Bacon & Egg Pie

Scratch marks on the cabin walls after being confined to the warmth of the cabin whilst attempting to shake off the ‘man flu’.  Jan braved the elements yesterday to obtain some essentials and very kindly purchased a packet of sudafed from the chemist.  The old packet in the bottom draw was proving to be as effective as hip pockets on a singlet.  These new tablets are making me feel much perkier and I’ve been having some wonderful dreams at night!

Today Jan remembered she had some bacon in the fridge and asked if I’d like a bacon and egg pie for dinner.  Sounded wonderful and I readily agreed.  However after removing the bacon from the fridge she expressed some doubts about it’s freshness pointing out to me it looked ‘slimy’.  If I’d been the cook I would not have noticed or just trusted the incinerator oven to kill off anything harmful.  But then I have poisoned myself with my cooking on a few occasions.  Anyway the bacon didn’t make it into the pie.  However Jan did make a delicious pie from egg and secret ingredients found on the boat.

We had a lovely email today from Alison and Pete (nb Maid of the Locks) who we travelled with on the Kennet & Avon last summer. 

Photo from 2015

Alison mentioned they are having Maid of the Locks moved south by road and Pete was busy polishing the boat in preparation.  I’ve always thought Braidbar Boats look particularly nice.  Every Braidbar Boat we have seen looked highly polished with gleaming brass. Both of us noticed Pete’s actions each time we stopped at the end of the day or at a lock.  He’d be out washing and polishing a panel or cleaning the brass.  One day he cleaned the brass and it rained that night.  He was back out early the next morning repolishing.  I just thought he was fastidious, but subsequently developed a theory that maintaining the exterior of a Braidbar Boat might be written into the build contract.  Or perhaps it’s a membership condition for the Braidbar Owners Club.  He’s probably concerned Maid of the Locks might get seen during the road move by another Braidbar owner and reported. 

I’ve been working on the design of another waterbed.  We currently have a large one at 58’6” x 6’7”.  The earlier one was 5ft wide and 6ft 3in long.  It was our second bed and the first mattress was an early version with no baffles.  If you moved around suddenly a wave action could form with waves going to the foot of the bed and then back to the head.  This sometimes proved rather useful in those early years of married life.   The second mattress had baffles and the third was a soft-side mattress that contained a significantly smaller volume of water.  We used to move house frequently and rather than pay to have the mattress emptied and the bed dismantled I’d do it myself.  I’d syphon the water out using the garden hose rather than hiring a pump.  It took longer using gravity and you had to be careful not to suck a mouthful of copper sulphate diluted water.

I will build the next bed base improving on the design from our first bed.  It consist of two modules, each containing six soft close drawers.  There will be a long term storage section down the middle.  I’ve been using the free Google SketchUp program for the concept design.

I’ll need to drill holes in all the internal partitions to allow the warm air from the water heater to circulate.  All the hidden panels will be made from MDF and the exposed panels will be veneer chipboard.  The top will also be chipboard.