lots of horses in Devizes

Being as how it was pelting it down yesterday, I took the brolly and went into Devizles to hunt down horses in the Museum. I found that they're making a Big Thing of Eric Ravilious, now that they've got his rough draft of a Puffin book he was working on before his sudden death in an aircraft in Iceland. There's a book out, an imagining of how it would have been, with some of his pictures in it. It's a well done book, but at £15 I shall have to think about it.

They're planning a Rav exhibition too, and fundraising for the £5000 that they apparently need...
I mentioned that I was working on my own white horses map, and the nice woman at the desk waved over at the tea towel one that they already have, and one of which I already have. I showed her my canal maps. "Oh, they're for CHILDREN!" she said, unenthusiastically. 

Hey ho.

I found the horse and rider brooch I'd seen online, and another almost identical, which was nice.

And this odd bird grabbing a... rabbit? -which reminded me a bit of the spoonbill with a frog, at Wells.

the spoonbill and frog at Wells

And the exciting Marlborough Bucket, with some sinuous gee-gees on it, probably Gaulish apparently, and sinister as you like. And photographing them through curved glass meant the photos were rubbish. I may have to go back with the sketchbook. After all, I qualify for entry concessions, as I am now ANCIENT.

hunting the starlingerie

As I was a-walking one fine autumn morning,

I heard the reeds crackle with the starlings at play,
And I goofed with the camera and missed their departure, 

as they rose in one body and all flew away.

Then a fox in the field was a-leaping for mouses, 

and frisking its tail in the meadowsweet's dew
And what with the faffing and pressing wrong buttons, 

I succeeded in failing to film the fox too.

So here's my boat, and the silent reed beds, and a culvert fox-red with rust because there's iron in the hill.

There was an ironworks here once; and John Aubrey investigated the water and reckoned it was as mineral-rich as Bath and proposed a spa; there is a wellhouse somewhere in the village, which I must search out one day, but Seend never quite took off as a resort.

Shame about the missed shots; the starlings were very nice to hear and watch. There's a small but respectable crowd here, enough for a bit of a murmuration. They fly in and gather on the power lines on the hill, then do a quick airshow, and dive abruptly into the reeds. And in the morning, I was stood on the other bank listening to the starlingerie fizzing and crackling away, and tried and failed to film the sudden burst when they all rose up. Maybe I should have just enjoyed the moment.

I was singing Game of Cards as I was walking; you'll find it here, sung by June Tabor and Maddy Prior. The verse I wrote here fits the tune... 

plenty of bikes

Just a robin singing, and the distant thud of artillery way off on Salisbury Plain. 

And me trying to photograph Lepus, with Orion high over the hill and Sirius risen an hour ago. The camera wasn't cooperating though, the bugger.

There's chilly summer dawns where you feel grateful for the cool after the heat of the day. And there's this morning, where I'm tucked up in my duffel coat and the misty cold is so sharp it hurts your fingers after a while. Winter's on its way and the first frosts can't be far off.

I'm in striking distance of the Caen Hill locks now, but taking a few days here to sort out a few things, like the bikes that need new homes. The top of the boat is raaaather cluttered tbh, and made teetering across it a bit lively as I came up through the locks yesterday. 

Several passers-by commented 'amusingly' about the number of bikes I've got; a passing cyclist said to his partner (I was out of sight down below at the time) "Look at that! Bet they're stolen...".

Presently a walker paused and said "You've got a lot of bikes!" "Yes, I steal them from one town and sell them in the next".

Uncomfortable silence follows.

Bloody pikeys eh

Below Westwood

By early afternoon our boats had got too hot for comfort,
broadside on, unshaded from the sun,
and Phil and I were sitting on the big ash log
that someone years ago had carved a long bench from, and now the bugs were slowly claiming for their own. Small heaps of dust showed where stag beetles had burrowed, and every now and then we’d see an ichneumon consider possibilities as it hovered over them.  

With just the most perfunctory of warning roars
a Hercules flew low and fast above our heads
and banked hard over, following the valley to the south.
Its camouflage was obviously meant for somewhere else,
more desertlike than Wiltshire on an August day.  

The silence crept back in. A buzzard’s call was quite enough
to echo round this dome of sky, the pasture where the sheep
were huddled in the shadow of the tree, the idle boats.
And over Becky Addy Wood we saw a bank of what we thought was mist
blank out the treetops like a fret or haar. And then we smelt the fire;
“Oh, it’s the Amazon!” I said, and for then for just too long
we watched the spreading smoke, and said no more.

I wrote this poem last week, and yesterday was moored in the same place; three of us floating traders have set up a little pop-up event. That's Laura and Owen's cafe boat Wolf, freshly painted and beautifully signwritten by Ginny Barlow. In the late afternoon, smoke drifted again through the woods, making it all very atmospheric, and making the folk moving their boats squint as they tried to see their way ahead.

