up in the air

Jim arrived with a great bag of climbing gear on the back of his bike. "I thought I'd do that willow," he said. "And you could take some pictures."

Jim has an informal arrangement with the local canal people; he takes out trees that represent a potential problem or danger to the canal and towpath, and their users. It saves them admin and bother - the canal volunteers can't move without a risk assessment and piles of hi-vis safety gear - and he gets firewood. I sometimes help, too, because I like doing that sort of thing. The willow was a pro bono job because the timber is pretty useless for burning, and not much use for anything else, unless you want to make a cricket bat.

"I said five years ago I'm getting too old for going up trees" said Jim. He's three years younger than me, but I didn't mention that. My younger self would have thought it surprising that people pushing towards 60 years old should be scrambling around in trees. But then my younger self was ageist.

He clambered into the harness and leg spikes, and we went to the willow tree whose bough was overhanging the towpath. Space's boat was underneath it. "He's a late riser, is Space" said Jim, knocking on the boat's roof.

Space emerged, blinking in the noontime light. "I'm moving in a few hours," he said. "You can do it then."

"Sorry, Space, got to do it now" said Jim. "We won't even touch your boat."

"If you do I shall be very annoyed," said Space, retreating into the dark fug of his boat.

Jim scrambled up through the ivy, dislodging a squirrel's drey that showered twigs down on him and looking more like the Green Man with every move. Having attached a rope high on the trunk, he swung down onto the limb that was sticking out over the canal, and as he lopped off sections of it, I swung them down to the ground. Space and his boat remained unsullied.

And then we had a glass of whisky and I drew Jim's picture. 

another starry picture

....here's Leo, and a fireball, and the Alton Barnes white horse as seen from the canal near Honeystreet. Just a picture I wanted to do; and the generator charged up the boat batteries while I had the big computer running so that I could do the digital processing....

Been v busy sending off Christmas orders lately. I did a small print run of cards for my own use, like this- life on board nb Eve...

...I scanned it before I coloured it; was thinking I might do a colouring book, as they seem quite popular at the mo. If that is your thing, feel free to download the pic and have a go!

Kultur wars on the canal

When I was a lad, I’m sorry to say, 

My chance to join the Navy sadly slipped away

I worked instead selling clapped out motors,

Safe and sound a long way from such dang’rous waters

(safe and sound a long way from such dang’rous waters)

Safe and sound, I say, till, upon a whim

I bought a boat cos I’m a fan of Rosie’n Jim

(He bought a boat cos he’s a fan of Rosie’n Jim)

A marina berth I swiftly found,

And my gangplank very soon was rooted to the ground

I polished the brass and I drank my tea,

And I took to wearing captain’s hats and neckerchees

(he took to wearing captain’s hats and neckerchees)

A red neckerchee which you’ll find, I’m sure 

’s been traditional since roughly 1994

(It’s been traditional since roughly 1994)

One day in my telescope I chanced to spy

A tatty boat with bikes on as it chugged on by

Though it chugged on by, I’m pretty sure

It was only going to find a place nearby to moor

(it was only going to find a place nearby to moor)

And on mooring up, just you mark my words

They’ll be clogging up the waterway with piss and turds

(they’ll be clogging up the waterways with piss and turds)

An article I swiftly penned, 

For that bloke in Narrowmind World who is my best friend

In green Biro and with lots of caps

It was strong on righteous outrage though quite short on facts

(it was strong on righteous outrage but quite short on facts)

For facts and figures are your enemy

If you would sway the actions of the CRT

(if you would sway the actions of the CRT)

Inspired by a recent Narrowboat World piece that claimed that 'continuous moorers', as the writer humorously described them, were clogging up the western end of the Kennet and Avon canal. He made further, evidence-free claims that they were emptying effluent into the canal, because, well, look at them.... (edit) the claim that the K&A is clogged by 'continuous moorers' was debunked by the CRT themselves in this response to a request made by Rick Hemmings for the relevant stats, seen here:

...and now Tillergraph, a towpath freebie, echoes these sentiments with similar claims in its 'letter of the month',  further complaining that live aboard boaters are making the place look unsightly, and affecting the whole 'culture and ethos' of the canal. Hey ho. If in doubt, respond with persiflage and a touch of contumely. Thhhrrrrp.

the exhibition in Bath

Last week was the exhibition in Walcot Chapel, Bath, for Gypsy, Roma, Traveller (and Boater) Month, organised by Julian House in Bath. I was v busy painting in the run up to it, and displayed eight paintings, of which the one above, of Jacqui at home on Aster, is the latest.

