Beer and Bread

The rather unsummer-like weather continues. Chilly and raining, all the time, providing no incentive to go outside. We again had some heating on this morning.
 I only ventured outside to move the hosepipe that was draining our full water butts into the downslope field. A bit later I was out again, fetching a beer kit and some flour up from the cellar. Indoor activity seemed to be the thing to do today. 
I decided to tackle a barley wine brew again, after the disaster of my last attempt.  It makes a small, but hopefully very tasty, amount of beer; 10 liters, rather than the usual 23 liters.
Still on the beer theme I started baking a loaf using only yeast taken from what was left at the bottom of the bucket after I'd bottled a previous brew. It all looked and felt good and is now in the fridge overnight, prepared for baking tomorrow morning.
A positive feature of rainy days  is giving myself more time to read. I'm enjoying "The Cicero Trilogy" by Robert Harris. It's not great literature but it's an interesting read. As I read this tale of cynical politics at the heart of the ancient Roman empire it felt all too up-to-date, rather than ancient. I was a little surprised the first book was published in 2006, a good while before modern populism became so worryingly successful.
So in a short while I'll be off to bed to read a little more about the Rome of Cicero.