One morning Kevin, Anna and I got up early and set off to walk to Kilcrohane, over the top of Rosskerrig and Seefin and then down the Goats Path before being picked up again. The last time I had done this walk was also with Kevin, it had been grey and damp with not much to be seen.

This time the sun was clear and bright although there was a breeze that quickened the higher we got. On the road past Hillcrest B&B and then the sharp right turn onto the track that quickly falls away as it goes up the hill and you are on the trail of posts with their yellow walker showing the way. The walk up was easier this time. We took it more slowly not being dragged forward by those fitter than us.

The walk up is a series of ridges a hard slog up and then down again, and then another hard slog up. Each ridge takes you higher and periodically we looked back and could see Kitchen Cove tucked into its corner of the bay, the boats dwindling as we got higher. Ahakista a smudge of green fields in its valley down to the sea. Over another ridge and we could see over the Mizen to the Atlantic, the Fastnet Rock and light rising some 10 – 15 miles away a grey smudge in the white sea. Higher still and the ridges became tighter, the climb up the other side steeper and we paused more often for breath and to look back at the view until finally we were at the top of Rosskerrig.

Here the breeze thickened to a quick wind blowing over the top of the mountain. We could see the green valleys falling away, the farms in the hills and what looked like a dump for used cars and we looked down over the pier and Kitchen Cove. Kevin called Julie on his phone and had her and Andrea come to the end of the pier to wave at us. We could just about see them, like being in a plane that final moment before it reaches into the clouds and the barely made out bones of the earth disappear into the white. They had to stop waving as they spotted our famous neighbour walking his dogs in his garden and he clearly thought they were waving at him.

We carried on the walk. The path to Seefin rises slowly and more easily to the ridge that straddles the whole of the peninsula, the two bays, Bantry to the right and Dunmannus to the left, laid out either side and the hills rolling out to the west. It was clear and blue though the wind now took our breathe away and I had to hold onto my hat as we became exposed on the crest. The last time we had done this walk there was nothing to be seen. Now either side of us the hills ran down to the water, brakish browns and greens scarred with the outcrops of rock, each bay taking on a different shade of light depending on the corner of the eye that caught it, Dunmanus silver and sharp, Bantry a deeper and forbidding grey even under the clear sky. The path kept skirting around the crest of the hill favouring the south side for a hundred yards or so and then the north side as if it also was trying to take some shelter from the wind until gently it wound to the top of Seefin.

Anna climbed to the top of the survey post and the wind try to buffet her down. We were at the top of the peninsula, at the old man’s seat from where he could look around and survey the full reach of his sea and land. There was no quiet in the wind. Over the Mizen the sea seemed to disappear into light. The islands in Dunmannus Bay were smudges of black against the silver, the distances and extremes distorted and seemed as nothing. The Mizen a thin finger of land stretching out to the sea and the granite lump of Knockmardree  reduced to a kink in the landscape.

We had been stood at the bar of The Tin Pub for most of the afternoon drinking pints. It was sunny and hot outside but the bar with its thin walls of wood and corrugated iron was cool in the shade of the trees that towered over it. The door out into the back was open leading to the garden and lawn down to the sea and the boats sitting in Kitchen Cove. There were voices and the shouts of children from the beach and occasionally one of them would make the walk up along the dark track for a soft drink or ice lolly.

We weren’t drunk but some of the talk had started to curl at the edges.

‘What’s best?’ I asked him. ‘Old hooks or new hooks?’

‘It has feck to do this with the hooks,’ he said.’ You can shine them up if you like and they’ll go faster through the water and if a hook is bright enough then it might catch their eye but it’s the feathers that make the difference.What colour do you use?’

For the last week I had been using an old bent line left over from last year. The hooks were rusty and the feathers had been white once but were now bedraggled and grey.

‘A new set of feathers is feckin’ useless. You might be tempted sometimes you’ve not caught any fish to get some bright new ones all nice colours but there’s a smell to them in the water and the fish will keep away. If you’re not catching fish it’s because they’re not there and it is feck all to do with the feathers.’

‘There may come a time if you’re careless, your line gets caught on a rock and the line snaps or if you’re like that feckin’ idiot Jack Mackerel you don’t tie your knots and you need to use some new feathers.’

‘If you need to use new feathers then you need to get rid of the smell and the way to do that is piss on them. Take them out of their packet and tie them to the line and get the knots tight and then lay it straight out on the ground and give them a watering.’

He looks at his pint glass which is empty. ‘Tom Cutter swears you need to drink plenty of this stuff to make them work well.’

He looks up to Sean stood behind the bar.’ We’ll have two more now before the day’s finished.’

Sean turns to fill up the glasses and the man laughs.’ We’ll have these and maybe another and then we’ll go piss on some feathers!’

Amongst the stray submarines, black beards and mackerel on here there has not been much time for music over the last few weeks. So this evening I offer some small amends.

So far it has been a good year for music both for bands seen, records bought and listened to and things to look forward to.

Music seen has included Neil Young & Crazy Horse at the NEC and a twenty minute feedback extravaganza and some poor lost soul shouting out “Play some proper songs!’ There has also been King Creosote, Dexy’s, Josh Rouse, James Yorkston, Pictish Trail and last night it was Lambchop. All without having to make a trip to Manchester. There is still good stuff to come including John Grant and The National.

