For a while there was a possibility that the highlight of the week was going to be the arrival early yesterday evening of a Black & Decker Dust Buster. There is a lot of dust in the house that needs busting and this simple time saving device seemed to be the way to go about it.

Fortunately before the evening got too far advanced I remembered I had a second partridge down in the basement that needed eating. Partridges always come in twos. The first had been eaten last Friday stewed in white wine with a finely chopped carrot.

Last night’s partridge, after some rifling of pages in old Spanish cookbooks, got cooked with an apple.

The partridge was stuffed with a clove of garlic and some rosemary and went into a hot oven.

Whilst it cooked a finely chopped onion was browned in oil. I then added a plump apple taken from the garden, skinned, cored and cubed.

The garden is full of apples and another year seems to be going by with me thinking about buying a cider press but never quite getting round to it.

Once the partridge was cooked it was taken out of the oven and its juices added to the stewing apple and onion. It was left for a few minutes whilst I went back in the basement to find something I could set fire to.

I found a bootle of something the top of which had been sealed with sticky tape some 20 years ago. It did the job and produced some satisfying flames. Once they had died down I stirred in a couple of good slugs of cider and then finished off the bottle ( the cider – not the fiery stuff – otherwise I would still be down back against the floor!)

As the cider cooked down the partridge was tipped in to take on some of the flavour and I seasoned it well with salt and pepper.

I ate it with some fried potatoes and and handful of rocket. It was very good listening to Hannah Peel.