Baking Day
Last night I mixed up 4 loaves worth of bread dough using this recipe, having tried the beginner’s bread recipe on the same site with good results last week. So this morning A and M got up first and knocked the dough back for me and put it into loaf tins and on trays to make rolls, so it could get on with the second rising.
We had a slow start to the morning though because L slept until 9am so I didn’t like to disturb him by going back upstairs for a shower and for M to do all his bedroom jobs before L woke up. Once we got going M did some maths and we baked the bread and shared one of the rolls for elevenses. We all like the bread which is a bonus, though M thinks I should have made white bread not half wholemeal.
We’re re-rowing How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World this week. We did it before when M was 4 or 5 maybe, so this time we can talk about different things at a slightly deeper level. It’s funny how much we enjoyed reading the book together again, we haven’t got it out to read for ages. We talked about where all the ingredients for the food we’ve eaten today might have come from and about choosing local food over shipping it long distances.
This afternoon we had to wait in for a landlord’s gas safety check thing so we did some baking. M peeled and chopped apples and helped me make pastry and we made an apple pie for tea - it was gorgeous! When the gas man finished he said he had to leave the boiler off because there was a problem with the gas pressure - luckily the bloke from the gas supply company turned up anout an hour and a half later to change the regulator or something and get everything turned back on again. It’s a shame we had to stay in because it was a lovely sunny afternoon.
This evening A dropped M off to Cubs and L started pulling things out of one of our craft drawers and had a thing for a paint tub (realised afterwards the paint had dried in the pot and I needn’t have had all those palpitations about paint everywhere). I sat him at the table with a little bit of paint and a brush and he dabbled away for a while getting more and more covered in paint. We did some hand painting and prints too. A came back in and ran some warm water to wash him off with afterwards. L got very snuggly and fed off to sleep which was a bit difficult cos I’d promised M I’d go and watch his cub investiture. I managed to get L’s PJs and dressing gown and some socks on and put him in a front cross carry with the wrap and took him to Cubs like that still asleep, though he woke up there and played with the camera taking lots of photos of the Cubs. I found I’d missed lots of paint around his neck and head and he had an especially large patch of blue in his hair. M was invested and got his Cyclist badge so he was happy, though rather tearful at bedtime. Think it was all a bit too much of a long day for him.