I sat in on the exhibition for quite a while, and got to meet all sorts of interesting and interested folk. Here's Brian, whose granddaughter once owned Netty, the boat in this picture. She'd asked him to come along and say hello, as she is over in West Wales.

Here's Maggie Smith-Bendell, author of Rabbit Stew And A Penny Or Two, who came for the opening of the exhibition and talked about her life

...and here are Jenks and Helen, whose boat rides on Lady Lena are apparently the most romantic thing you can do. Ever. Helen is the sculptor. Connie and Sam, the organisers of the whole thing, are there on the right.

....and Katie, with her picture....

making tracks, following them, staying put

A dusting of snow the other morning meant that I was up and out as soon as it was light, looking for footprints. There was some mink spraint under the bridge where I found some a couple of weeks ago; this was so fresh it was practically steaming...

...and a trail leading away to the nearby winding hole, where the undergrowth is thick and tangled. The trail ended there.

I was telling Mark, my neighbour, about it, and he found it odd that I should go around photographing poo. Each to their own, Mark. Think of King Pellinore, with his horn full of fewmets! 

The ice has limited my boat movements; it doesn't take much ice to make manoeuvring a narrowboat difficult. But it has allowed for some good photograph opportunities. Last night's sunset

was very quickly followed by the rising of the full moon. There is less than an hour between these two pictures

fixing a weed hatch leak

Underneath Eve's afterdeck is a dark, cramped place, where, if you pull the steps back and worm your way in, you will find the weed hatch. And if you unclamp it, you can see the propellor and the rudder.  This is useful if you need to clear an obstruction. But Eve's weed hatch seal is old and tired, and started to let water in.

here's the weed hatch removed; you can see the manky old seal.

I cut out a square from my old sleeping mat...

and stuck it into place using gorilla snot*

*silicone sealant, if you prefer

dhobi day on the boat

An article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago looked at people who live on boats, particularly in London, as a solution to the housing crisis of availability and expense. A couple of comments I read as a response to the article reckoned that boat dwellers are smelly, which accords with my (thankfully limited) experience of the attitude that some people have to boaters as some sort of underclass, disreputable and probably on drugs, yadda yadda....

Anyway, some people are smelly, and some people aren't. And that ain't got much to do with where they live. Still, as part of my occasional series of blogs about Life On Narrowboats, here's how I do my washing.

the bathroom pump

After I've showered, on a washday, rather than pump the water overboard I bale it into a basin and add it to my twin tub washing machine.

Meanwhile, over on the Morso Squirrel, a kettle has been simmering, and I add the water to the mix to bring the temperature right up

Then I put the Honda generator out on the back deck, and set it running. This is an opportunity to charge the 12V domestic batteries, too.

I can then set the washing machine going. The spin drier is very effective, more so than a normal automatic machine, and two rinses are usually all I need to do

And then I hang the clothes in front of the stove. The atmosphere in the boat is a bit heavy with heat and moisture for a few hours, but then it becomes far more bearable and the clothes dry very nicely.

more baking on narrowboats

The last time I tried to make bread in the solid fuel stove, it was pretty disastrous. Unless you count as success a loaf that is carbonised on the outside and doughy on the inside. 

So I've added a wire shelf inside the Morso Squirrel, as you see. It is made from one of those big cages that people (some people) keep their dogs in, and which I rescued from the rubbish bins on the canal a few months ago.

We made pizza in there the other evening, and v tasty it was too. But we were so hungry that I didn't pause to photograph it. So here is a baked potato, baking.

You have to let the fuel (in this case, logs) finish flaming and settle into a good glow, before putting in the food to be cooked. And then it's a race against time. The potato was just cooked by the time I needed to throw fresh fuel on.

(postscript) Here's a loaf baked today. It's a bit burned underneath, but it's OK and was v nice to eat some slices with my dinner....

stained glass for narrowboats

So, Tony asked if I could paint his cratch board window, and I said, “Of course!” and then thought, but did not say “…well, at least I think so….”

