More blue sky and another hour spent out in the garden. Most of the time was spent in the green house potting up the seeds I bought yesterday. Each of them seemed to have slightly different instructions. for the most part I ignored them and just potted them in compost left over from last year.

So far I have put in lettuce, rocket, beetroot, chard, kale, chillies and tomotoes. I also found some borage seeds so potted those as well. There was a definite warmth in the greenhouse although still cold outside.

As always there were far too many seed in each packet and no doubt most of them will stay in the packet.

The sun has been out all morning and the sky bright blue. So i have been down to one of my favourite shops to stock on things to do for the afternoon. No trip to Rightway is complete without seeing something you never knew you needed but having spotted that something it is difficult to think that your life is going to be complete without it.

This morning it was hessian sacks to store your vegetables in once they are out of the ground in the Autumn. So we are barely into Spring and not a seed has been planted but already I can plan ahead 6 months for the bumper harvest that will no doubt be coming. I put them back on the hook but writing about them know I know I am going to have to go back to get some.

My actual purchases were more practical. Two bags of well matured manure. They look like  they might have been left over from last year. ‘Smelly and well rotted’ I was told as I paid for them and their smell did manage to fill the car on the 5 minute drive back home. The usual selection of seeds; tomatoes, courgettes, rocket, chard, beetroot and chillies. Last year I left some of the planting too late so hopefully with the benefit of the new green house I will get it right this year.

Finally I bought a widger, dibber and label set. I never knew i needed a widger but I am glad i have one now.

Listening to The Grateful Dead and not yet quite over the fact that I won’t be seeing Mark Eitzel play in Manchester tonight but buoyed  by the news that Dexy’s and king Creosote are playing in Liverpool over the next few months!

Later that evening the children jumped into the sea from the end of the pier. It was still raining and the wind had picked up by then whipping across the bay. The boats jostled where they were tied and there was a perpetual noise as they bumped against each other.

The tide was not quite in and there was a drop of about four feet down into the water. They wore wetsuits and egged each other on to be the first in. Two of them jumped in together screaming as they went.

I looked up towards the pub. The lights were on but the curtains closed. I could see movement by the door. Someone having a cigarette.

The children flung their arms wide as they went in. They went under in splash of brown foam head then coming up and breaking the surface shrieks from the cold. The youngest held back and shouted ‘Are there jellyfish can you see any jellyfish?’ Her sister took her by the hand and they jumped in together. ‘Its like jumping through glass’ one of them said.

One of the boys came up the ladder with a piece of blue rope over his shoulder. ‘I’ve found this’ he shouted and started to pull at it out of the water. ‘Put it back’ I told him ‘It’ll be doing something.’

Having jumped in and out three or four times they started to get tired and cold. They ran back down the pier in their bare to towels and a hot shower.

I stayed there for a while in the rain. Although it was nearly midnight there was still music coming from The Tin Pub and it swirled and was almost lost in the wind. The water was choppy now and uneven in the half light from the pier.

I turned to go back wet to the skin.

I shook off the rain and bundled myself into the pub. It was early evening and I was supposed to be making supper. The rest of the family were sat around the fire reading books or drawing and I thought that before I started on the cooking I should steady the hand with a pint and then perhaps take another down with me to slurp whilst at the stove.

It was a deceptive rain. Looked at from inside it did not look too bad. Heavy perhaps but not likely to soak you on a walk of a hundred yards. But once outside and on the road it was heavy and thick. There were sheets of water on the apron of the pier and the stream by the side of The Butter House was in full spate sending brown water over the stones down by the slipway.

I ran up to the pub without bothering to think on the walk back with a pint to keep still in my hand. The pub was empty but the radio was on, quiet music and hushed voices. I sat on one of the hard stools and waited watching the view outside.

Although it was summer the rain and cloud made everything grey outside. Grey apart from the black. It was so thick now you could hardly see the other side of Kitchen Cove and the rest of the bay was shrouded in mist. The lights were on on the pier. Their watery yellow was the only colour. The green grass and the trees, the reds and blues of the boats were all muted and shut down by the wet and the grey cloud.

An old red Royal Mail van pulled up outside the pub. The marking of The Post Office had been scrubbed away but were still visible on the side. A man got out and unhurriedly shut the car door and walked into the pub.

He looked surprised to see me. ‘Its misty out there’ he said. ‘You’ll not be walking back on a day like this.’

A girl walked through the door from the kitchen and stood behind the bar ‘Now what can I get you’ she said.

‘A pint of Murphy’s’ I said. She started to pour mine and then a second for the man. Once both pints were full she put them onto the tray to settle.

I gave her a note for the two pints. The man acknowledged the pint with a nod as it was put on a mat in front of him.

‘Are you here for the summer’ he said looking out at the rain. ‘Shit its been bad this year. There has never been rain like it. When did you get here. The weekend you say. Fer feks sake it has been better since then. It was dry when was it yesterday for a while but apart from that it has been nothing but wet and feckin’ rain.’

We both looked down at our pints.

The girl behind the bar, I’d not seen her before and did not know her name, she asked him ‘Did you hear when it might stop? It was on the radio before it might get better next week.’

‘It’s not going to stop now’ he said ‘It’ll be be wet for the summer.’

I could see that two of the children had got bored reading their books round the fire. They were walking to the end of the pier, one of them, the eldest carrying the long fishing rod we never use with the luminous line. When they got to the end he shooed his younger sister to a safe distance and unhooked the line. He stood still at the end of the pier and arced the rod back and forward again letting go of the line so that the hook and its weight sailed out an hundred yards or so or more into the water.

Although it was still raining it was still and the weight of the rain seemed to have flattened down the water. We could see the splash of it going in and the line pulled up tight as he started to wind it in.

‘What month is it now’ the man said ‘Is it August. August. Now the fish don’t like the fresh water coming off the hills down there into the bay. You can see it all now dirtying up the water. But they have a dilemma because it is good for the shrimp and if the mackerel don’t eat the shrimp then there’s squid that will do it and the mackerel well they will always eat the squid.’

The boy pulled in the line and it was empty. He shot it out again into the water. He did it another three times and we finished our pints and the man bought me another.

The boy’s sister wanted a go and they argued at the end of the pier. Eventually she got her way and was allowed a couple of goes. She couldn’t fling the rod from over her back but did it from her side the line travelling half of the distance. We could see the frustration in her bunched shoulders. The boy was laughing in the rain. She shouted at him leaving the line to trail in the water as she did so.

She started to reel it in again and as she did so the line quickened. Now she shouted for help and the two of them held onto the rod and he wound it in until the silver thump of a mackerel pulled out of the water and flickered into the light.

I took my third pint out into the rain and muttering  good night walked down to the pier to help them.