We arrived early Friday morning after a mad drive through the night across the centre of Ireland. I have now worked out a method to help keep my eye on the road when in other circumstances tiredness might start to tell.

This involves having two cans of Coke beside me in the car. Pulling out of Dublin and as the building by the side of the road give way to countryside I start to play out in my mind when I shall open the first can and how I shall space out the sips that I take from it.. I had closed my eyes for an hour or so on the ferry and so felt refreshed in the car and on this basis I decided I could leave it until we got past Portlaoise before I open the can and then after that I could space out the sips for every 50 kilometres or so that were passed. That way the first can should get me to Cork and I could then open the second as we pulled up the Bandon Road under the viaduct.

It all more or less worked out okay. I finished the first can just as went over the bridge past Fermoy and next morning I found the second can in the car with one sip of Coke left to go.

We arrived at the Cottage at 3.45am having past just the one car, three foxes and a hedgehog on the road from Cork. I am still worrying about the hedgehog. It was in the middle of the road and staring right at the car as it came into the sweep of the headlights. It went right between the wheels.

Next day we woke slowly into sunlight and bright water and started the long slow fall into summer.

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That first morning we bought hake at Bantry Market and roasted it over fried potatoes and onions and tomatoes.

Last night we had a confusion of sisters, nephews, nieces and grand-parents round for supper.

It was, of course, a Tuesday evening and so there wasn’t a huge amount of time to manage the journey back from work and the space needed to make some good food. The intention was to have a BBQ. But in the event the weather was too grey to make it a convincing one.

Time was saved by me making a piri-piri marinade to go with a bucket load of chicken. It went down so well that it is perhaps worthwhile rehearsing how it was made. All credit should go to the Morito cookbook from where the recipe came.

The only hardship in the cooking of it was the roasting of a couple of red peppers and chilli peppers until black and blistered, letting them cool and then going through the mess of denuding them of their skin and seeds. Once peeled they went into the Magimix together with:-

• a good glass of white wine
• a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar sweetened with sugar
• a dried red chilli pepper
• ground coriander
• 8 fresh bay leaves
• some crushed garlic
• oregano from the garden
• paprika
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

and was all whisked up into a thick bright red liquid which was then smeared over a mixture of chicken wings, legs and thighs. Slightly smugly the Morito book says they neber marinade anything for less than 24 hours. My chicken was in its red mix for 48 hours and tasted all the better for it.

The chicken was cooked on the BBQ but I misjudged some of the timing and so as to avoid our all eating sometime after midnight it was finished off in the oven. Some things just need time to get right.

We ate it with a chopped vegetable salad, salad from the garden and new potatoes. It was followed by a salted liquorice courtesy of The Good Things Cafe.

I had hoped some of the chicken would be left for my lunch today but a hungry nephew finished it all off.

Now we are girding loins and getting ready to make the drive tomorrow evening to Holyhead and then the mad overnight drive across the centre of Ireland. We should arrive in Ahakista early Friday morning as dawn is starting to crack across the sky behind us and the fishermen are pulling up with their cars against the pier for their days work.

We will soon be eating in The Good Things Cafe and drinking black pints with men with beards and sloughing off the skin of the daily grind.

We are all looking forward to it.

Unusually we have been away for the weekend. Even more unusually we have made our way down into the heights of the Peak District and into pubs that had rooms above the bar into which we could sleep.

The food was mostly chips and more chips with a siding of beer but all around was a landscape of low hills topped by soft rocks.

Having negotiated those soft rocks we found ourselves in the garden of of a pub and gradually over the course of five or six hours we found ourselves having one of those late afternoons were there was no point moving unless it was to make our way to the bar for another pint.

We made it until last orders.

Diane Henry’s new book of chicken recipes is very good but she missed a trick in not including Simon Hopkinson’s recipe for a chicken terrine made with garlic and basil.

The recipe appears in his book Week In, Week Out which is a collection of the articles that he wrote whilst he was The Independent’s food writer. It was one of those recipes that you know is going to become an old friend as soon as you read it.

I have cooked it a few times over the years but last nights was the best. This was helped by the fact I had bought a good tasty well bred chicken from the Farmer’s Market over the weekend.

Most of the cooking was done on Tuesday evening. The first stage involves removing the skin from the chicken doing your best to avoid tears and keeping it one piece. This is not as difficult as it might at first seem. It is a question of wriggling your fingers between the skin and the pink flesh and allowing the skin to gently pull away. But you need a sharp knife to cut round the wings and the legs.

Once the skin was off it was put to one side and the same sharp knife was then used to cut away as much of the meat of the chicken away from its bones as possible. The meat was then chopped up into good sized chunks and mixed with a handful of basil leaves, crushed garlic, the zest of a lemon, grated nutmeg and salt and pepper. At this stage of the recipe Simon Hopkinson encourages the reader to use his or her hands to mix through the flavourings with the chicken. As always a good idea. The meat then needs to stuffed back into the skin. It is surprising how stretchy the skin is and you will pleased with yourself as it just about manages to cover the meat again.

This is then all put in an appropriately sized bread tin and covered in foil. This is then put in a large pan of hot water which then goes into the oven for about an hour and an half.

Whilst that cooking a jelly is made with the bones, a pigs foot rescued from the bottom of the freezer, an onion and a carrot. This goes into a pan with water and cooks at a slow heat  for a couple of hours. as it cooks it will give off a grey scum the comes to the surface. skim this off with a spoon and discard.

When the chicken is done put it to one side for a while to settle. To check it is done it should be surrounded by clear fat and when poked with a knife give off a clear juice. Put a weight on top of it. I used some old tiles knocked into the right shape and then wrapped up in foil. This can then go in the fridge to rest until you are ready to eat.

Drain the stock which should hopefully be reasonably clear. To help it along drain it again through a clean teatowl. Put in a bowl to set overnight.

We ate it with new potatoes with butter and chives, beetroot (orange and purple) and salad from the garden. And a caramilised garlic tart.

In the meantime there are courgette flowers to be had out in the garden.