Jam, Knits and the plan

I've just finished making these little beauties for a fellow boater's baby.


And a day ago made more of this...



I'm selling under the shop name 'Amanda's Homemade Delights'.

The journey begins tomorrow (my birthday!) with our first day setting off towards London. We have been discussing the route down and looks like we will take the Grand Union Canal all the way from Trent Lock, through Leicester, Foxton, Braunston, Milton Keynes, Watford and into North London and Little Venice. How exciting!

Little bit of knitting

I got up today with great ambitions. To start and complete the engine bay rust treatment and paint-work. To collect my jars from the box I left at the local recycling centre. To make more jam for the many requests I am getting. And to do everything else that was needed to be done. Leigh gently pointed out my irrational busying around and grumpiness and here we are again, it is that time of the month that I get a bit manic.

So, I gave in, tidied up the pots of paint, brushes, tools and cloths and got into some more comfy, less paint splattered attire. Sitting down to a movie has hit the spot and now I thought I'd do something more gentle, creative and that's been waiting for me to be more sedate - knitting.

I've been meaning to make a set of booties for a friend's baby since I found out about it. The little-un is out and about so now is a good time to do it. I found this lovely pattern some time ago and thought I'd give it a bash. I managed to borrow the skinny needles I need to do them from a beautiful friend and so am set to go. I've decided to use a ball of wool I had left over from a scarf, bright orange!


Here goes...

Fixing job

With an interest in things electronic and skills in building units and soldering, I was asked by a friend to do a repair job on his key fob. It turned out to be rather intricate, however simple.


The top "lock" button was not working, due to the switch coming away from the pcb.


I opened it up and had a good look.


The 'legs' of the switch had completely come away from the body, filling the holes in the pcb and not leaving much to work with on the switch itself. I did have a look for another switch I could use but I didn't have a small enough one in my collection.


I decided to work with what I had. I selected my finest soldering tip I have and removed excess, old solder from the board.


Then using my gripping contraption I held the tiny switch in place to tip the ends, ready to set in place on the board. It was tricky trying to avoid the plastic sections that were very close.


I then tipped the board where the switch would sit, set the switch down in place and using the soldering iron melted the solder, fusing the parts together.


It held well and seemed to work. Just needed to check that it was going to lock the car...

I shortly found out that it worked perfectly. Brilliant.

Homemade

With the vast amount of jam I made last night, I decided that I should try to raise a few bob and sell them from the boat. With the help of the blackboard, I set out a sign.


Within 10 minutes I had my first customer knock-knocking on the roof.


I labeled up the jars with the date I made them and I tucked them in a dark, cool cupboard waiting for their takers.

I had some friends request a few jars too (with thanks to Google+) and requests for loafs. So I decided to get my pinny on and crack on with baking bread again today.


I've got the wholemeal recipe down to a fine art.


I wrapped them in jackets ready to be snatched up.

I've got a delivery booked for jam and a loaf so will be setting off after 5 (to see if there are any takers finishing work wandering the towpath) and sell my goods to my two lovely friends.

Food glorious food

Today I have spent most of the day in the galley. Down to our final few pounds until pay day, we are working out what we can make with what we have left in the cupboards. A loaf of bread will cost in the region of £1.30, so instead I made a loaf with ingredients we already have but which cost no more than 35p. plus 20minutes worth of gas so lets say 55p in total. Bargin. And it tastes lovely too.


With a genius invention by Leigh, using our new, huge, 'found' umbrella, we decided to collect some more fruits from the trees overhanging the towpath. I have finally surmised that the fruits in question are Damsons. So with me waving the bargepole high into the branches and Leigh with the upturned umbrella, we gathered about 3lb's of fruit.

After a bit of deliberation of what we should do, I ventured into the world of jam making. This is how it went...

A great sunday meal

We might have a weeny oven and hob on board, but we manage to cook some sterling foods. Leigh is a corker at making stews, I'm pretty good at curries. As for a Sunday roast, well, see for yourselves.


Tuckin' in.

What have we been up to?

Friends, family, followers...

My sincere apologies that it has been close to two months since my last post on The Kite Experiment. I shall update and awe you with some stories of caves, hunter gatherings, visitors and other sorts of business.

The canal in Nottingham...


it is still a pretty picture for a large city.


Just a 10 minute walk from the city centre, the canal is positioned below the castle. It lines a lean 'Tinkers Lean' where Delia likes to explore and chase the wildlife as well as escape the hisses of other cats and growls of dogs walking by.

The towpath is a paved path right the way from the river trent to Beeston and there are endless walkers, commuters, and cyclists passing by.


With a thick hedgerow of bushes and trees there is alot of wild action too. Not to mention the amazing array of fruits! Which we had to get our grubby mits on. Well they are free and we are skint so the two go hand in hand.


We are still not sure exactly what these little fruits are, plums? Qunices? Damsons? Any thoughts??


With a tub of these fruits, Leigh made a delicious crumble. They were a little tart but very juicy-lucy.


The potatoes have been growing happily on the stern...


Leigh thinks they are ready, I beg to differ, so we did a test.


I pulled one out to have a look...


Now do you really think this King Edward is ready??


I have been working here in Nottingham, pulling pints at the cafe bar of Nottingham Contemporary (art gallery)


And Leigh and I have been formulating a plan to start our own business. So I have been attending various business courses to find out the finer points of 'cash flows' 'profit and loss' and meeting other like minded people. It is very early days but we are doing our research as we go, chopping and changing our plans and ideas to find the right sort of business which runs to suit how we wish to live. Our first main idea was a mobile cafe, something like this...


But this idea may have to be tweaked depending on raising capital and the market. Lots to work out yet, but our own business is a sure future plan.

I have spent alot of time cracking on with some of my creative projects, and have finally started on my delay FX pedal! Horrah!




I have been tinkering with the guitar again and got some lovely tunes on the way.


Leigh and I bought between us a portable amplifier. Finally we have sounds that are louder than an ant.


The Roland Micro cube is a battery run amplifier that I can play my guitar through we can plug our laptops into, mp3 players, FX units... basically anything with a Jack lead. As I am writing this Leigh is filling the boat with his beautiful washes of electronic music. You can see his 'Flotel' website here.

Leigh has spent his time in Nottingham making brillaint music, gigging...


and exploring the delights of battery operated devices often running several items at once - funny man!


I have also finished my bee-house project.


It was a gift for my mothers birthday but that time came and went and I still had two nails angrily sticking high out of the ply and pieces of bamboo rolling around the bedroom. It came to me over a couple of days when I was in a good mood and relaxed about continuing the diy project. Calm and collected I pulled the nails from the ply roof and set about fixing the base in place with screws (pre-drilling the holes this time!) I even covered over the screw heads with slices of a thick branch. Gluing the bamboo inside the triangle of roof and base was a sinch. After a couple of coats of wood stain it was ready to be gifted. But I was miles from mum to give it to her....

Then, my lovely brothers came visiting their lil' sis.


I handed the gift to them to take back to mother-bird.

I showed my brothers the sights and delights of Nottingham. We went for lunch at the Olde Trip to Jerusalem, the oldest pub in England (apparently, recorded back to 1189AD),


which is built into the caves underneath the castle. It is a fascinating place to visit.


And they loved the renovations to the boat.


It is coming towards the end of July, our time in Nottingham is coming to an end. We are planning to set off again for London on the first of August, yes that is my birthday! I will keep you all posted on our adventure 'dahn sath'. So for the mean time, I wish you all well from the Dove of Belgrade. I'm popping to sainsburys now (literally a two second walk behind the fruit bushes) to get some sunday roast food. Thank you all for staying with me on the journey. xxxx