And then I went away and did a bit of mugging up on the topic. And drew up a design. And ordered some paints. I used Pebeo Vitrail, a solvent-based glass paint that promises to be waterproof but advises against the use of dishwashers. I thought Tony’s boat would be safe from that. 

I sellotaped three bloody great pieces of paper onto the side of my boat, and drew up a template; there’s precious little room on board Eve for a drawing board like my old one. Then I cut out the template and stuck it to the back of the glass, and lined in the design using Pebeo Cerne outliner. This creates a black bead, something like the leaded strips you get between panels of stained glass, which is of course the intended effect.

As I was moored outside the Barge Inn at Honeystreet at the time, I had some interested spectators; one (whose name I didn’t catch) said “I’ve got a tattoo just like that!” and showed me. And so he did; it was a rising sun over the Uffington white horse, surmounted by his daughter’s name. 

“A bloke in the field here did it for me” he said. The field in question being the camping field next to the pub, where assorted tipis and old vans and buses were assembled ready to welcome in the equinox. “Quite like Stonehenge in the old days”, I remarked to Boat Teenager, who had been kept awake for most of the night by the band, and would have gone in to listen except that there was no-one else of her age around. We agreed, though, that the band, despite the billing, were not what we’d call psychedelic. I’d been hoping for something a bit Hawkwind at least. “Who?” asked Boat Teenager. I went back to my painting.

It was hard to get a smooth coverage of the larger areas- the green hill with the horse on it was particularly difficult- either the paint was too thick, and the brush strokes very much in evidence, or if I thinned it it was too thin.... I tried stippling it, which created a far better effect. I subsequently tried sponging, on the background to the wheat- I cut off pieces of washing up sponge and dabbed the dark brown paint on with it; this was an effective method.

a hare, of course!

there's a harvest mouse in there somewhere


...there it is!

boat work

I've been on a 48 hour mooring on Devizes Wharf, taking advantage of the quayside to paint the name of my boat, which has just been the-green-boat-with-bikes-on-the-roof till now.

Eve's name came with her, and I couldn't see any reason to change it, though I considered adding to it so she could be New Eve (a nod to Angela Carter) and quite liked the idea of Questing Vole.... it is, of course, bad luck to change a boat's name (though that presumably doesn't count on big ships; in twenty five years of seafaring most of the ships I worked on had had several changes of name in their working lives); one way around this is to rename the boat while it is out of the water, apparently.

The sun was so strong that it was painful to put my hand on the boat's side, so I wore mittens to do the painting. I used Hammerite Smooth paint, and it was very uneven, needing two coats and still looking a bit scrappy; still, at least the job's done and now I can look at it and wonder how to do it better next time.

I also finally had chance to spread out this old lorry tarpaulin, which was a left over piece kindly given to me by Kev and Gemma, who had been using it to roof over an old workboat that Kev had built a shed on top of, an impressive sight (though you'll have to take my word for it as I didn't take a picture).

I'm going to make a new cratch cover from it, because the present cover is falling to bits. I'll use the old one as a pattern. I've now washed the new piece of tarp, dried it out and folded it away neatly (as neatly as you can with a tarp), and must now find some vinyl adhesive which is both strong enough for the job and cheap enough to buy in industrial quantities.

Talking of cratch covers, by the way, I'm secretly mystified by some of the terms used 'on the cut', which has its own vocabulary distinct from the seafarer's -thus, a cratch board is the assembly at the front end of the foredeck or well-deck, between which and the cabin you can suspend the cratch cover. But where and what is the cratch itself? OED online tells me that it is a 'long open trough or rack used for holding food for farm animals out of door' and is etymologically similar to 'crèche'   -so presumably the cratch itself is the well-deck? 

a lot of white cider

Two locks down from the Wadworths brewery in Devizes is one of the more peaceful places I've moored; the foxes bark in the woods, and a tawny owl keewicks a little before dawn. But I'm slowly heading eastwards, so we moved up to Devizes Wharf the other morning. The wharf is where the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust have their base, with a museum and cafe in one of the few remaining old buildings, another having become the Wharf Theatre. For the rest it is car park, and a popular place for people with cans of Special Brew to sit and talk with their dogs, the conversations being quite lengthy and always conducted along these lines:

BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP

...it's fairly Pinteresque in its way.

