Rather to my surprise I found myself listening to Tom Waits this evening. We were about to eat and I wanted to put something on we could listen to for the meal. i leafed through the CD’s and there was a copy of Asylum Years I had almost forgotten I had.The vinyl version is one of the first albums I bought. I can remember it now going through the racks in Penny Lane records in chester and being frustrated that there were three or four albums i was going tp have to leave behind.

Those were the days you could discover someone new and then find there was a back catalogue to be scoured for and discovered. I have all the records now but I am not fully convinced I have got to grips with all of Tom Waits’ back catalogue. The memory is more in the places and times I have listened to them al and the people that were there with me.

But mostly Tom Waits has been about being sat in a room by myself and listening to the music tease its way out. That’s no more so than on Kentucky Avenue. I have been listening to the song for twenty five years and I still don’t quite know hat it is about but for the tumble of words which catch up short.

I then I find myself listening to it and all I want to is close my eyes and cut off the spokes from my wheelchair and put on a pair of magpie wings and then maybe I can find myself.

Back to Keith Floyd. It is probably no great exaggeration to say that without having seen him on television I would not be doing all the cooking I do. It was his series on Spain that did it for me.

You could carp and say that most of what he was cooking were one pot wonders and there was no finesse in what he was doing. But that misses the point. It was about food kept simple, but good because the ingredients were fresh and treated with respect.

There was all that and he was filming in Spain. Apart from half a day lost in Barcelona and a couple of holidays in Menorca I had not been to Spain. The bits that we saw made an impression, particularly the shots of a fiesta and men walking along calmly holding fireworks and lighting them in their hand and letting them go just as the wick caught.

So I will go down now and open a good bottle of red wine to slurp with the beef stew. It has been cooking for about four hours. All it needs now is for me to put in a few handfuls to heat through to give it some sweetness.

As might be expected two children are already complaining at the prospect of stew again. The rest of us will enjoy it.

A recommendation.

If you want to bring some excitement into your Saturday morning can I suggest parking your car on a hill in Birkenhead and forget to put on the handbrake. That way you can get out of the car, close the door, walk round to the boot and open it just as the car starts to roll down the hill. Then you can try hold the car back by hanging on grimly to the handle for the boot and find out that actually cars are heavy once they start moving and don’t take kindle to being held back. You can look stupid for a moment. Then you can run back round to the door and try open it as the car starts to roll with a bit more speed. You can be thankful that the handbrakes works by way of a switch to the right of the steering wheel and if you have time you can try and remember if you push or pull the bloody thing. The open car door can clatter noisily against a sign on the pavement just as the car comes to a stop. Got me going that did!

No damage done. Must have been fun to watch though.

Lunch has been a carefully constructed chicken sub. Two split chicken breasts flattened and put to fry in hot oil with salt, pepper and hot paprika. Whilst they fried I split the bread and sliced up a tomatoes and onion. It was then put together and cut in half. My half had an extra doze of chilli sauce.

Supper this evening is a beef stew, with garlic and prawns. It comes from Keith Floyd’s book Floyd on Spain. It is probably one of my oldest cookbooks although it has not been off the shelf for a few years. Most people will take an old video to be put on DVD so as to preserve their wedding video or perhaps a christening. I did it so that I can have the very old TV series, Floyd on Spain, available for all time. If I understood the technology I could put some of it on here.

Almost midnight on a Friday evening and I have a glass of red wine in front of me and the prospect of the one and only son plus four or five of his mates arriving home any time soon from a party.They drank all the spare cans of cider they could find in the basement before they went out when they were filled with promises of good behaviour. They are meant to be up early tomorrow morning for rugby. We shall see.

In the meantime I have eaten a plate of lamb chops with mograbiah. They were very good.

I think it is going to be a weekend of sustaining stews. That’ll be between raking up the rest of the leaves in the garden and mulling over the secret santa to come.