Tired and grouchy and about to be filled up with cold. I should finish my glass of very nice red wine and head off to bed as I have another early start to Birmingham tomorrow morning.

Before I do that I should mention The National who we went to see in concert last night in Manchester at The Apollo. I have probably come late to The National as they only clicked a few years ago after they released High Violet. That same year I saw them play in a big tent at The Latitude Festival whilst the rest of the family and friends were watching Florence & Her Machine. Over the years there were a few that regretted not having come with me.

When I saw they were playing in Manchester I discounted the idea of getting a ticket as I thought they would be sold out. I was right but then another date was added and someone got tickets and so Galen and I found ourselves in the Apollo last night.

The last gig I took Galen to was two years ago to see a band called Howlin’ Rain in a damp empty warehouse in Manchester. As I recall there were only about 30 people watching and we were stood right by the stage. It was some of the most ferociously loud music I have heard. Guitars turned up to 15. It was so loud that Galen was almost reduced to tears as become overdone by tiredness and the sheer sonic overload.

He enjoyed himself a lot more last night. We agreed that there was something very cathartic in hearing a man singing about being having been carried in the arms of cheerleaders whilst guitars were being pummelled behind him. Hopefully we will be going to see a few more gigs soon although I doubt I will be able to persude him to try a return visit to Howlin’ Rain. Pity.

So did you watch. Did it make you feel better? Apart from the bit about American Express??!!

So I have just taken the chicken out of the oven to baste it with the fat and juices at the bottom of the pan. It went into the oven about 30 minutes ago with half a lemon inside and pats of butter and sage leaves pushed under its skin. It will be good with roast potatoes, chunks of dirty carrots and green kale.

When I woke up this morning there was a bright sun streaming into the bedroom. I opened the curtains and the sky was blue, the weather good enough to walk for the papers rather than being quick about it in the car. If I get it right I can put some bacon in a pan on a low heat so that when I am back it just needs turning over before being put between two pieces of toast and a large dollop of brown sauce. The bacon this morning also came from The Farmers Market. One of the butchers there was selling off-cuts cheap, there was nothing wrong with them apart from being thicker than normal and oddly shaped. I should have bought more to go in the freezer.

Having eaten the bacon, read some of the paper and drank a second cup of tea I went out into the garden. Although there were clouds gathering on the horizon the sun was still out. I started by going through the guilty task of clearing up the windfall apples. Every year I promise myself an apple press so I can convert all the apples in the garden into juice, or even better cider, but another year has gone by without me getting round to it. There are apples still on the trees and I picked them for eating. There is one tree that hasn’t produced anything before but this year has been giving off the sweetest apples.

After that it was clearing up leaves, chopping logs and general tidying up. There appeared to be at least two Robins stalking their corners of the garden picking over the mites and small insects thrown up as I shuffled leaves and dead plantage around.

Things are still growing in the veg plot and the garlic I planted a few weeks ago are started to push up shoots through the soil.

Taking the chicken out to baste it again. This time the spoon came out with a thick black gunk stuck to it. It is sticky like treacle and tastes delicious.

Last night we had one of my favourite quick evening suppers. Apart from boiling water and cooking a bowl of pasta no cooking was required.

I picked up a dressed crab from The Farmers Market. Everything else was in the house.

So put water onto boil for the pasta. Spoon out all the brown and white meat from the crab into a bowl. Chop up some red chilli and a couple of cloves of garlic and stir into the meat. Squeeze in the juice of two lemons and a very good glug of good olive oil. Chop parsley and, if you have it, dill and stir that in as well. Taste. Season with salt and pepper. Taste again to make sure you are happy with it. Try not to taste too much.

By the time you have done all this the water should be boiling. Put in the pasta to cook. Normally this would be eaten with linguini but one of the kids had announced he didn’t like linguini so we had none in the house. I used corrugated fusilli instead which were well shaped to pick up the sauce.

Once the pasta was done I stirred in most of the crab sauce leaving some to smear over the top once the pasta was on each plate. another hot pungent sauce.

Later that evening I went into Liverpool to watch Phosphorescent in The Kazimer. Blissed out cracked voiced Americana. It was a good gig in a small intimate venue with the audience almost hanging over the stage singing along. I resisted the temptation to buy a t-shirt.

Ruth was working behind the bar that evening. For most of the time she had her back to the men as she cleaned and organised the glasses. If she heard loose change being shuffled on the bar she turned round to pour another pint, wiping at it with her fingers, and putting it down in front of the man and taking payment from the notes and loose change on the bar.

She listened to them talking  and waited for Clancy to finish his story and put down his finger.

As he did so she turned round and leant her arms over the bar and looked down at the men sat round the low table under the window.

‘Clancy’ she said. ‘Clancy if you are going to sit in here and tell stories like that I won’t be pouring you any more pints and you’ll have to go home thirstier than when you came. You know that I am one of the women who swim out to the island. We put on our wetsuits to keep ourselves warm and and to stop us getting stung by jellyfish. But I have swum out there without one and I’ve blown a few bubbles when out there and I have never had a mackerel try take a bite out of my backside.’

Clancy put his finger in the air as if to say something but then thought better of it.

Ruth carried on ‘I am not saying that mackerel don’t like the smell of broken wind in the water but they are not going to be biting anyones backside to get to it. You have all caught a few thousand mackerel each and some of you have been in the water with them. Have you ever had a fish bite?’

Clancy had his finger in the air now and he was serious as he spoke. ‘But the fish have teeth and they are sharp. If you put a finger into a mackerel’s mouth you’ll get it caught pulling it out.’

‘Clancy what the feck are you doing putting your finger down a mackerels mouth?’ Tom Cronin asked.

Clancy kept his finger in the air. ‘There is any number of reasons a man may want to do that. If I need to carry a mackerel then hooking my finger under its jaw will do it but watch out for the teeth. And if I have put my finger up its arse to pull out its guts there’s not going to be anything wrong with me putting a finger in its mouth.’

‘Did you know about a mackerel’s guts?’ Ruth asked. ‘The Romans would take the guts from a still breathing mackerel and store them in a jar with some salt for a month and then pour off the juices to eat with their food like ketchup. I’ll bring in some stuff tomorrow and the smell of it, if you were to rub it on your hooks, we could see how many fish you can catch in a grey February.’