I set up my little display of books and cards by the boat as usual, and got to meet some nice people as usual, in consequence.

On Sunday evening, I was putting things away on the towpath while Boat Teenager did the washing up. A group of four twentysomething Sikhs had migrated across to the towpath from the wharf, and were sitting on a nearby bench. One of the men called to me: "Can we have some tea, please?"

I was surprised to be asked, but not displeased; we do what we can.

"Yes, no problem" I said.

"Do you have masala chai?"

"I....think so!"

I cleared away some of the clutter on the foredeck and invited them to sit. They scrambled on board and made themselves as comfy as possible, as I put the kettle on.

"How much is the tea, please?" asked the woman in the party.

"Oh! Nothing" I said.

They looked startled, and it became apparent that they had thought I was a cafe, an unlikely notion, as anyone who has experienced the clutter of NB Eve will cheerfully agree. They made their excuses and left, despite my assurance that it was fine.

A shame- bet they wouldn't find a masala chai anywhere else in this bit of Wiltshire on  Sunday evening....

Yesterday afternoon I was drawing at my desk when one of the Special Brew Crew started shouting across, instead of at his dog. I got the message that a man was in the water. So I grabbed a rope and went out.

There was indeed a man standing in the water, which lapped his bare shoulders. 

"I've been drinking a lot of white cider" he said in a voice which did nothing to belie this statement.

I tied a bowline and passed it over his head, and bade him put his arms through. Then I hauled him out; he was a big chap, the bank was very steep, and it was not easy. Furthermore, as he emerged, it became apparent that he had nothing on lower down either; his trousers were bunched around his ankles. 

"I've been drinking a LOT of white cider" he said.

I got him onto the bench and he pulled his trousers up while I called 999; it seemed the most prudent thing to do. Then we made him some warm coffee. He preferred to drink from the big blue plastic bottle that was almost empty.

"I HAVE been drinking A LOT of white cider" he assured me, with something between a laugh and a sob. He looked at the canal. "Did I fall in there?"

"Yes, you did," I said.

"It's my birthday on the twenty seventh..... I'm fifty. .....I've been drinking a lot of white cider. .....I've drunk six litres. ...I'm an alcoholic. ...Did I fall in the canal?"

"Yes"

He'd given me a number that he had by heart, and I called his friend, who said she'd come straight away.

Two paramedics arrived, one in an air ambulance flying suit; then a policeman. I told them what little they needed to know and walked back to my boat. Presently I saw the friend arrive, and the salvage of a small shipwreck of a life carried on.

At twilight, Boat Teenager and I went for a last walk up to the bridge. A loud PLOP told us that water voles were active, and we watched them swimming around under the bridge, looking from above a little like tiny dogs. The bells of the parish church were ringing across the hushed town beneath the waxing almost-half moon. A bat flew unostentatiously beneath us through the arch of the bridge.

on charge

When the boat's battery indicator says there's nothing left, and the laptop battery is down to 5%, it's time to start doing something about it.

I've got two little charging alternators run by belt drive from the main engine, just like the ones you have on a car, for charging the batteries. There's also a bloody great 5KVA Electrolux alternator, also belt-driven from the engine, that supplies 240V to the domestic wiring circuit; but that needs you to run the main engine at a constant 800 RPM, which makes it useless for operating while cruising, and uncomfortable for using while moored up; my Beta Tug engine is jolly nice, but it is Very Noisy Indeed.

So I've got a dinky little Honda 240V generator. Suzanne off Electra sold it to me for a good price, when she gave up Electra recently. 

I put it up on the back deck, and away it chugs, a distant rumble as I sit at my desk. It does not cause Men Of A Certain Type to stop and make admiring noises as the Beta engine does, but I'm cool with that.

Here's the charger, topping up the domestic batteries....

...and here's me, blogging away while the laptop charges!

poo

There are two main types of sewage management on narrowboats; one has the toilet discharging into a big holding tank, which, when full, has to be pumped out at a shoreside pump-out station, and the boat needs to be moved to that station. This is a bore, and costs about £25 a time.

