We may not be in Ahakista but at least the weather is suitably Irish.

It is not raining as such but the air is filled with wet. A thin veil of low cloud, thick mist or soft  rain. Outside it touches everything, filming up my glasses and greying the air. The sky hangs low and heavy over us and then there is a sudden brightening as if the sun is fighting to burn through the murk but then it is gone and the grey deepens.

In the back of the grocers there were making a salad just like I made last Sunday for lunch – Nadir was sat in a chair and chopping the vegetables up with a knife into a plastic tub he had on his knees. A cucumber peeled and cut into chunks, a finely sliced red onion and quartered cherry tomatoes seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil and some chopped parsley. He told me I should be a chef but then if I did it all the time then that would be a job as well.

They had some good looking pink English rhubarb which I took to be a good excuse to make some rhubarb flavoured vodka.

Later we went into a wet Liverpool for lunch and art. We were scuppered with the art when it transpired that the Tate was closed and had to make do with some of the graffiti in the Baltic Triangle the the sight of The Anglican Cathedral shrouded in mist.

 

But lunch was good in The Baltic Social. I liked the menus clipped to old LP covers particularly when I found that mine that mine was an old Rod album – possibly the inner sleeve of Atlantic Crossing.

Beer on tap included Mad Hatter’s Penny Lane Pale Ale. With that around it didn’t matter too much the food was slow in coming and anyway I could play name that tune at what was playing in the background. I promised myself an extra pint if I was able to get them all but then stupidly stumbled over Radiohead and so made do with just the two pints.

Food was a thick burger in a brioche with bacon and chips which went down well with the pale ale.

Outside it was still wet but the rain wasn’t soft anymore and the wind whipped it into our faces as we walked back into town.