It occurred to me whilst I was making it that the shepherd’s pie was in fact a cottage pie!

I had never really thought that there might be a difference but if I was using beef mince then perhaps it might not be a shepherd’s pie at all. But then was it as simple as saying that a shepherd’s pie was made out of minced lamb and a cottage pie out of beef.

Having made it and put it in the oven to cook I trawled through some of the books in the kitchen to see if there was any discussion to be had on the point. Rather to my surprise there wasn’t much to be found.

In fact there were no recipes for cottage pie. All I could find were recipes for shepherd’s pie were made out of lamb – either minced or leftover.

I was eventually able to find a recipe for cottage pie in a copy The Women’s Institute Book of pies and Puddings in which there is a whole chapter under the heading Shepherd’s and Cottage Pies.

The cottage pie was made from beef and had the bright suggestion of including some horseradish.

It was too late to include horseradish in the pie but I had cooked three plump beetroot last night. So I was able to dig up some horseradish from the garden (where it is growing like a weed), grate it until my eyes watered and then pureed it with a beetroot . A bright pink warming gloop to go with the cottage pie tonight.

Another second Sunday in the month so this morning I was back in New Ferry for Wirral Farmer’s Market.

There aren’t enough children at home for lunch tomorrow to justify a whole roast chicken but I bought one anyway to put in the freezer for next weekend. I was tempted by a the rabbits and a hare but we already have a couple of rabbits in the freezer waiting to be eaten and I suspect that somewhere towards the very bottom of the freezer there will be a plastic tub filled with stew that I made with the last hare that I bought about ten years ago.

All of which suggests that I need to undertake a good excavation of the freezer to unearth all the stuff that has been in there too long – like the occasional pigs foot I have bought just because it was there and you never know when you might need one.

Back in the Farmer’s Market I bought a bag of bloody mince for making a shepherd’s pie, some extra large carrots to go with the mince, beetroot, potatoes and onions, and two lamb leg steaks for lunch.

I fried the steaks for five minutes in hot oil seasoning as I went with salt and pepper. When they were done I tipped in a mixture of lemon zest, crushed garlic and sage leaves and then the juice of a lemon.

I ate them with small pieces of pasta.

Listening to The Go_Betweens.

There were fireworks this evening in Birkenhead Park. In fact there have been fireworks everywhere all evening bursting around the house and at one point we even had the clatter of some off-shot piece of plastic landing on the kitchen roof.

But the family was meant to be to watching the fireworks in the Park. But I was late back from work and by the time I got home the house was empty and the family had gone without me. I could have stayed at home and got myself a beer and put on some loud music but I didn’t. I scurried into a change of clothes and walked down after them to the Park.

By the time I got there it was too busy to find anyone so I watched the fireworks by myself surrounded by a crowd of thousands. They were good fireworks. Loud and tall. All around me there were babies in prams crying out in fear at the loud bangs and having to be reassured by their mothers. Walking back once they had finished I found some good pieces of wood to take back for the fire.

Good as the fireworks were they were not as good as the display we went to see late one summer 15 or so years ago in Italy. We were staying with Katie and Simon in the house they were renting in the small town of Bracciano, on Lake Bracciano, a few miles north of Rome. We had been told about a festival in the village of Trevignano one evening and so we went there with Kristen. She must of been four, maybe five.

Trevignano was around the other side of the lake. We were not really sure of what to expect of the festival and when we got there the village was filled with a great crowd of people. We ate pasta and tomato sauce in a dark restaurant and then walked out with the crowds and waited for something to happen.

Nothing happened for a long time although there was a gathering sense of excitement amongst the people. The excitement built to a pitch until around midnight when the fireworks started. Kristen was dead on her feet by then but the fireworks seem to come from a place centred amongst the crowds that were watching. There was no careful choreography but a steady cavalcade of noise and light from the rockets that were bursting in bright streams over our heads.

Later, when we were back at their house, Katie and Simon told us they had been able to watch the display from where they were sat on the other side of the lake in the garden.