Highlight of records bought have included Phosphorescent, The National, Ty Segall, Matthew E. White and Thee Oh Sees. Thee Oh Sees are particularly recommended for those who like the idea of loud surf guitar and Interstellar Overdrive all played as one.

We have also had the new record by Mark Mulcahy and I am listening to it now. I wrote a few nights ago about the things that might stop the clicking of a watch.Songs can do that.

Mark Mulcahy used to be in a band called Miracle Legion and they made one of those records, Surprise Surprise, that are now impossible to find except through odd corners of the internet. You may be able to download it all somewhere. There is a song on it call All For the Best. It stops time for me and someone has made a cracking video to go with it. Watch this and then go out and buy Mark Mulcahy’s new CD and then track down the CD of people singing his songs called Ciao My Shining Star and see if you can get a bit of time to stand still for a while.

Time clicks on like a watch but every so often a piece of dust will work its way against the cogs and the clicks stop for a while. These are moments that might take you for the rest of your life. They can be a caught few seconds, hours spent in someone’s company or maybe a few days doing something right. But once they have you those moments, those fractions of time, will colour and shade you forever.

Miriam Black-Fore would try and put those moments back back together as she sat in her metal chair next to the round table on the patch of lawn back from the yellow door. She knew where they started and how they ended but the hours in-between were little more the wisp of a spider’s web caught in the dew. She would drum her fingers against the top of the table as if the steady sound could take back the years she had lost and position her back to those caught few hours.

It was the taste of burnt mackerel that took her back. The German sailors had built their fire on the raised bit of ground on the western side of the Cottage overlooking the sea. They had built it with firewood gathered from the beach and the flames rose clear and high in the early evening. There was no metal grill to cook the fish on but one of the men threaded a long thin stick through the head of the mackerel so they were lined up down it and two of them held this over the embers, lifting it as the oils from the fish ran down and flared the fire.

The fish were done when they were able to gently twist away the body from the head. The cooked fish were put to one side, the heads taken off the stick and thrown to the gulls and more fresh fish were threaded on. They were able to position the fish so the stick was not exposed to the heat and that way they were able to stop it from burning.

As the light faded from the sky the sailors voices were quiet. Someone had bought some plates from the submarine and these were passed round with the pot of horseradish cream.

Miriam stood back and watched them from the garden. The flow of pints from the pub had stopped now but the men had been able to exchange something for two bottles of whiskey. She heard later that the pub had acquired two large glass jars of sauerkraut and a bag of smoked sausage. The sausages were eaten but the jars of sauerkraut stayed in the back of the pub for another fifteen years before they were lost.

The Captain took a plate with two mackerel and a spoon full of cream and offered it, with courtesy, to Miriam. She thanked him and took the plate. The skin of the mackerel was black and burnt. Standing there she held the plate in one hand and pulled away at the skin with her other revealing the thin white fillets. The skin had protected them from the flames and they were sweet with the sea. Some of the sharpness of the horseradish had been dampened by the cream but it still cut through the oil in the fish. Small pieces of black skin stayed with the fillets and through it all she could taste the astringent work of the fire and its wood.

The Captain was back with his men and she stood there alone eating the two fish.

When all the fish had been cooked the long thin stick was thrown on the fire. One of the men was down on the beach gathering dried seaweed. When this went onto the fire it flared high again and there were loud cracks as the pockets of air in the sea wrack burst. Some of the seaweed was still damp and the men cursed and thick white smoke blew in the breeze. But the fire settled again and the shouts quietened and the men seemed embarrassed by the noise they had made in the dark.

The sun had gone down now behind the hulk of Rosskerrig and in front of them over the bay they could see the light of the moon rising up over the hills of The Mizen.

The Captain came back now to talk to Miriam. He asked her how the fish were and she told them they were good. She’d not had them with horseradish before and she didn’t know the German for it. The Captain was pleased that she liked it and as the evening settled they spoke some more.

As the years went by she found it more and more difficult to piece together what they had talked about. She had spent six months in Berlin and was able to speak with him. But as the years passed she never spoke German again and as the memory of the language faded away so did the memory of what they had said. She knew there had been some common ground with the places she had gone to and there was a family she had met through a student where he said there was some connection.

She thought it was some time since he had really spoken to anyone. After a while they sat at the metal chairs next to the round table and they had a glass of whiskey. On the beach some of the men were singing their voices quiet now in the dark. The talk from the other men softened and they were silent listening to the half murmured songs.

She and the Captain carried on talking and she could sense the relief in him, the weight lifted, his voice in the dark.

There came a point when all was quiet from the beach and this seemed to rouse the Captain. He knew it was time to go. The tone of his voice changed and it cut through the few moments of intimacy that had been created there in the dark. He explained that he would have to go back to the boat. He would need to be there for the night and tomorrow they would have to go back home.  He thanked her for her help over the day and with a smile he thanked her the use of the beach. He had to go back but would she mind if some of the men were to sleep outside.

They stood up and walked down to the beach. Most of the men were awake and the Captain spoke quietly amongst them. Some of the men got up and made their way back to the pier and there about a dozen who stayed on the beach. They moved closer the fire and put their heads back amongst the stones to watch the night sky and the stars.

The Captain looked Miriam out in the garden. He was formal now, taking his leave, shaking her hand and bowing slightly in good-bye.