Stars and Squeaking

This afternoon the plan was to make scones and lemon curd for a kind of late lunch, and fruit tortes for supper. It didn't turn out that way. I found a recipe from scones, not the one I've used before, and decided to leave out the hazelnuts in it before printing it out. I decided not to melt the butter as demanded in the recipe but to knead it in as customary.

Then I found out that the recipe called for self-raising flour, which we didn't have. Mixing the flour with baking soda might have resolved that, or looking it up on the internet for alternatives, and yet instead of doing either of these sensible things I took half flour and half corn starch. Later, anxious that the scones would be gluey, I left out half the sugar; and on a similar hunch left out the fourth egg. At some point here I found out that the scones were, in fact, not the thick floury baked scones that you roll out and cut into circles, but 'drop scones' (if that's the right term), like a batter before they are fried up like pancakes.

Needless to say, what I ended up serving was nothing like the recipe, yet didn't iridesce or irradiate a fishy perfume or turn into an intelligent lifeform, which is everything you can hope for.

But the fruit tortes turned out well. Biscuit dough bases from the shop; gelatine over the top, or vanilla pudding from the package; kiwis and bananas and grapes and bilberries and mandarin oranges (from the can) arranged in rings; and it looked pretty and tasted refreshing especially for the winter season. (It is autumn in the fruit-exporting nation of Chile, at least.)

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Apart from that I took up housework again, and practiced my fisherman's knots with shoelaces and a pencil as customary, and politely declined an invitation to walk to the Tempelhofer Feld.

My two youngest brothers and I went to the Feld yesterday, at nightfall, to arrive at a dark field. Figures of strangers appeared out of the gloom, hitherto swallowed up by the ground, whereas vehicles were visible through their headlights.

Orion gleamed from apertures in the clouds, and the Moon and what must be Venus above them, and it looked as if the stars were satellites or airplanes. The circular motion of the clouds under the dome of sky appeared to transfer itself in reverse to the stars instead. It is a little like the eerie experience on a laggardly freeway or in the bowel of a ferry, when a neighbouring truck slides forwards on its wheels and one is left with the impression that the car is sliding backwards.

The trip was a trifle chill and long, while the gates closed before we left the grounds again, walking down the runway with Ge. informing us of the meanings of the markings. (The 'X's must have been affixed after the Tempelhof Airport shuttered, and signal that the runways are not for landing, while the numbers — 09, for instance — point to the cardinal direction and 'R' that it is the right side runway instead of the left side runway.) We arrived at home, even my brothers who are accustomed to walking there, feeling a little battered.

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Aside from that I took out the violin and tuned the G string very roughly; fortunately the pin stuck where it was supposed to but I felt a little uneasy about tuning it too high at first, though the string didn't seem tense enough to be damaged. Then I tried playing simple pieces, not very well, because the piano keyboard was at my elbow and inhibiting the range of movement, and my ear wasn't very attuned. I am not in practice, at all . . .

Yo Ho Ho

I've finally decided to learn ocean navigation, seamanship, etc., from the Almanac (1981) and a work about sea kayaking that we have in our shelves. A while ago I took to Wikipedia to read up on square-rigging, fore-and-aft rigging, genoa rigs and Bermuda rigs, gaff sails and so on, but having forgotten quite a bit of it and wishing to learn more, I want to figure out how to sail theoretically, not only using present-day technology but especially Viking or Renaissance or other methods.

After learning six kinds of knots — aside from the ninth knot (the bowline), it's the 'double sheet' as well as the 'carrick' bends* that will need improving — I went on to the mathematical side of things. As it turns out, determining geographical position from the location of the moon, stars or sun is more difficult than I had thought. There are observation correction tables that factor in height of the eye, refraction, etc., and yet no Latitude Calculations for Dummies explanations as far as I have seen.

* bend = knot that ties two ropes together

While I happen to know the north and south directions already, I wanted to know where the sun, the moon and the visible constellations were in the sky. Not a great deal of these latter are visible, except as motes that one can discern after staring at the spot for a while; but I think I found Orion, and the Big Dipper was evident enough. The last time I did that much stargazing, it was during an astronomy unit in Grade 7(?) in rural-ish Canada, with plenty that was visible. Despite the haziness, though, I think it was fortunate that the skies have been clear at times in the past week and that the moon was visible, as well as the sun.

To figure out how to do the latitude calculation, I remembered that there was a description in Jules Verne's Mysterious Island. From reading that, it seems that there are things — like altitude above sea level, and a true horizon — which I'd have to approximate.