“Look to your lee’ard line!” he cried. “They’re up for it!”

He hauled a mackerel aboard, and, catching hold of the shank of the hook, flicked the fish into the bottom of the boat with one and the same motion that flung the side overboard again; and after it the lead. Wedging the mackerel’s head between his knees, he bent its body to a curve, scraped off the scales near its tail, and cut a fresh lask from the living fish. He is tender-hearted by nature, but now: “That’ll hae ‘em!” he crowed

The mackerel bit hotly at our new bait.

Before the lines were properly out, in they had to come again, flop-flop went the fish on the bottom boards as we jerked them carelessly off the hooks. Every moment or two one of them would dance up and flip its tail wildly; beat on the bottom boards a tattoo which spattered us with scales; then sink back among the glistening mass that was fast losing its beauty of colour, its opalescent pinks and steely blues, even as it died and stiffened.

Suddenly the fish stopped biting, perhaps because the rising sun was shining into the water. The wind dropped without warning, as southerly winds will do in the early morning if they don’t come on to blow a good deal later. The Cock Robin wallowed again on the water. “We’m done,” said Tony. “Let’s get in out o’ it in time for the early market. There ain’t no other boats out. Thees yer ought to fetch ‘leven-pence the dizzen. We’ve made these day gude in case nort else don’t turn up.’

Fishermen and Fishing Ways by Peter F. Anson

So ten days later the laptop has been restored and the cat is still alive.

I am not sure what the nice people in The Computer Clinic on London Road did for the £300 cash. For all I know they stuck it on a radiator for a few days and switched back the clock and left it that. But the screen is cleaner and it actually lights up when I turn it on so I should probably not ask too many questions. In the meantime I am keeping my glass of beer a respectful distance away and the kids are not being allowed anywhere near it.

On food I have been nibbling the ox’s heart and it is delicious.Having cooked it slowly for about five hours over Sunday afternoon I left it to cool down and then sliced it up and put it into a container in the fridge downstairs. I think that the quiet 24 hours did it good and now tastes like a good bit of cold roast beef (I had to pause there to nip downstairs to the basement for another small taste). I have a long journey on a train tomorrow with various work colleagues so I look forward to the expressions of horror that will no doubt follow when I produce my sandwiches.

I am sure that my friend with a black beard would enjoy them. Standing next to him he has finished telling me how a mackerel gets its black stripes. We have refilled our pints and it is quiet in the pub. Mary has gone through the doors into the kitchen and we are by ourselves. Without the presence of Mary it feels quieter and there is an unusual awkwardness about the room.

He breaks the quiet ‘ How many fish do you think are out there. Feck look at all that water it cannot be empty now. We do our bit of fishing now and then but you know we only itch, itch at them. We may get a few hundred or so but there are thousands down there Christ there must be millions to fill out all that water.’

‘As I have said if you fall amongst them they will eat you. I have heard of them pulling all the flesh and muscle from a man before his friends could pull him from the water and he was nothing but bones. But that was a long way from here.’

‘But you look on those men on the pier and you look at their boots. There was a time a fisherman would put some lead in his boots and couldn’t swim the quicker to be taken down to the bottom.’

‘But there was a man once. It may have Frank Hegarty’s uncle they say he got saved by the mackerel. They were so thick in the water and were churning it so that when he fell in they carried him back up again until he could be plucked in back into his boat. Now I can remember Frank’s uncle and he was a big feckin’ man but no amount of mackerel would keep him out of the sea. It was a night out in the pub that saved him and not the feckin’ fish.’

One of the finest meals I have had in the Cottage was a plateful of scallops and bacon.

We were there over Easter and it was the last week of the season. I bought the scallops from Tommy. I must have seen him coming in and i would have walked up the pier to see what he had. I took six of them still in their tightly closed shell just out of the water. i can’t remember what I paid for them but it won’t have been much.

I had bought a couple a few days previously from Michael the fisherman on him pulling up in his car one evening by the gate and opening his boot to show me what he had. Those had been muddy and disappointing.

Tommy’s smelt clean and of the sea. I had them that evening. After some consulting of books I worked out how to prise open the shell and clear away frill and mantle leaving myself with the white nugget of the abductor muscle and its orange roe. I was careful as I did to keep the two parts of the shell attached. I have four of them still downstairs in the basement.

If you have to hand a copy of Alan Davidson’s North atlantic Seafood take a look at the entry on scallops and admire the drawing showing how they look when opened up.

To cook them I chopped up some Maple Cured Gubbeen Bacon and fried it slowly in a drop of olive oil until it started to give off some its fat. I then turned up the heat and threw in the scallops turning them over after a couple of minutes. Just before serving them I poured in a drop of white wine to take up the caramelised bacon on the bottom of the pan. No-one else wanted to taste them so I ate them all by myself and the were delicious and sweet.

I was reminded of the meal on the back on an article in The Observer Magazine yesterday. It was about scallop fishermen off the  West coast of Scotland the escalating dispute between those who dive and handpick their scallops and the boats that dredge them up from the bottom. The latter method is described as being a bit like cutting down a rainforest to catch a parrot. Although the article clearly sides with the hand divers it doesn’t shy away from all of the arguments around the issue.

I can remember seeing the great heavy iron drag gear on the back of Tommy’s boat that Easter and I can’t help but think on the fact that apart from mackerel and pollock there are very few other fish to be caught in the great expanse of the bay. Something to talk about in the summer perhaps.

Well its been in the oven now for an hour and is smelling dark and liverish.

I had thought I was bound to be able to unearth one or two recipes for the cooking of it from the books on the shelves but was soon disabused. The closest I could find was a few lines in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book of meat cookery. He had a good few paragraphs on the cooking of heart but suggested that the beginner should start with pigs or sheep. I was a beginner but had committed myself to a large lump of Ox heart.

I tried on the internet and came across a few recipes but they all seemed to be over complicated and the comments at the end could only suggest that it wasn’t to be used for anything else but dog food.

There was some mention of it going well with onion and sage so I told myself that this was no doubt the stuffing the smart lady in Farmer’s market had in mind so I would limit myself to that.

Taking it out of its plastic wrapping and laying it out I tried to get the kids engaged in an instant biology lesson but they weren’t really interested. All they could muster was a turned up nose at the idea of this being their tea.

So I chopped up some onions and sage and pushed that into the available cavities and trussed it up with skewers and string. I then smeared it with olive oil and seasoned it well with salt and pepper. There is some chicken stock on the go so I will baste with some of that in a while.

It seemed appropriate that having put it into the low oven I had to go outside to clear a blocked drain.