Peaceful Weekend - Broiling Westminster - Misirlou!

Jane & L out to Bury St Edmunds. I spent most of the afternoon planning Wednesday's talk at Histon Library, as one of the 'engage' talks for the over 50's. The talk is on 'How to realise the book within you'.

In-between, baked a loaf of 50% rye bread bread, 150g Camilla sourdough, 200g strong white bread flour, 200g rye flour, 240ml water, teaspoon of dried yeast, half a teaspoon of xanthan gum to compensate for the absence of gluten in the rye. Covered in about 10ml olive oil. Left to rise for a couple of hours to double, then roasted some pumpkin seed, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds and added them to the dough, placed in bread tin, left to double and then baked. Texture OK, flavour OK.

A pondwatch revealed two tadpoles in metaomorphosis - hind legs obvious but not sure if forelegs breaking through yet. Also saw a much larger stickleback briefly appear from under the pot rim. It might be big enough to tackle the mosquito larvae, which have declined in number over the past few days. Added a handful of compost to pond by plants. Hope that it does not cause problems.

The quiet pace of a sunny weekend, with a family meal, was in strong contrast to the broiling speculation at No 10. Tories were flexing their muscle and demanding that Prime Minister's closest advisors go. I hadn't realised that Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill were apparently the gatekeepers to Mrs May, main directors of the Conservative manifesto, the push for the election and resultant campaign. They jumped. By Saturday night, the Tory Chief Whip Gavin Williamson stated that an agreement had been reached in principle with the DUP. Yet, by 1:30am, the DUP issued a statement that talks were still ongoing, though positive. Now No 10 press office saying that their first message had been issued 'in error'.

Aghast to find out that the DUP apparently does not believe in climate change and also wants to introduce creationism into the school curriculum. Never mind their opposition to a woman's right to choose abortion and God forbid (literally in their minds), gay marriage.

Some of tomorrow's papers are suggesting that the internal battles are on in the Cabinet to possibly replace Theresa May with Boris Johnson, though no doubt he will deny it, to avoid  Lord Heseltine's quote from his autobiography: "He who wields the knife never wears the crown". Meanwhile the Daily Mirror states that Jeremy Corbyn is gearing up to oust Theresa May, at the latest when she presents her program to parliament for the Queens speech.

Dick Dale's Misirlou gives the pace of change: