Now that the cold has come down I have taken to filling up the bird feeders. There is an awkward two weeks or so between me doing this, the birds feasting on what is in there, and the squirrals taking over and taking on a free meal. We are still in the pre-squirral run and all day there has been a steady procession of tits, with the occasional interruption from a nuthatch, taking their fill.

Then this afternoon there was a walk down through West Kirby past the old war memorial. I have memories of being up there thirty years or so ago in November and the place being filled with men  and women playing their trumpets. There was no-one up there today in the wind and the hail but it was still a quiet place up from the road and with a view taking in the empty sweep of the the sea and the hint of snow in the distance.

In the cold there was not much better than a chicken curry to eat.

I had one a week or so ago that was a disaster – too many squashed onions and curdled yogurt – everyone was very polite about it. This evening’s curry was better:-

– two or three finely sliced onions cooked in oil with some garlic and ginger.

– a mixture of spice. This time ground coriander, cumin, turmeric and cloves. These were mixed to a paste with some oil and as the onions started to wilt stirred in.

– the chicken pieces were added and allowed to brown a bit at the edges.

– as it did that a couple of tins of coconut milk was stirred in together with a scrape of lemon rind and bay leaves.

– on a very low heat it was ready an hour later to be eaten with good rice.

We didn’t see the man for three clear days after that, here, in the pub. We saw him around alright but it was another day before he was out on the water. They must of had their breakfast and taken their fill and he’d decided he’d had enough of the mackerel. The boat stayed tied up by the small bit of pier they had there and standing up here we could see the family at play.

It took them some time to come out. It was one of those days when the sun came here for the keeping and there was not a movement in the air or anything there to blemish the sky and under your feet the grass starts to crisp up and dry. The day was still in the heat and the whole of the thing slowed down and if you had a mind for it you’d think it was worthwhile spending a winter here for a day like that.

You can watch whole days play out from up here. Take a pint in your hand and there is enough of a view to take in through the window the pier and three or four houses. It may be a bit like watching ants but you can take in enough of their movement to see what they are doing.

And so we could see their black figures come out in the sun and they all walked down to were the water started and we could see them sit down to look at it as if they had not seen water before.

At last winter has come – there is a hint of snow in the air and the wind is sharp and cold. I spent an hour outside in the garden this afternoon and half way through a gentle rail of hail fell for five minutes or so the hard pieces of ice slipping down the back of my shirt.

Strange then that this evening I turning to something to eat from the summer – roast peppers with cream and prawns over pasta.

I was in Liverpool this morning and decided to go out of my way on the way home to pop into Delifonseca on the Dock Road. We eat so much pasta but mostly it is the same packets of the same shapes we can buy from the supermarket. Sometimes it is good to get something a little different. So I picked up a packet of thick ribboned pasta that looked like it would go well with a creamy sauce.

As I drove back home I thought over what would go with it. There was a small tub of cream in the fridge and a red pepper left over from a stir fry cooked over last week. Roast red peppers would go with the cream and a few prawns would add a bit of pink bite to it all.

Any good book on Italian cooking will tell you that if you are mixing your pasta with fish then  there is no need for cheese. Cheese and fish don’t mix. But that is because feta cheese comes from Greece and not Italy. If the Italian cheese-makers had hit upon feta there would be no stopping them eating with it with their fish.

So –

– water was put on to boil and three red peppers went under the grill.

– once the skin on the peppers had started to blacken I turned them over with my fingers, going back to them to turn them over again until they were charred all over.

– by the time the peppers were done the pan of water was at a roiling boil. I left it like that and took the peppers out from under the grill and put them in a bowl that I covered in cling-film.

– the pasta went into the pan of boiling water and I spent five minutes pulling the black skin from the peppers, scrapping away the seeds and saving with the soft flesh any bit of juice that I could.

– five minutes for the pasta to be done and the prawns went into a pan of hot oil. I added some garlic and gave it all a stir.

– the peppers went into the pan with the prawns and garlic and I broke them up with a wooden spoon.

– there was still some bite left to the pasta. Just enough time to pour the cream over the prawn and pepper mixture and stir in half of the chopped feta cheese.

– the pasta was drained and put in a large shallow bowl and the prawns and peppers were slathered on top.

– it was all finished off by the other half of the chopped feta being scattered over.

It was all eaten and we are now listening to Gladys Knight & the Pips.

We celebrated an anniversary last night and drank champagne that was thirty years old. It tasted slightly sweet and biscuity. Strange to think it has been in there so long.

I still have in the basement a bottle of wine from 1978. I was given two cases of it as a birthday present and for a long time we would have a bottle of it with lunch on Christmas Day. But now we are down to last bottle we have kept it to one side in the half expectation we should save it for something special but with a worry it might be heading towards vinegar. We shall find out one day.

The meal itself was a mixture of things from the Morito cookbook with perhaps the highlight being a kilo of mussels cooked in a thick garlicy tomato sauce with feta cheese and dill followed by lamb chops that had been marinaded in garlic and ground cumin cooked on a hot grill.

The only part of the meal not from Morito was pudding – a bowl of liquorice ice-cream. We had eaten it in the summer at The Good Things Cafe and the recipe then appeared in the Gubbeen cookbook I got given for Christmas.

The recipe suggested using Panda liquorice bars and rather to my surprise I found them in the supermarket.

I have got an ice-cream maker but it wasn’t big enough for the amount made so I made the ice-cream by putting it in a plastic tub and nestling the tub in a corner of the freezer. I then had to remember to go to the basement every hour hour or so to stir it up with a fork to break up the ice crystals. It was a good opportunity for cooks treats licking the fork after each stir.

There is some left as well for us to finish off tonight.