There are some potatoes in the basement that need eating up and I got given a book on cooking with onions for my birthday last month so it seemed a good idea to combine the two for supper this evening. The book was spotted in the window of 69A on Renshaw Street and strangely enough is called Onions Without Tears by Lyndsey Bareham and goes with the books she has written devoted to just the potato and the tomato.

I put the potatoes through the match stick setting on the mouli and spread half them across the bottom of a large buttered dish. Finely sliced onions were added along with a couple of bay leaves and some anchovies and plenty of salt and pepper. The rest of the potatoes went on top. A punnet of cream was poured over and the top was dotted with more butter and salt and pepper before going into a hot oven.

After half an hour or so I laid some thick fillets of smoked haddock on top. It has gone back in the oven for another half hour. Bad timing with the start of the rugby but it should be very good.

Driving out from Birkenhead this morning the sky was clear and blue but there was a grey haze of fog over Liverpool that dulled the bright light of the morning sun and suffused the Anglican Cathedral in a thrall of pale yellow light and dulled the sharp edges of the Cammell Laird cranes.

As I drove through Liverpool and up Brownlow Hill The blue sky was lost in the grey fog that shrouded the upper reaches of the city. The fog continued as I made my way onto the M62 and the slow traffic jammed drive past the north of Manchester and onto the way to Leeds. The sun was ahead of me now burning a bright white circle through the grey.

As the road crested over the Pennines it rose above the the fog and the soft golden light gave way to a crystal clear blue sky again with the sun bearing down with its heat. In the hills below the fog hung over the landscape softening its harsh lines.

Since then I have been stuck in the dark meeting room all day but coming out this evening all trace of fog has cleared  and a late summer light lit up the last green in the trees and the smog of the city in the distance.

Could be the story of my life.