Quite a chilly day, with occasional flurry of snow interspersed with bright sunshine. Was rather glad we had the car to hand, although it did feel a bit like cheating using it to go shopping. I decided I wanted a small firepit that we can use outside when there’s enough towpath to meet with friends and family. Tomorrow our friends J and M are coming for a picnic lunch to celebrate her birthday and as they can’t come in the boat, a firepit is a better solution. I tried to get one delivered to the boat but they are in short supply. Homebase had one but can’t deliver it until Monday. Then I had the bright idea to Google firepits and Oxford. A garden centre 9 miles away had .k
. Gy firepit left, so off we went to see if it was suitable (not to big, bulky or heavy) and it’s just what we had been looking at earlier in other stores, but they had all been out of stock. We were also able to buy more wood and a present for JQ so a successful mission. We then found an upmarket deli to enhance the birthday picnic and arrived back at the boat a little lighter in the pocket!
I’d tried to buy a Victoria sandwich cake as that is JQ’s favourite apparently, but that was easier said than done. So, taking my courage in both hands, I set out to make one on the boat in the temperamental gas oven. Those of you who bake will know the success of a Victoria sponge is getting equal proportions of the four main ingredients – the butter, sugar and flour should each weigh the same as the quantity of eggs. Not only do I not have scales, I only had plain spelt flour and baking powder. R, with his boy scout hat on, said I needed to get a pencil and lay the lightish chopping board on top and balance the board, with the same weight bowls. So I put the eggs in one bowl and the butter in the other until balanced. Then carefully, without moving the position of the bowls I removed the eggs and replaced them with sugar so that the sugar and butter weighed the same. Carefully spooning out the sugar into the mixing bowl, I then weighed the flour. It was quite a labour of love. All I had to bake it in was a loaf tin. My first attempt was not a success – too much baking powder and I think too much butter. So I started all over again and was much more pleased with my second attempt. Then I discovered we had no jam! So the strawberries I had brought for decoration I turned into jam with some icing sugar I happened to have. (My only other sugar was brown!) That was not an exact science but it seems to have worked, bubbling away on top of the wood burning stove. Tomorrow I will assemble the cake, I even found some birthday candles on the boat, and just hope it doesn’t taste too bad.
makeshift scales 
Failure! 
Homemade jam
We also went looking for the place R needs to park our car so that when we move the boat he can get a train back to the nearest train station to where the car is parked. I vaguely knew where the parking was if I walked along the canal. It was all a bit different finding the parking from the road. The air turned a bit blue as we both got a little frustrated in our attempt to do this. Eventually my brain computed and we have worked out the correct footpath, as well as towpath that needs to be walked. Our neighbours on the next door boat said the movement of car and boat is often very complicated, made more so if you agree to meet up again at a certain bridge and get the wrong bridge number!
A relatively early night after watching a film about the Jane Austen Book Club. All a bit convoluted and probably would have been better if we had read her books recently. I think I last read them at school! Perhaps worth a reread.
NarrowboatTLC 