For those who follow this thing and have been to The Cottage and Ahakista the good news is that the Cottage is dry and still standing (as it should after 200 years) although apparently most of the beach is in the garden and a large part of the garden is up by the yellow door.

It is easy to forget listening to news of the weather in Birkenhead that anything coming in off the Atlantic is likely to hit Ireland and West Cork first. There were news reports over Friday of there being flooding in Cork City but not much else about the rest of the county. Then on Saturday morning pictures started to appear on Facebook showing the damage done to the road from Durrus to Ahakista. It was clear that in parts the sea wall and part of the road had been washed away and elsewhere the road was littered with debris and vegetation.

I have not had any direct contact but we have had reports that The Cottage is okay apart from the rearrangement of beach and lawn.

On a normal high tide the water is not much more than 50 yards from the Cottage. There is a very low wall at the bottom of the lawn and I would guess that The Cottage only rise a foot or so above that. So it would not take too much to imagine a very high tide  coming over that wall and and some wind and waves could then start to make inroads to The Cottage.

It must have been an exciting night and in a lot of ways I am sorry to have missed it. From the pictures I have seen I imagine that the sea and waves must have been coming in over the sea wall that runs along the road running out from The Cottage towards Durrus and I would guess that at the very least the spray from it all would have reached The Cottage. I will have to make sure I am there in 25 years time when it happens again. In the meantime there is an excuse for a quick trip out to Ahakista to help with the clear up!

Last night we ate reassuring burgers. The bean burgers were almost more fun to make than the meat ones.

I used a heavy stone pestle to mash up the beans and then continued with the pestle to stir in the chopped onions, garlic, herbs breadcrumbs and egg.

We ate them with a beetroot dressing made by peeling a beetroot and then mixing that up with a teaspoon of capers, a teaspoon of English Mustard and lemon juice and olive oil.

All very good it was to.

We listened to Duane Allman and The Allman Brother’s Band.

There is a possibility, and this depends on whether the person who was holding the camera will be able to get to grips with the necessary technology, that the world might be able to go on You Tube one day and watch me have a go at twerking to Chic.

I think I got the bending down and shain’ your ass bit down okay but I suspect everything else was wrong. It certainly was not pleasant. Posterity will tell.

Last night we had a houseful of teenagers who decanted to the attic to play loud impenetrable music and drink bucket loads of alcohol and do whatever it is that teenagers do. All things considered they were reasonably well behaved.

The adults and youngest daughter stayed downstairs, listened to loud disco music and tried to outdrink the teenagers from a distance. It didn’t work.

The highlight of the evening, apart from the twerking, was a Vietnamese dish of spicy prawns. Making the prawns involved pulling off their heads and scooping out the orange gunk the lies in the head and mixing that with lemon juice to make a sauce. The prawns were marinaded in fish sauce, garlic, chopped shallots and more sugar. They were then fried for a few minues. The marinade and lemon juice and gunk sauce then went into the pan to make the sauce. Just before serving I stirred in a finely sliced spring onion and shallot. We were licking plates.

Today has been quiet. There were not too many pieces to pick up from last night and the weather has kept us inside.

Out in the garden there are still a few vegetables to be had and this evening I have stirred and chopped some Swiss Chard into a chickpea stew and there is also some kale that has been cooked and is about to be fried with some garlic and raisens. There is a chicken in the oven. It has been slathered in olive oil, red onion, sumac and lemon and is about done.

Big Star are playing in the kitchen. Have I ever mentioned just how good they are.

Happy New Year.

In Edge & Sons the butchers this morning I was buying four chicken breasts for tonights Vietnamese Noodle Soup and a chicken for roasting for lunch tomorrow. Mt eye was caught by a small pack on top of the fridge containing some dark livery looking meat.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Venison steaks’ I was told.

I was doing lunch for father in law and son.

‘I’ll have those as well’ and they went into the bag.

I fried them quickly in a pan with some hot olive oil. As they cooked I seasoned them with salt and pepper and four crushed juniper berries.

When they were done I took them out to rest for a minute or two. I then sliced them into mouth sized and put them back in the pan with a good tablespoon of Hot Redcurrant Jelly that I found in the back of the fridge and left over from last year and a dash of water to loosen up the sauce.

We ate them stuffed into baguettes with salad and onions.

On the last  evening in Spain we were invited to tell all what our favourite moment of the week had been. Perhaps somewhat facetiously I suggested that mine had been the half day I had spent in the house by myself feeling too unwell to make the trip to Granada and the Alhambra.

It got a laugh and there was an element of truth there as well. I spent the morning in bed and then had three hours sat outside in the cool sunshine of December. I had access to the internet (no kids taking up the Wi-fi) and ate a couple of ham sandwiches made with good bread looking out over the hills and olive trees that rose up all around the house. I also had a chance to poke round the place and take in some of its nooks and crannies.

But in that last paragraph there is a clue to one of the other highlights of the week because the house came with its own Iberico Ham in its stand.

A start had already been made on it when we arrived. Unfortunately that had resulted in the first few thick layers of fat being fed to the cats when it should have been kept for laying back on the exposed bits of ham to help stop it from drying out.

Over the week we took it in turns to slice at it. I don’t think any of use really did it justice with our cutting techniques. The knives were not sharp enough and the slices we cut were too thick, or misshapen, too small or too big. But whatever we cut it tasted very good. And what was worthwhile was to get a sense of the different flavours that came from the different parts of the ham. Those pieces that were still moist and came off almost like bacon and those pieces that were the most mature and were dark and dry and full of flavour. There was also the fat and how that melted against the warmth in our fingers as we tried to hold it still and the importance of having a bit of fat with each slice.

Since coming home I have watched a couple of videos showing master ham carvers at work and it is clear that we were getting lots of things wrong. I don’t think any of us was able to get a slice as wafer thin as it should be.

But if we had been doing that we would not have finished off the ham in a week.

I brought the bones back home with me together with a packet of fat both tucked into one of the bags. No doubt the results of that will be appearing on here soon.