Last year Dad gave me 50 snowdrop bulbs to plant in the garden. I planted them under the three apple trees that run along the wall on the right hand side looking out. I had expected that they might have been showing themselves a few weeks ago and when there was nothing there I thought that maybe they were a bad lot. But they were out today, five clear white bells.

Out in the garden it felt as if the weather had shrugged its shoulders and decided to give the beginning of Spring a go. It was dry and light. I have written elsewhere about the comfort to be taken as the days draw in for winter, the clocks go back and there is a warmth found rather than the dead beat of the sun. But now it is late afternoon and still light and the trees are still in the back of the garden.

Maybe it was the eighteenth birthday party last night but there is a sense of time moving on. The seasons turnover, another Winter done and Spring still to come.

The chicken is about done now and it is starting to go dark. Time to eat.

So the party is over and the bodies have been swept up from the floor. The carpet on the stairs is stained black and there is a strange smell in the bathroom. The basement smells like a pub on the morning after. The floor down there is sticky with cider, beer and vodka and stamped upon twiglets and half eaten pieces of pizza. There is still some bottles of beer left in the fridge.

But the sun is shining bright this morning and we have eaten fine bacon sandwiches and drunk lots of black coffee. I am going out to the garden in some old clothes to start digging over the veg patch. It will be time to buy seeds soon and start planting for the summer.

A chicken is defrosting in the kitchen and we have that for a late lunch. I should have got some tarragon to ease under its skin. We will have it with roast potatoes and carrots with lots of gravy.

Perhaps the highlight of lasts night was the tin of smoked preserved mackerel. They were only a few inches long and must have been young when caught.  We could have easily eaten a second tin.

The next time we do a good meal I am going to devote a whole course to tinned Spanish food. We will be able to have the mackerel, tinned sardines, baby squid in their ink and anchovies. there are also delicious red peppers stuffed with salt cod. My mouth is watering at the thought of it.

This morning has been a mad dash round Supermarkets for cheap booze, the greengrocers for tomatoes and aubergines to be made into soup for lunch and edges the butchers for a few kilo of chicken pieces. The soup is now bubbling away and we be eating it soon.

For the chicken I smothered them with a marinade made out of Heinz Ketchup, honey, two tangerines, soy sauce, chilli sauce and various herbs and spices that were to hand in the cupboard. Oh and an onion! That all went into the Magimix until smooth and was then smeared into the chicken with my fingers. Should be good.

Listening Cher 3614 Jackson highway. It is better than you think.

Another Friday night and looking forward to spending my Saturday helping to prepare for an 18th birthday party in the basement. the last time there was a party my Guinness toucan got stolen and was pictured on Facebook before being returned on to the door step the following day. A bottle of Marie Brizard anisette was not so lucky and was found empty on the floor. I had bought for the sole purpose of making an Elizabeth David recipe for a sauce to go with boiled lobster so I still hope that whoever drank it spent a long time in the land of regret. It has taken two years but I am now able to be philosophical about it.

Over lunch there was a quick trip to Lunya to buy some ingredients for supper this evening. We will start in a few minutes with a plates of Padron peppers and tinned Don Reinaldo smoked mackerel. I will try put out my mind the thought that the mackerel will have been sucked out of the water somewhere off Iceland as part of the the mackerel wars.

We will follow all that with a great dish of sausages cooked in fat from the ox’s heart with cider and lentils. They are all cooking slowly on the oven and should be ready in about 20 minutes. I will be off soon to find a good bottle of Spanish red to go with the.

In the meantime I should mention that when I got into the car to go home I switched the ipod to shuffle and the first song to come up was Lady Day by Rod Stewart. Well you don’t get better than Rod back in the day when he was good. After that I had The Flaming Lips followed by electrlane. So I had a shiteating grin going through the tunnel. Given the good food I will be giving over the listening for the rest of the evening to Rod when was good. Listening to him now sing I would rather go blind.