If you were up on the hill looking down, that'd be my boat there with the smoke coming out of the chimney. Though it's obviously much more autumnal at the moment. Must see if there's any elderberries left on the trees; elderberry cordial is good for keeping winter lurgies at bay.

watching the moon set

Here's a new map I just did, focusing on Newbury. It was interesting exploring the canal along there on my bike; from a boat you sometimes miss lots of details because you're too busy operating the locks and trying not to prang. 

I've just been out watching the moon set. Mist was rising from the water, and owls calling along the valley. It's decidedly autumn now. I was a bit absorbed in doing a commission and other stuff, but now it's time to get some new things done. Funny; finishing a picture takes away that nagging 'you should be getting on with your painting because that's what you're supposed to BE, isn't it?' feeling. For a short while at least.

dry docking a narrowboat in Bradford on Avon

Back in March, my boat insurance renewal letter duly arrived; we have pleasure in offering, etc  etc...  and please send us the hull survey as mentioned last year.

As mentioned last year? I checked through the correspondence. Yup. No marks for observation there, Dru.

Canal boats more than 20 years old need a periodic survey of the hull to ensure that they're not just about to sink. They also need to come out of the water every now and then to renew the hull blacking,  either a bituminous paint or the more expensive and durable twin-pack epoxy, Mine was last done five years ago, when I first got the boat; and I've been not-quite-getting-round-to-it ever since.

This time though, it was essential. I phoned the insurers, who were willing to extend cover until I could get the survey done. Dry dock facilities on the Kennet and Avon Canal are all constantly busy and with long waiting lists. I was fortunate to get a cancellation slot at Bradford Wharf, a very congenial outfit run and administered by Ted, Iolo and Jassy. 

I went into the dock on Monday morning, the water gurgled away and there was Eve sitting on the blocks. Ted set to work with the pressure washer, removing the weed and mussels that had been hitching a ride for so long. Much trepidation on my part. What state would the sides be in? There's a fair amount of pitting, caused by galvanic action; a lot of this happened before I got the boat and it was in a marina, where this is always a problem, when boats are moored close to each other and plugged into shoreline mains electricity.

Lee Cudmore-Ray, the surveyor, arrived and set to work with his ultrasound tester. In time, the entire boat was adorned with chalky hieroglyphs. The verdict appeared to be that the hull's pretty sound, but there were a couple of spots where the pitting was quite deep, and Iolo duly filled them in with the welder.

Then Ted put on the first of three layers of blacking.

...and welded on two extra anodes on each side, equidistant between the ones fore and aft. Sacrificial anodes absorb the mischief that stray electricity wreaks on hulls, and die so that the boat might live. They are unsung heroes, out of sight below the waterline and so often out of mind.

After three coats of blacking and an overnight rest, the boat was ready for the water again.

...and we were back to that happy feeling of water under the hull. 

a recipe for making and cooking seitan

Seitan is a good protein food, similar to tofu and tempeh in its use as a meat alternative. Its main (and sometimes only) ingredient is wheat gluten, sold as 'vital wheat gluten'. It has a chewy texture similar to chicken. And it has little to no flavour of its own, so you need to add that, either as an ingredient or by marinading, or by both.

I added some gram (chickpea) flour. You don't have to; you can always try alternatives. But this is the recipe for what I did.

Ingredients

3 parts vital wheat gluten

1 part gram flour

heaped teaspoon of onion powder

small dash olive oil

water

marinade (in this case, a bottle of jerk seasoning because that's what they had in Sainsburys)

Preparation

Mix the dry ingredients together, then add the dash of oil and stir in water to make a slightly sticky dough. Knead it; it very quickly becomes quite resilient and bouncy, in a way that you'll recognise if you're a bread maker.

Wrap the dough in foil, and steam it. I used a pressure cooker and steamed it under pressure for about 15 minutes. If you don't have a pressure cooker, maybe steam for an hour.

Take the steamed seitan out of the foil, and slice it

Marinade it. As I'm frugal, I pour the marinade on each slice then stack the next slice on top, and then wrap them all back into the foil to seal in the flavour (and keep the flies off, because I'm on a boat and there's lots of flies and no fridge)

Marinade for as long as you like; maybe overnight if you thought that far ahead. In this case, I left it for an hour.

Fry in oil over a fairly high heat. The seitan readily takes on a brown and crispy coat.

Serve. This was the first slice from the pan, and the first time I'd cooked seitan. It was good; a very nice chewy texture. The seasoning was OK, but I'm going to try to create a fuller flavour using tamari, tomato paste, maybe liquid smoke.

The hardest part for me was sourcing the vital wheat gluten. I tried nearly every wholefood shop in Bradford on Avon, Bath and Bristol and none of them had it. Then I found it in the local Co-Op.