The other system uses a small portable tank that slots in under the toilet; when you want to empty this 'cassette', you simply slide it out; the flap that closes off the top orifice should have a watertight seal, so it's quite mess-free (I had to replace the seals on my tanks, which was a fairly straightforward job and well worth doing, eccchhh). Then you can take the cassette to a sani station, which may be several miles from where you're moored, but at least avoids an unnecessary voyage.

I empty my tank weekly at the moment. Some people don't put loo roll down the hole, but bag it up and either burn it or bung it in a rubbish bin. I'm not really comfortable doing that.

I'm moored at Semington at the moment, and the nearest sani station is at Seend, which is about two miles away. On a summer's morning, it's a fine trip on the bicycle, even with the shit tank rattling on the trailer.

I take a plastic raincoat, a pair of rubber gloves, and a dedicated brush for cleaning up the mess. Here's the sani station at Seend.

Job done!

So now I can enjoy the towpath, where the meadowsweet and the spiked speedwell are now proliferating

and the heron pretends it isn't there

love me fender

I need fenders to protect Eve's sides, particularly when sliding in and out of locks. The bottom plates of the hull stick out slightly from the sides, and a welded seam runs along the join. The part that sticks out is called the chine. It protects the weld. In time, that chine wears away through abrasion; if it wears deeply enough, the weld might be chafed away, and then the hull will leak. Fenders help reduce the amount of contact that the hull undergoes.

So I looked on Ebay, and found that the best deal I could get was for some produced by Avon Tyres, not a mile from where I'm moored, in Melksham. I cycled past the old RAF base there a while back, and saw that the hangars were full of tyres, and great racks of them on the tarmac where once the roar of the Merlin would have been heard).

But I couldn't just go and buy them over the counter (or perimeter fence). So Jan in Holt kindly took delivery of them, and I cycled over and picked them up. This morning I started putting them in place.

For the low hitching point, the rope that came with the fender was too long; so I spliced the surplus onto the one destined for a higher hitch.

Two done, four to go.

making pictures

I'm starting to crank up the illustrating and publishing behemoth that is Gert Macky (population: 1), and actually had a nice little commission last week. It's for Judi Sutherland's new poetry site, The Stare's Nest, which is open to submissions of poems in many styles, with a general theme of political issues, social justice, equality and diversity. 

At the moment I'm relying on natural light to paint by, so it's helpful if I don't moor in the shade of trees, which, as it happens, was exactly where I was at the time; so I did a fair bit of painting up on the foredeck, which was quite congenial in the hot weather.

To scan a painting, I need to set up the little Honda 240V generator on the afterdeck, then crank up the desktop computer and scanner. I'm hoping the generator is producing clean enough power to not damage the computer, but it has had a couple of cranky fits, so fingers crossed...

Then when I've done with processing the image, I put it on a memory stick and send it off from my MacBook, which is tethered to my iPhone - both these are new to me, and vital connections to the greater world. I get 2GB of tethering per month with my phone plan, but I can also get wifi at libraries, thanks to an enlightened council.

Slowly getting things sorted!

coffee tin bread

There are all sorts of good reasons to drink Illy coffee, and I wondered if making bread in the tins would be yet another. So I cut the bottom off two tins, then turned them upside down and added bread dough. In this instance, I used about 12oz flour.

When the dough was risen, it filled the tins pretty well right to the top. Then I put second lids on the tops, from my stockpile. And put them in the pressure cooker.

I was just going to steam them without pressure, but accidentally pressurised them. I wonder if the bread will be more airy if it is not cooked under pressure?

Anyway, after 20 mins cooking under pressure, I had two good loaves which slid easily out of the tins. Texture is good, slightly dense and bagel-y or crumpet-y. Or bread-y.

goosegogs and fox prayers

The collection of empty jam jars under the galley cupboard is growing. They claimed their first prey last week, when Jan Lane called by, bearing the gift of goosegogs, fresh from her garden. So I boiled them up with a very small mount of water and some sugar, and they lasted long enough for me to decant them and eat them with cream, very nice too. Don't know what you call gooseberries done this way; goosegog idiot?

At five o'clock this morning a fox was barking from the hill above the canal. The bark didn't just echo around the wooded valley, it positively rang. So for this morning at least, this part of the Avon valley can be a welkin, a prayer bowl for foxes. I wandered down to the river to enjoy the sound, and heard the kingfisher, which flew by and perched high on a hogweed plant overhanging the water. So I fumbled with my iPhone in hopes of recording it, and so missed it diving in. Though I heard the splash. So then I started filming the place where the ripples were receding, to record its resurfacing. And missed it again.

