Sunday 16th January 2011

I just made some bread. Parmesan and Sun-Dried Tomato. I like making bread, it's smells good whilst you are mixing and kneading it, it smells good when you are baking it, it smells good when you take it out of the oven and it tastes bloody lovely eaten warm. The photo isn't it by the way, it is my bread but not the one I made today. It's garlic and rosemary foccacia, but it's all good.
The trouble with home made bread though, is that it goes stale too quickly and as there is only two of us it goes stale before I eat it all normally. That's if I can resist eating it all as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Just got back from Clumber Park, a National Trust place where we often go to walk the dog. It pissed down whilst we were there, but at least nearly everyone else buggered off and it was nice and quiet.
I saw a tree that had been in a bit of an accident. Probably the recent snow that made it too heavy for itself, of maybe the wind. Possibly lightning, who knows.

You should never stand under a tree in a lightning storm.
Most people think this is because you will get electrocuted if the tree gets hit by a streak of lightning. It's not, as wood is not a particularly good conducter of electricity.
I once knew a tree that was a particularly good conductor of an orchestra, but that's a different story.
The real reason is that when the tree gets hit the lightning heats the sap which expands and makes the tree explode. You would get covered in boiling tree-sap which would not be so good.
You see, every day is a learning day here.

There is a lake at clumber, a big fuck-off lake. It is so long you sometimes mistake it for a river. The people that work there do too, as next to one of the bridges that cross this river lake is a sign that states 'No Fishing Upstream'. OK, they're not mistaking it for a river, they're mistaking it for a stream, which (in my book) is a lot fucking worse as a stream is just a small river, isn't it?
I'm telling you, this is one seriously big fuck-off lake, 87 acres or 352,000m², so how you can mistake it for a stream astounds me.
Anyway, it got me wondering, if you can fish downstream riverlake but not upstream riverlake do the fishermen (fisherwomen, whatever) manage to catch anything. I mean, if I were a fish and I knew about this sign then I wouldn't bother swimming past the bridge and into the area that can be fished. There was plenty of space on the unfishable area.
Mind you, I wonder if the sign confuses them?
They probably ignore it, knowing that they are in a lake and not a stream.

Had to give the dog a bath when we got home. She doesn't like baths and wouldn't come in the bathroom to start with. Funny really, if we are by a lake or a river (or stream, just to keep everyone happy), she will jump in, no problem, but ask her, and ask her nicely, to get in the bath and she doesn't want to.
She just stood there, looking all miserable in the warm water, probably thinking 'I wish I was in a nice cold, dirty river.'
I've got one of those big corner baths. People think they are really good, great to have, but they're not, they're shite.
They aint long enough to lie in properly, and if you try to sit up you end up slipping as you have nothing to prop yourself against due to the curve.
And unless you have an oversize hot water tank, you fill it about a quarter full and run out of hot water.

Not that I use it, except for bathing the dog, I prefer the shower.
Maybe I should try the dog in there.............