve me, which he does without batting an eyelid, being quite pleasant, just as if he had not kept me waiting for ages for no reason. He breaks the large white bloomer in half for me and is quite sollicitous about how wrapped up it is going to be, given that he only has fairly small paper bags. I leave the shop quite unsure about whether I have paid him, or whether I have paid him the right money, the change in my pocket not seeming to be quite right. Wake up.
Maybe it is all down to the excess of manual labour. First job was breaking up the concrete lump in the garden pond, which had been cast there to stem the leaking from the large hole in the liner which had been bitten by one or any of the fox, the squirrel (gray) or the birds. An irregular cubic foot. When I was young, I would have levered it out of the pond and disposed of it whole, but as an oldie settle for smashing it up in-situ with a club hammer and a cold chisel. Which takes a while. Hands in a bit of a state from the banging and gripping by the time I have finished, not having done this sort of thing for a while. Quite impressed that I managed without smashing a chunk of hand in the process with a slipping or badly aimed hammer head. Probably helped that I was using a large, long cold chisel, about a foot long. Surprised that the sharp end of it chipped; I had forgotten that steel can do that, but I suppose that the sort of steel used for a cold chisel has to be very hard, tendencies towards cast iron which certainly does smash. Reminded of hitching lifts, when you stand for ages. Then sink into a sort of torpor without much hope. Then all of a sudden, when you are least expecting it, someone stops. Breaking the concrete seemed the same. Pounding away. Hands tired. Making no progress. Then all of a sudden a great lump slowly breaks off without fanfare or fuss. The lumps now piled up next to the pond in case I decide I need them when backfilling the new black plastic tubs which will form the replacement water feature. FIL has been designated OIC black plastic tub plant population. Hopefully, many a happy hour.
Second was removal of the BH's pampas grass, the one she insisted on burning down each spring, a proceeding I did not think was well suited to our poor ground. Anyway, we agreed that its time was up. So I head down the garden with bush saw, mattock and spade. Bush saw to remove what growth there was: the foliage not being of the saw tooth variety of the allotment pampas grass (the new owner will have fun removing that one, if that is what he settles for. Much bigger and healthier than the garden one) so I don't get cut hands. Mattock to take out the stump. Fearsome implement which deals with the stump in fairly short order. Axe head to cut down; flat head to undercut the loosened lump. All out in about half an hour. I had been told by a Swindonian that pampas grass roots were an absolute menace to remove, travelling far, wide and deep from the stump, but that did not prove to be the case here. There were some fibrous roots under the stump, but unless I am missing something, not many. We will see what comes up after I have dug the rest of the bed over.
Get to the baker where the bread is arranged on large trestles, like a market stall, rather than the shelves more usual in a proper baker. There is a variety of bread, some of it the white sort that I want. The bloomers are very large and fresh and look as if, although good, they will squash very easily, particularly if I get a bigger one.
I wait while someone is served. The a lady comes in, perhaps 35. I notice later that she is quite heavily pregnant. The baker busies himself about the shop, doing anything rather than serve us. Eventually, the pregnant lady pushes herself forward and gets herself served, despite the tatty fiver I am waving to establish my priority. I give her a short lecture about how it is odd but that it is nearly always ladies who push in in queues. She leaves. The baker continues to busy himself about the shop, ignoring me. Eventually I ask him if he is going to serve me, which he does without batting an eyelid, being quite pleasant, just as if he had not kept me waiting for ages for no reason. He breaks the large white bloomer in half for me and is quite sollicitous about how wrapped up it is going to be, given that he only has fairly small paper bags. I leave the shop quite unsure about whether I have paid him, or whether I have paid him the right money, the change in my pocket not seeming to be quite right. Wake up.
Maybe it is all down to the excess of manual labour. First job was breaking up the concrete lump in the garden pond, which had been cast there to stem the leaking from the large hole in the liner which had been bitten by one or any of the fox, the squirrel (gray) or the birds. An irregular cubic foot. When I was young, I would have levered it out of the pond and disposed of it whole, but as an oldie settle for smashing it up in-situ with a club hammer and a cold chisel. Which takes a while. Hands in a bit of a state from the banging and gripping by the time I have finished, not having done this sort of thing for a while. Quite impressed that I managed without smashing a chunk of hand in the process with a slipping or badly aimed hammer head. Probably helped that I was using a large, long cold chisel, about a foot long. Surprised that the sharp end of it chipped; I had forgotten that steel can do that, but I suppose that the sort of steel used for a cold chisel has to be very hard, tendencies towards cast iron which certainly does smash. Reminded of hitching lifts, when you stand for ages. Then sink into a sort of torpor without much hope. Then all of a sudden, when you are least expecting it, someone stops. Breaking the concrete seemed the same. Pounding away. Hands tired. Making no progress. Then all of a sudden a great lump slowly breaks off without fanfare or fuss. The lumps now piled up next to the pond in case I decide I need them when backfilling the new black plastic tubs which will form the replacement water feature. FIL has been designated OIC black plastic tub plant population. Hopefully, many a happy hour.
Second was removal of the BH's pampas grass, the one she insisted on burning down each spring, a proceeding I did not think was well suited to our poor ground. Anyway, we agreed that its time was up. So I head down the garden with bush saw, mattock and spade. Bush saw to remove what growth there was: the foliage not being of the saw tooth variety of the allotment pampas grass (the new owner will have fun removing that one, if that is what he settles for. Much bigger and healthier than the garden one) so I don't get cut hands. Mattock to take out the stump. Fearsome implement which deals with the stump in fairly short order. Axe head to cut down; flat head to undercut the loosened lump. All out in about half an hour. I had been told by a Swindonian that pampas grass roots were an absolute menace to remove, travelling far, wide and deep from the stump, but that did not prove to be the case here. There were some fibrous roots under the stump, but unless I am missing something, not many. We will see what comes up after I have dug the rest of the bed over.
# posted by Jim @ 12:10 AM 