Sometimes you're just better off living in the moment, I guess.

ought cuisine

A moment's carelessness and plop! The pepper grinder was at the bottom of the canal. So I went shopping for a new one. I found one one that came preloaded with Fairtrade peppercorns, and since it'd been a while since I'd looked around a supermarket spice section, I delved a bit and found this remarkable seasoning. With a promise like that on the label, I had to get it, of course, and shall discover in time whether it will indeed replace all the other herbs and spices in the galley.

Eve’s galley is both small, and exactly the right size for me. There’s a midget Belfast sink; a tiny washing machine; a Calor gas stove complete with oven that will sometimes get warm if it's really trying; a little fridge that runs on three different power sources; and a Paloma gas water heater that you have to coax into life with a match and which then roars at you while gouting hot water, all very much like a 1970s bedsit.

The washing machine really needs a line connecting it to shore-based mains electricity to work, and as I am a ‘continuous cruiser’ (moored up on the towpath, moving at least once a fortnight) that isn’t usually an option, so I’m going to get rid of it. I mostly do my washing in the bath after I’ve showered; it’s a useful way of economising on water, too; and after I had a great pile of laundry after fixing the car’s clutch the other week, I visited the launderette in Devizes. It’s about 25 years since I last used a launderette, and I was curious to know what it would be like. Very sociable, as it happens, and I can strongly recommend it as a way of meeting people and getting into conversations with a ‘we’re all in this together’ sort of flavour.

The fridge hasn’t worked since I left the marina and its shore power behind at the end of April; I should really get round to doing something about it soon. I haven’t tried to run it on Calor gas because it doesn’t vent to outside the boat and I don’t want it to asphyxiate me. It can work on a 12V supply, at least in theory, but it didn't work when I tried, and my 12V system (a bank of batteries, charged from an alternator on the engine) gets drained very quickly anyway. I must install a solar panel, and either get the fridge working or change it.

So things that would normally get put into the fridge have to be eaten or drunk very quickly. I rarely eat meat now, and I put condensed milk in my tea, which is very cheerful first thing in the morning and reminds me of camping expeditions. I sometimes buy small portions of ready-made salad; I also got a copy of Richard Mabey’s Food For Free, and have not used it once, despite being surrounded by fields full of wild food.This is the usual trajectory for people who buy Richard Mabey’s Food For Free, I suspect.

I’ve been experimenting with convenience food. It was jolly exciting to find that Vesta still make those little boxes of instant meals (‘easy cook- add water & simmer’). So obviously I had to try one of their paellas. It was a bit of a disappointment, to be honest, not least when compared with the Maggi ‘Saveurs du Monde’ paella that I got in a french supermarket a few years back. Still, it was a happy reminder of those simple days of the 60s when a Vesta beef curry, with perhaps a sprinkling of desiccated coconut, seemed thoroughly dashing and exotic.

Determined to try some DIY, I got some dried shrimps from Wai Yee Hong in Bristol, and dried onions, mixed veg, and mushrooms from Sainsburys, and tried my own instant paella. Pretty good, though you have to not mind the shells still being on the shrimps.

Another good meal was fried frankfurters from a jar, with instant mashed potato and instant curry sauce. Oh yes. Serve with a bottle of Heineken, fresh from the supermarket chill cabinet, and you could almost be at an Oktoberfest, but without the Australians.

Far less successful was Sainsbury’s Bacon Brunch, a confection of potatoes, bacon and onion that came from a foil envelope and would have been better not having done so. Greasy and tasteless. I threw the remnants to the flotilla of expectant ducks, hove to around Eve’s stern as I sat up on the aft cabin roof. They swam away as it sank.

My corned beef hash is better by far, though of course it needs a few more minutes of prepping- peel spuds, stick them in pressure cooker, slice onion, fry, add the now-cooked spuds and paprika, and a can of corned beef, throw in loads of olive oil and fry it all up while shovelling it round with a spatula till it’s sizzling like fury and there you go. Serve it with baked beans and chilli sauce. But that is not quite ought cuisine, is it?

mussels in cider with oven chips, yo