Bloomers, Fifty-Five Thins and a Shed That Finally Got Its Windows

 Right then. If you follow this blog for the quiet, restful bit where a man pokes about in a greenhouse muttering at slugs, you might want to skip this one and come back next time, because Saturday just gone was not that kind of day. It was the kind of day where the kitchen looked like a bakery had had an argument with a building site, Sara was up a stepladder with a paintbrush before I'd even had my first cup of tea, and somewhere around midday I genuinely lost track of how many things were happening under one roof at once. As most daft ideas in this family do, it started with me saying "how hard can it be" out loud, within earshot of my own family, which anyone who knows us will tell you is just asking for trouble.

Fifty-Five Thins Later...

You might remember, if you were paying attention a week or two back, that I'd had a trial run at sandwich thins instead of my usual cobs, purely to save room in the freezer, and I said I wouldn't really know if they'd earned their place until we'd tried a few properly from frozen. Well, I can now report back with some confidence: they passed. Iris took one to the plot in her lunch bag, declared it "actually better than the cobs, don't tell Dad," which somebody then promptly told Dad, and that was more or less that. I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that if eight thins were good, fifty-five would be considerably better, and so Saturday became An Occasion.

I was up at half six, flour out before the kettle had even boiled, and by the time the rest of the house surfaced I had three separate bowls on the go and a kitchen that smelled like every good memory of being small and getting under someone's feet. Fifty-five sandwich thins is a fair bit of dough by anyone's counting, and I'll be honest, my arms knew about it by the third batch of kneading. Two bloomers went in as well, more through habit than planning — Sara likes a proper crusty loaf for Sunday, and I wasn't about to let the oven sit there half-used while it was already hot and going spare.

Iris came down mid-morning, took one look at the trays stacked three deep on every surface, and immediately appointed herself Head of Bagging and Freezing later on, a title she's given herself before and takes entirely seriously. She counted every batch out loud as she went — "that's twenty-four, twenty-five... oh, you've gone and made an odd number again, Dad, you always do that" — which I've decided not to examine too closely, mostly because she's right and I genuinely don't know why it keeps happening. Fern wandered through at one point, declared the whole kitchen "a health hazard," helped herself to a warm bloomer end without asking, and left again, which is about as much involvement as Fern generally offers a baking day. Fair enough, really — not everyone's cut out for flour under their fingernails, and she's never once pretended otherwise.

Meanwhile, Out in the Garden

While all that was going on indoors, Sara was outside with a paintbrush and, from what I could see through the window every time I went past with another tray, considerably more patience than me. We finished rebuilding the first shed a week or two back — you'll have seen that if you read the last post, the one that nearly did my back in — and once that job was properly done, standing square and looking rather pleased with itself in its new black paint, it made the second shed look distinctly shabby by comparison. There's nothing quite like finishing one job to make you notice how badly the next one needs doing, and our second shed had been sat there for years with tired old window frames that had clearly seen better decades.

So this week it was the second shed's turn. Sara spent most of Saturday up and down that stepladder giving it a proper coat, the same black as its newly rebuilt neighbour, so that for the first time in longer than I can remember, the two of them will actually match. Sam wandered past on his way back from the work, looked at the half-painted shed, looked at me covered in flour, and said, "you two do know it's supposed to be a day off," before helping himself to a thin straight off the cooling rack and carrying on to wherever he was going. I've given up expecting sympathy from that one. He gets his dry sense of humour from somewhere, and I've a horrible feeling it's me.

The Beading, and a Lesson I Keep Having to Relearn

The bit I was proudest of, if I'm honest, was the new beading around the second shed's windows, which I'd made in the workshop the day before. For anyone who doesn't know the term, beading is just the thin strip of wood that holds a pane of glass into its frame and covers the gap round the edge — small stuff, easily overlooked, but exactly the sort of detail that either makes a job look properly finished or gives it away as a bodge from six feet off. The old beading on that shed had gone soft and crumbly in places, which tells you everything you need to know about how much water had been getting in round those windows over the years. I ran up new lengths on the router table, mitred the corners as neatly as my eyes and my patience would allow, which is a phrase doing rather a lot of work there, and had them ready for Sara to paint once the main coat on the shed itself had gone off properly.

