There is something quite satisfying in coming home on a Friday evening and being able to put a chicken in a pot.

Most Friday evenings I just cook for myself. It is red meat night and all those who don’t eat can fend for themselves.

But this evening there was a craving for noodles and so I caved in and tried to work myself round something that everyone would eat. So I delved into another Diane Henry book and came up with Chiang Mai chicken noodles.

It needed both chicken stock and leftover cooked chicken and that gave the impetus to me taking a whole small free range chicken and putting it into the pot.

Before doing so I hacked into quarters. I then fried it off in some oil with a roughly chopped onion and some bits of carrot. As soon as it started to brown I poured in water to fill the pot, brought it to the boil and left it. Children came in and asked when they were going to eat and I said in an hour or so.

Once that hour was done I started to put it all together.

This meant getting the wok out of the basement and heating it up with some groundnut oil at the bottom.  A finely chopped onion was added and cooked until it just started to char. A couple of cloves of garlic were then stirred in. Then two teaspoons worth of turmeric and then some teaspoons worth (I wasn’t counting) of the green curry paste that has been at the back of the fridge for a few months now but is showing no signs of going off.

All that was stirred for a while at a high heat. I then added coconut milk and started to ladle off the stock from the pan where the chicken had been cooking.

As the sauce was left to cook I picked apart the chicken and put it to one side.

The sauce was still cooking so I took the time to chop up some spring onions, red chilli and coriander.

We were all about ready to eat. So noodles were stirred into the stock and as they softened the chicken was put back in. It was all seasoned with lime juice, fish sauce and sugar before being finished off with the spring onions, coriander and chilli.

I think it went down ok.

Twenty five years ago I would dream of Michael Stipe and talks under kitchen tables and then moving on to watch REM play. Now I dream of mackerel and the lack of them is making me anxious.

On Sunday night I dreamt we were in Ireland and at the Cottage and it was the last day of the holiday  and for whatever reason we had not been out fishing and so no mackerel had been caught over the two weeks we had been there. This had been partly down to the weather but there were other undisclosed reasons that lurked at the back of my mind. No matter, I decided to take a boat out for the only and last time of the holiday.

In the confines of the dream the shape of the water, the pier and the bay were all awry and there was a struggle to get my bearings. There was a wind up and suddenly it looked too rough to be taking a boat out for some fishing. But this was the only time to be doing it. The engine on the grey dinghy was broken. So I was left with taking out one of the kayaks.

The kayaks were in the garage so I made my way over the road to get one of them out. The wind was up now and the water had risen so it spilled over the pier and into the garden and orchard. I waded through to get the garage. By the time I got there it was almost totally submerged. I put my head down to swim through the door to pull one of the kayaks out. As I did so I woke up with a start. Still no mackerel caught.

So late this afternoon I was sat in one of my favourite tapas bars in London. Work for the day was done and there was a small glass of beer in front of me and three pale blue speckled quail’s eggs nestled next to small mounds of sea salt and just crushed roasted cumin seeds.

It had taken me about 45 minutes to walk there with two heavy bags on my back. The taxi taking me to my afternoon meeting had gone through Clerkenwell so rather naively I had thought it would not take me too long to walk back. I didn’t have the address of where I was going just a vague idea of direction and the hope that I would recognise it when I got there. It took longer anticipated and there were lots of stops to look at maps to try and get a sense of where I was and where I was going. Eventually I came across a map where I found a street called Exmouth Market and I knew that I was near.

When I got to Morito there was noone there. But the lights were on and there was a waitress out the back. The door was open and she told me they were not quite open but I could go in have a seat and they would be able to give me something to eat in five or so minutes.

I took my seat and someone brought me a small glass of water. Although the kitchen was not yet open they could give me something to nibble on. So I asked for a beer and the quail’s eggs and some bread to chew on.

Music was playing quietly. It was familiar and hard to place. Another song came on and it sounded as if someone’s iPod was on shuffle.  As I finished the second quail’s egg another song came on and it was the opening few bars of The Ballad El Goodo. I sat back with a smile. Quail’s eggs, beer and Big Star. It doesn’t take much to make me smile.

Then the man behind the bar pressed forward and Big Star was swiped off and the music was David Bowie and Ashes to Ashes. An okay Bowie song but not Big Star.

The man walked past me and asked if I wanted another beer. I nodded yes and asked him ‘What was wrong with Big Star?’

He looked slightly taken aback. I was wearing my suit with a case by my feet.

‘Oh shit. I thought that’ he said. ‘It was Ballad of El Goodo and it goes a bit loud and you were the only one in here and I thought as I pressed the button he can’t  be a fan.’

‘There you are’ I said. ‘I had a smile on my face as it came on.’

‘No worries. I’ll put it on again. It’s only a shame that September Gurls isn’t on the playlist.’

So he put it on again. And then he put on some Neil Young. I ate a small plate beetroot with creamy cheese and walnuts and another small plate of spiced lamb with aubergine and yogurt.

Then to finish I had a plate a baby squid with sumac. As I ordered I passed him my iPod scrolled down to September Gurls. He didn’t say anything but took it from me and plugged it in.

I had a glass of manzinilla with the squid. They were very small. Less than an inch long. Crispy and tart with the sumac. My iPod stayed plugged in and as a few mnore customers came in they got to listen to Big Star as well.

We went out for Sunday lunch this last weekend. The family took a break from waiting for me to put the food on the table and we all went into Liverpool to see a film and then eat.

The film was Gravity. After some consultation and deliberation we had all decided that we wanted to go see it. Without giving too much away I suspect that those on the Sandra Bullock side of the debate as opposed to the George Clooney side got the better end of the bargain. There were a couple of bits that reminded me of Jaws being the beginning when we see the grey shape of the space shuttle coming through the black distance of space and then the head in the hole in a boat moment. It didn’t go on too long either which was a bonus as I had to watch it with the 3D glasses perched on my nose in front of my normal glasses. Kids were amused and I was grumpy.

after the film we went to eat burgers at Free State Kitchen on Maryland Street and they weren’t too bad. Better and cheaper than Byron’s and without the incessant pressure to look as if you are enjoying yourselves. The chips just made it onto the right side of being crispy and there was good bottled beer.

I even got round to suggesting we should do it again.

Monday evening was Low inside The Anglican Cathedral. Go back through this blog and somewhere you will find me telling you that Low are responsible for possibly the best Christmas record ever. Grouch that I am about Christmas I slightly hoped that they might play a song from it. They didn’t. But they did play a lot of songs that appeared to about God. Some of the loud. Some of them quiet. And some of them moving gradually from quiet to loud. The ones that moved from quiet tended to finish very loud. That of course is a good thing although sometimes it seemed a shame that the noise they were making was not filling the whole of the Cathedral as opposed to the relatively small space we were occupying at the back under the Tracy Emin sign.