Although it is starting to get warmer there is still a coolness in the air and then the sun comes out from behind one of the grey clouds and suddenly there is a lightness to the air and heat against the skin.

I have been in the garden this afternoon. The first job was to put up some netting around the few remaining onion shoots in the hope that they can pull though after the fat bastard chicken got most of them.

Then I pulled up the remaining calvolo nero from last year which as all gone to seed and tidied up a couple of the beds ready to plant out the beetroot next weekend. It took me thirty years to develop a taste for beetroot and now I find myself looking forward to when it will be ready to eat. Particularly the yellow ones that seem to be doing very well in the greenhouse.

Tidying up the beds involved pulling up some thick shanks of horseradish.

Then it was time to repot the dahlias.The tubers have spent the winter in an old Sayer’s  tray in the basement. They are starting to shoot so they are now all in pots ready to be planted out in a month or so’s time when the bluebells and daffodils are done.

Finally I planted out some of the potatoes which have been chitting in the basement. They have gone into a bag made from old fish meal sacks.

This evening we are going to eat a variety of dishes out of book called Medina Kitchen. It is a book of North African cooking I was given a few years ago. I am not sure I have cooked out of it before but it should be good.

Last night we ate pizza and this morning I delved into the freezer to finish of the Gubbeen bacon I bough last summer. It made a particularly good bacon sandwich. We are back in Cork next week ans I will be able to stock up on some fresh supplies.

Two weeks ago I was standing proud as the onion seeds I had planted towards the end of February were starting to sprout and there were four rows of thin, very thin, green shoots to admire and the promise of more to come.

I went out this evening to have a look and there were hardly any of them left. Back in the Kitchen I looked out of the window and there was a fat bastard pigeon waddling on the veg patch poking around for some other seedling to pull up. It looked good enough to eat and there would be some appropriate come-uppance if having demolished my onions it should end up on my plate. It may be time to invest in something gun like to exact revenge.

So this evening I have lathered some out of date lamb from the supermarket with the remains of the Mojo Rojo sauce that has been maturing on the fridge for the last week. That has now been in a hot oven for just over an hour and we are about to eat it with a bottle of good red wine.

Listening to the new album by The Afghan Whigs. I think I may have blown the speakers which is just as well as the kids are telling me to turn it down.

You can’t put a mackerel back together again once it is out of the water. It may be kicking against the light and air and trying to thump its way back to the sea but for all that wild energy and fight its is done for.

Half the life will have gone from it in the effort made to get off the hook. You can’t see them there in the black of the water but as you are pulling them in with the orange line falling in a pile in the bottom of the boat they will be swimming in every direction the power in their tail can take them to get away from the cruel sharp piece of metal.

Once they are out of the water they will bump against the side of the boat and they are then in your hand. Each knock and touch scrapes away or disturbs their fine scales and if they went back into the water then the sleek ease by which they move will have been lost.

In the water each fish is one small part of a great shoal that moves through the water as one. If a fish is taken from that and spat out in the air before falling back in the sea again how will it ever find its place back in the shoal which by then will have moved on.

Once you have the fish on the hook it is done for and you might as well keep it.

Now that is an altogether different question. Killing a mackerel is straightforward enough. You just need a hard thin stick and to give it a sharp knock at the back of the head and you are done. Cooking them is a whole different science that you need to break down.

The important thing is to do it quickly. You will have killed the fish as it came out of the water and then pulled out its guts an hour or so later when back on land and down by the rocks. They will start to turn against you as soon as they are out in the air and so you need to cooking them as soon as you can once you are done cleaning them and in the meantime keep them out of the sun. If you have had a good day then you may be too flush with the success of it all and the time spent celebrating the catch with a beer means that the catch is forgotten for a while and allowed to harden and dry.

There are, I think, three choices from which a decision can be made. Having cleaned the fish you can fillet them and the fillets can then be put in a hot pan with some butter and oil and cooked for a minute or two until the skin starts to loosen and the flesh be pulled gently apart with fork.

Otherwise you need to cook them whole and in one pice. You can have a debate with yourself as to whether you keep the head on or take it off. I think they are better with the head kept on. There are those who are squeamish and think the head puts them off particularly with the white dead eye looking back at them. But if you are going to be squeamish then you are not doing a proper job with the eating of them and you may as well start on eating something else less likely to offend.

So keep the head on and you can then either roast them in a hot oven or you can cook them over an open flame – be it a fire on the beach or a better controlled barbeque.