Well the sun is out at last and there are children running round the garden in swimming costumes playing with the hosepipe.

The vegetable plot is now almost completely planted out. This morning I put in some more rocket, sweetcorn and calvalo nero. We will have to see how they all get on in a couple of months time. In the meantime the various types of broccoli are doing well. The leaves are good enough to eat just as they are.

At the back of the garden there is a small yew tree and behind that a laburnum which grows through it. The laburnum has just started to flower and there are now great burst of yellow contrasting against the deep green of the yew.

Drive round Birkenhead and look out for the pubs and you will see clues to the old Birkenhead Brewery Co. Limited. They are worth looking out for.

The old head offices on Oxton road are now a motorcycle shop but the terracotta tiles moulded to set out the name of the company still stand proud on the face of the building.

Saturday morning started with a trip to the butchers at the back of The international store to get some lamb chops for the barbecue this evening. He was chopping up chickens when I got there with a great cleaver cum machete. It was about eighteen inches long and two inches deep. He held the pies of chicken carefully bringing the knife down in a powerful sweep the noise from which thudded through the shop. The chicken was cut up bones in all into pieces about an inch square and put into a bag hr marked £10.00 exactly.

When I asked for my chops he went into the walk in fridge and came out with what appeared to be a whole lamb. With another finer knife he started to take this apart. Peeling apart the breast, cutting round the shoulders until he held two racks of chops. He took these to the vertical electrical and ran them through before asking me how many I wanted. I winced for his fingers.

They are now all marinaded in olive oil, garlic and ground cumin.

I also bought my first box of Alphonso Mangoes. I have just lifted the lid to take in the deep honey smell of them. They almost smell too good to eat.

After that it was the grocers for fennel, onions, peppers, aubergine, coriander, dill, tomatoes, apples and bananas. `enough food to keep us going for about 24 hours.

From Ward’s I bought a squid and a bag of prawns.

There is nothing but blue sky this afternoon and I have already lit a small barbercue. Three aubergines are on there now slowly blackening and softening. Peppers will go on next and then onions and tomatoes to make a sort of roasted veg ratatouille.

Listening to the new National album with little bits of Josh Rouse inbetween. We went to see Josh Rouse on Thursday night in Leaf on Bold Street. The support was a bloke called Sean Rowe. He had a beard that is better than mine and a voice that was deep enough to mine coal from. He was very good.

Josh Rouse looked slightly too pleased with himself but then you can’t really blame him specially when he played a large part of the excellent 1972. We will be listening to more of that tonight.

Sometimes in the early morning the water can be so still it is like a laid flat piece of glass across the Bay. When it is still like that it draws close the land on the other side, the green and brown of the hills, closer, so the colours are clear and picked out in the light.

It is tempting then to take a boat out, to row beyond the rocks and let the boat sit still in the water the oars lifted out so the only sound is their rocking and the clear drops of water falling from them. The ripples from those drops and the faint movement of the boat in the water are the only things to ruffle the surface. When it is still like that there will be insects, their weight indenting the water.

Looked down over the side of the boat and the seaweed and kelp will float free above the seabed their colours indistinct and murky and then suddenly caught by a shaft of sunlight and drawn into focus.

Pick up the oars and row the boat slowly, savouring the quiet, take it past the other boats at anchor in Kitchen Cove, to the gap between Owen Island and Luke’s place on the shore. As you move out the surface of the water stays still but a gentle swell starts to roll in almost imperceptible from the open sea and the boat rides gently on it. As you pull out look over your left shoulder and watch as the Bay opens out.

First you can see the end of the Mizen and then beyond Owen Island the whole Bay lies open the water running down to the fat swell of the Atlantic and the milky point on the horizon where the sea meets the sky.

As you row back and the heat of the sun starts to beat against the water a faint breeze starts to pick up rifling the surface of the water. Later in the afternoon the breeze will be steady hum down from the hills corrugating the water and each ripple will catch the light of the sun until the water blazes in silver light.