Spring is here

Finally the sun is shining, the birds are having a field day –literally and the whole country is cutting the grass and enthusing about the weather. Needless to say, after the bread round is finally going for those walks and getting that excersise and has –-  in completely unfounded optimism – registered for the VHI women’s mini marathon.

Warmer nights mean many things to many people but to us it means that the sourdough is livelier and that I should have taken out the radiator that keeps that part of the bake house warmish. Last Thursday night I didn’t and the sourdoughs thought they might go for a walk. On Fridays, I start at a leisurely 2.30am, stoke up the stove for a bit of heat, put on the yeast doughs  and divide the sourdoughs into baskets. It is a nice and easy morning after the hectic market day on Thursday with a lovely “only one more day to the weekend” feeling. Philippe, second baker for that day, came in at 4.15am, goes into the pantry to hang up his coat and comes out with “there is sourdough everywhere”….. At this stage, even I see the tell tale signs of a sourdough puddle creeping in underneath the pantry door and the day takes a turn. Our five bucket sourdough starter tower is alive and bubbling and I regret to say, I didn’t think to take a video. Too old for that universal reflex action obviously!! The lids were lifting and puffing and  bubbling with sourdough starter running down the tower and slowly spreading on the floor. We closed the door and finished the bake – with one eye on the slowly increasing puddle, wondering if anyone ever made a horror movie with sourdough.

Two hours later with the bread on the road, I tackle the buckets and the puddle and discovered that spilled sourdough is plain nasty to take off the ground and off the wall and off the buckets. It sticks – but I win in the end, with one spotless pantry, a tower of sourdoughs brought back under control and the surplus gone to feed the compost. One cup of tea later, we turn into a proper episode of faulty towers. A bird has got stuck in the sourdough in the compost and needs rescuing and washing and drying – in  the kitchen – not the bakehouse, I hasten to add!!  The bird gets washed – with difficulty, sourdough still being nasty to take off and objects vigourously. I get pecked and clawed and am quite happy that this bird is small and his beak insignificant. As he dries off in a box on top of the stove, I light my own fire and finish the paperwork for the week. And you thought we only bake.

Happy to report the sourdoughs are behaving since then and have abandoned all efforts to escape and colonise the bakehouse – and the bird is well again – if probably still very cross. After the bread round spent Sunday afternoon at the Barrow towpath for a walk on this first of hopefully many spring days. Sunshine, proper heat in the sun and a glorious river walk – which by the way is perfectly fine and I really hope doesn’t get developed into this proposed tourist project of a walkway. Yesterday, there were many, many walkers enjoying the tow path near St Mullins, the amazing St Mullins Café was overfull, serving wonderful salads and sandwiches, brownies and tarts and any further development of this wonderful resource seems entirely unnecessary and probably damaging. I don’t wash buckets, walls and floors and birds if there is no escaping sourdoughs. Why would you fix and develop a tow path that is perfect as it is? Oh – and if you see a tower of buckets on your travels, give us a shout.