Balcony part I

Today had a slow start, we ambled around town had some coffee and generally relaxed before getting down to business. First task was to drop the things from yesterday's storage clean out at the recycling centre. The centre in Bodø has a neat design with vehicles on a elevated causeway so it's easy to drop waste into the relevant bins; recyclables are free, but general waste is charged by weight which I also approve of.

Then I got cracking on removing rust and flaking paint from the balcony rails, whilst Ross touched up some paint details in the apartment. It was about 5 or 6 Celsius out on the balcony and scraping off paint and rust with a screwdriver and wire brush was tedious, time consuming job so it was tricky to stay warm. Once I got to respraying it started out pretty well, until I finished with the first can and found the nozzle on the second can to be defective.

Spraying completed as far as possible, tonight was lasagne night, so it was time to don my cooking gear. It was only when when Ross and Nina came back from finding more paint that I found out that my face was streaked with paint. Worryingly it had gathered around the nostrils, so I dread to think how much I might have breathed in despite the well ventilated balcony.

It was difficult to get some of my usual ingredients up here, so the lasagne was a bit of an improv. I made a conventional roux based white sauce, with mushrooms, paprika and some vegetable stock in lieu of more typical flavourings like nutritional yeast and miso. The red sauce was a medley of vegetables with chopped tomatoes - probably a contender for the most nutritious meal my friends will have all year. Topped with sesame seeds and hot from the oven it was really yummy, and I was very pleased with it for a hack.Read more