We have spent six or seven Easters at The Cottage and on the last three times we gave been here we have had lunch at The Good Thing’s Café.

Five years ago we walked there and back along the back road that runs in a straight line through the hills from Ahakista to Durrus. The walk there took about three hours. On the walk back we were buoyed up with wine and good food and got back to The Cottage as it was getting dark.

There was talk of walking again this year but the weather was too good to be away from The Cottage that long and there were boats to be taken out onto the water and coffee to be drunk.

I then decided to walk part of the way. The table was booked for 2.00 so if I left at 1.00 I would be able to get a few miles under my belt before one of the cars that was bringing the rest of the party caught up with me and could take me the rest of the way.

I was about to set off when Dad said he would join me. So I waited a few minutes more and then we left to see how far we could get before being picked up.

Driving through the previous night in the dark some of the damage from the storm was caught in the car headlights and we caught flashes of where the sea wall had been washed away. Walking back in the daylight the damage was more apparent. Stretches of wall were gone and boulders and large stones had been put in its place so the passing cars knew not to drive into the sea. Some of the stone wall on the landward side of the road had also collapsed and there were patches of field strewn with dried seaweed and gravel from the sea.

Any piece of land that was next to the sea has had its shape shifted. Large rocks had been moved and those too big to move had been further exposed. Bare earth had crumbled away and a familiarity has been taken away from the place. It will take another few months for those edges to blur.

We got about three miles before the cars caught up with us and we were given a lift the rest of the way.

Lunch was a fixed menu – 2 starters and 2 mains with prawns on as a special. Out of that we had enough to keep everyone happy.

We never went to the butterfly house in which The Good Thing’s Café makes its home but we must have eaten there now two or three times, if not more, each year since it opened, and we have never been disappointed.

This Easter Sunday lunch was no exception. Four of us had the fish soup which then came in a white tureen and we served it out amongst ourselves. Cora had decided that all she needed was the fish soup and she had four bowls of it which she eeked out with bread and cheese.

There were then plates of salad and prawns and roast lamb with mashed potato. One of the highlights was a pile of spiced, almost fermented, finely chopped carrot that came with the salad. Kristen decided it was too spicy for her and so I forked it off her plate and onto mine and ate it.

It was a slow lunch measured out with a clutter of spoons and knives and voices.

Two hours later we walked out back into the light replete and looking forward to the summer when we can go back.

We will be going for lunch soon to The Good Thing’s Café and we are settling in on Easter Sunday morning.

It made a good change arriving at Dublin Port in daylight. The last three times it has been late at night and the place has been shrouded in dark and we have managed to get lost driving out of the city to the extent on one occasion we managed to end up in Dun Laoghaire and we had to find our way out from there on more familiar territory.

On Saturday evening the sun was still out and the sky blue and the Wicklow Mountains hung grey and high above the city as we drove out into and the across the middle of the country.

Fifteen years ago it took up to seven hours to do the drive from Dublin to Ahakista. The road went through every small town and village and there would be hold ups for tractors and bent out of shape cars making their way back from the pub. Now a dual carriageway has been carved out across the country and all those towns and villages just pass in a blur of signs that count down the kilometres to Cork City.

Last night we did the journey in slightly less than four hours and the pub was still open as we pulled in so a pint could be bought to slake the thirst after that time cooped up in the car.

Sunday morning and the sun is high in the sky which is blue and clear. The lawn is still marked with fine patches of sand thrown up by the January storm and there are shifts in the pattern of the garden where it has been scarred and marked by the wind and water. Great hefts of stone have been shifted and knocked over like so many plastic bricks thrown around a play room. The pier patch looks like a drunk giant down from the pub as been at it pulling apart the wall and dropping the pieces of rock back into the sea looking for loose change so he had enough to buy itself one last pint as the storm raged behind.

We have sat outside the split yellow door and drunk coffee and eaten our bacon sandwiches for breakfast.

There are boats out on the water and two women in black wetsuits are out swimming across to Owen Island their voices carrying across the water as they talk.

The hills look chiselled and sharp against the blue sky as if the winter weather has scoured them clean of all their softness and light.

We will be going for lunch soon to The Good Thing’s Café and we are settling in on Easter Sunday morning.

I have clearly been investing in too much new music recently.

There I was in Probe Records trying to decide what to buy after spending my Good Friday morning in work trying to get up to date before going away for a week and some toe tapping music comes on. There are elements of The Velvet Underground and it is all in French so I ask what it is? Transpires I bought it a couple of months ago on the strength of the cover and name and being French. Now I will have to try and find it. At least I didn’t buy it twice!

The sun has been out all day so this afternoon I planted out the rest of the potatoes into three bags that are now lined up at the end of the garden.

Cora and I then planted out all the beetroot seedlings and then planted some more seeds into pods so we will be able to plant out some more in a month or so’s time.

I then lit the barbeque. Yesterday I was presented with a large piece of beef. I could have put it in the freezer to be had another day but it looked so good that I thought we should be eating it sooner. So that has been rubbed with olive oil and covered in pepper and is now sitting a few inches over what I hope a some red hot coals developing a good crusty exterior while the inside stays bloody and melting.

Thank you Matthew for that.

We will eat with some of the horseradish I pulled out of the garden last week.

The rest of the family will be eating veggie burgers and chicken wings.

We have been listening to bonkers flamenco music from the 1960’s and early 70’s and the the French Velvet Underground soundalikes The Limiñanas who you need to get into your life.

As promised this evening we ate out of a book called Medina Kitchen.

It is by Fiona Dunlop who also wrote a book called New Tapas which is a tour around Spain and its more modern Tapas bars and the food that they serve there. It has at least two recipes that I like to cook on a fairly regular basis being slow cooked squid in a red wine and tomato sauce and salt cod paella. The squid has featured here in the past and the salt cod paella should be on here soon.

Medina Kitchen follows a similar format as it spends time in the kitchens of various women in Marrakech, Fez, Tunis, Carthage, La Goulette and Tripoli. For some reason I have not cooked from it before but I picked it up yesterday when thinking about something new to do with the chicken I had bought from The Farmer’s Market. My eye was caught by a recipe for steamed stuffed chicken from Fez and then I saw recipes for chickpeas in a tomato snd herb sauce, sweet potato with raisins and an aubergine salad. All that sounded as it had the makings of a good lunch so we were on.

I had only been able to buy a small chicken but it was just the right size to squeeze into the steamer. I stuffed it with a mixture couscous, onion, chicken liver, garlic and coriander. It cooked in just over an hour and I was careful to make sure the water didn’t dry out.

The sweet potato was made by sweating a couple of onions in oil and then adding saffron and water and cooking the mixture down before adding the sweep potato cut into chunks and the mixture being cooked through until done and then at the last minute I stirred in a good hand-full of golden sultanas. Some chopped parsley was stirred through before it went onto the table.

To keep the kids happy we also had some roast potatoes although I sprinkled them with some crushed coriander seeds and cumin as they cooked.

The potatoes went down best. We will have the rest cold tomorrow evening.

Listening now to the wind and Miles Davis in almost full on electric mode looking to run some voodoo down.