On a more positive note, my yeast certainly seems healthy enough.
May in retrospect have been a tactical error not to have just baked this bread last night, when it was half the size. The problem is that I’m pathologically afraid the yeast won’t do it’s thing for some inexplicable reason, so I always put more in than the recipe says.
Has the lockdown taught me anything? Perhaps not much about domestic skills, but certainly something about the importance of strong government.