Here's the tip, and it's one I keep having to relearn no matter how many times I promise myself I've got it sorted this time: prime bare wood before you paint it, every single time, even if it's just a little offcut of beading that seems too small to bother with. I didn't, once, years back, on the very first shed windows I ever did, thinking a good topcoat would cover for it on its own. It didn't. Bare wood soaks up moisture like a sponge, the paint sits on top without really bonding to anything underneath, and within a couple of winters you've got flaking paint and soft timber, which is exactly the state that old beading was in when I pulled it off. This time, every strip got a proper coat of primer and was left to dry fully before Sara went anywhere near it with the black. It's an extra half a day you don't feel like giving a job, but it's the difference between doing this once and doing it again in three years, wondering why you didn't listen to yourself the first time round.

The Plasterer Saga Continues

As if a bread marathon and a shed weren't quite enough for one Saturday, there was also the small matter of getting the kitchen ready — again — for the plasterer, who's booked in to finally sort the ceiling out on Monday, assuming he actually turns up this time. they have not turned up in the past. I've reached the point where I clear the worktops and cover the units in dust sheets more in hope than expectation. For about twenty minutes on Saturday afternoon, the kitchen was simultaneously a bakery mid bread marathon and a building site braced for action, dust sheets and flour bags fighting it out over the same six inches of worktop, and I honestly couldn't tell you how we got through it without something ending up covered in either flour or plaster dust. Possibly both. If he does turn up this week, I'll believe it when I see his van in the drive, and not a moment before.

By the time evening came round, we had a freezer stuffed with sandwich thins, two bloomers cooling on the side, a second shed looking smart in matching black paint with proper new windows, and a kitchen braced and ready for a plasterer who may or may not exist. Sara reckons we packed two normal Saturdays into one. I reckon that's just how Saturdays go in this house, and I wouldn't change much about it.

Because I Can't Resist a Recipe

I gave you the sandwich thins recipe a couple of weeks back, so I won't repeat myself here — have a look back if you fancy trying them, they really do freeze beautifully. Instead, seeing as two of them went in the oven alongside all that dough, here's my go-to bloomer: the proper crusty sort, with a good split down the top, exactly the kind of loaf that makes a Sunday breakfast worth getting up for.

Simon's Saturday Bloomer

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 7g fast-action dried yeast
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 30g butter, softened
• Around 300ml warm water

Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar together in a large bowl, then rub in the butter with your fingertips until it disappears into the flour. Gradually work in the warm water to bring it together into a soft dough. Turn it out and knead for a good ten minutes, until it's smooth, elastic, and springs back when you poke it. Leave it in an oiled bowl, covered, somewhere warm for about an hour, until it's doubled in size.

Knock it back, then shape it into a long oval loaf by folding and rolling it firmly under your palms. Place it on a floured baking tray, cover loosely, and leave to prove again for another forty-five minutes or so, until it's noticeably puffed up. Just before it goes in the oven, slash the top three or four times on the diagonal with a sharp knife — that's what gives you the classic bloomer look and lets it expand properly as it bakes, rather than splitting wherever it fancies.

Bake at 220°C (200°C fan) for about 25 to 30 minutes, until it's deep golden and sounds hollow when you tap the base. Let it cool properly on a wire rack before you go anywhere near it with a bread knife, however tempting that is. I'm a self-taught baker, picked it all up through trial, error, and a fair few doorstop loaves along the way, and this bread — along with whatever else has taken my fancy that week — is what goes in the oven every single Saturday in this house, without fail. Has done for years now, and I can't see that changing any time soon.

 Does anyone else's baking ambition run away with them the way mine did this week, or is fifty-five thins in one go just me being my usual daft self? Let me know in the comments — and if your other half has ever out-worked you on a Saturday the way Sara did me this week, I'd love to hear about that too.

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.