Fish tagging experiments have been carried out at least since the 1890s, but undoubtedly Ehrenbaum was the first to tag a mackerel. He noted that ‘mackerel are caught from time to time bearing a narrow rubber ring on the fore part of the body, either placed close before or behind the pectoral fins. This perhaps perhaps is nothing more than an an idle jest on the part of the fishermen’. Mackerel, and some other species are caught wearing these rubber rings even now, but in these less naive times we are aware they may more to do with a mariners brief, but amorous trip ashore than they do with any idle jest at sea.

Stephen J Lockwood The Mackerel

Today would be a good day for gardening. It is strangely quiet outside with little wind and warm when the sun comes out. Then I realise the quiet is because my ears are as bunged up as my nose and after shuffling a few leaves I have to come inside to rest. A bout of man flu is a desperate thing to be combatted with long periods of doing very little at all and waiting for the pubs to open.

I thought that lasts nights Fideus would help beat the man flu into submission but it doesn’t seem to have worked so I have been feeling sorry for myself for almost 48 hours. Having said that fideus was very good. Nuggets of monkfish and prawn nestling amongst the thin strands of pasta which were coated with the thick tomato sauce well flavoured by the halibut head. No-one else was keen on the clams so I picked at those myself. They were small and sweet and salty.

The leaves in the garden will have to wait until next weekend by which time it will no doubt be freezing cold and lashing down a gale!

If a fish-head can look baleful the one that I picked up this morning did it stuck in the bottom of my stockpot and waiting for me to add onions and carrots, salt, peppercorns, bay leaf and water to make up a good fish stock.

There is no point going without fish stock. If you are cooking fish you need to go to the fishmonger so ask him if he has a fish-head or bones for making stock. Most of them will and if they don’t then maybe it is time to think about a different fishmonger.

The fish-stock is going to be used in the making of a seafood fideus. Fideus is a Catalonian paella made with small noodle shaped pieces of pasta rather than rice. I spotted the pasta in the back of a cupboard and thought that it needed eating up. I had bought it last year when we had a Spanish student staying with us for a few days and I was wanting to make her something that might remind her of home.

On the moment there are some onions cooking down in a wide iron pan. Once they are brown and sweet I will add a couple of chopped tomatoes and some garlic and then monkfish prawns. That will all get stirred round for a few minutes and then monkfish and prawns will go in and get stirred round some more. Then the pasta which will needed to be covered in the sauce before the stock is ladled in and it all left to cook through for about twenty five minutes.

Finally I have a handful of clams that I will cook separately and then dot over the top.

Listening to John Cale and The Velvet Underground.

The astute amongst you might have noticed that amongst the photos on Sunday there was a lone corn on the cob looking a bit stumpy in my hand. It is all that we had from the corn seeds that I  sowed in the summer. I left the planting of them too late and although they grew vigorously for a while we only had the one cob. I picked it before the full weight of winter set in.

I ate it earlier this evening. Once shucked it was about two and half inches long and there was clearly a bit of growth to go. But I put it in boiling water for ten minutes or so and then ate it with butter, salt and pepper and it tasted ok. Next year I will plant then earlier and get a better crop.

Of course that is not all that I am eating this evening. There is a partridge roasting in the oven. It is sat on a bed of potatoes and apple and has got a piece of fatty bacon lain across its breast. The potatoes went in first, cut up into half inch cubes and turn in oil, salt and pepper and cooked until they started to brown and crisp. I then stirred in some peeled and cubed apple, a small clove of garlic and put the partridge with its bacon on top. It all had a splash of red wine before it went back in the oven

A good cure for a cold I’d say along with the rest of the red wine.