It was of course cheering yesterday to put my head round the door of Maray to find most of the rest of the family sat down and ready for a good lunch.

I had just had a ham sandwich and can of Lemon Fanta sat at my desk. I have been eating a lot of ham sandwiches over the last week or so and reckon there is a good months worth of ham to go.

My lunch time was spent scurrying from Eurochange and onto a shop to buy some bags all the time hoping it wasn’t going to rain. At one point fat drops started from the sky and a great black cloud loomed over the back of town and the bombed out church but they stopped as soon as they started.

There were compensations. I put by head into Probe with the intnetion of looking rather than anything else. But they had a copy of Robert Forster’s new album, on proper black vinyl, so I had to have myself that for the weekend.

And then round the corner from Probe there was a blue haired girl with a guitar singing Smiths song. It is strange how the words ‘And if a double-decker bus Crashes in to us To die by your side Is such a heavenly way to die’ heard sung on a crowded street can put a tear in the eye of a grown man. 

Back home that evening I decided to cook myself something sweet but feisty.

I picked up some orange flavoured dried cranberries with the thought they might go well with some chicken and chilli.

• 1 poulet chicken
• olive oil
• 1 red onion thinly sliced in half moons
• crushed garlic
• orange flavoured cranberries
• 2 sliced perky red chillies
• ground cinnamon
• salt & pepper
• a glass of white wine

I started by browning the chicken, which had been seasoned with plenty of salt and pepper, in a heavy pot with a lid. I then stirred in the onions and gave them five minutes of so to soften and take on some colour. I then added the garlic and chillies and a teaspoon of cinnamon and gave it five minutes more and then finally the cranberries.

The glass of wine was poured in and once it came up to a bubble the heat was turned down and the lid went on with a layer of tin foil to help keep in the steam.

It was ready after about 40 minutes and I ate it surrounded by just cooked mograbiah.