Listening to weird folk and drinking a large bottle of Corsendonk. A drink last sampled late at night in the Gollem Bar, Amsterdam. It might have been the last glass of that that sent me over the edge. in any event one or the other should give rise to some interesting dreams. Unlike last night when the interesting dream at 3.00 in the morning turned out to be the sift sound of the cat sleeping snoring under the bed. It was a gentler snore to that which I am generally used to so I was able to turn over and go back to sleep only to be woken up an hour or so later by the same cat who had obviously had enough of my snoring and was waving its tail in my face. These things don’t normally happen!

The Corsendonk is delicious and was found in a dark corner of cellar. It came in its own tin   swaddled in paper and straw. I might have been saving it for something but there is always a danger with that you end up not drinking it at all. It is a dark Belgium beer with lots of burnt coffee/chocolate flavours. As I am getting towards the end of the bottle I am going to have to start savouring it as it will be a while before I am able to get some again.

Follow the link to their website for a short film and nice pictures. Somewhere else in the cellar I have one of the proper chalice shaped Corsendonk glasses to drink it out of. It is brewed in Turnhout which is just down the road from my sister in Eindhoven so next time I am there I may have to visit.

Well the last of the bottle has been poured into the glass and soon it will be time for bed.

I am feeling tired this evening and will not be eating much. Almost two days have now been survived with me in charge of the kids/teenagers. There have been a few raised voices but no rows yet.

I cooked them a big bowl of chilli con carne which seemed go down reasonably well particularly as I made sure there was a large supply of Doritos (some of which I am finishing off now). I had cooked it last night when it had a good four hours of slow cooking on a very low heat. Tasting it before going to bed I was worried I might have been too heavy handed with the chilli powder and there would be a blanket complaint and refusal to eat. But there was only one comment and most of it got eaten.

The pot of it is back in the fridge now to be finished off tomorrow night.

Having got them into bed I have been trawling the internet trying to find a link to a story of a steamship The Bohemian that stuck a rock off The Mizen in the 1880’s. I was eventually able to find it and this is a picture of Captain William Grundy. He died in the wreck along with 35 men.

One of the items I was able to find includes a letter sent to New York Times from the second officer who was the only surviving officer. He describes the boat hitting the rock and the desperate fight to sort out a life boat and the night spent in the one boat they were able to get away. They had a night on the water and washed up the next day in Dunmannus Bay.

I will need to ask the man with a black beard about it the next time I am in Arundel’s.

Mackerel made it into the papers this weekend with a two page spread in The Observer and comment from Jay Rayner to the effect that unless we start managing our fishing habits more effectively then all fish will become an expensive luxury available only to a few. His review in the Magazine is of a fish restaurant in London where they manage get away with selling a plate of mackerel for £19.00 In his review he talks about fillets so so there is hope that they are serving more than one fish. Presumably cost is getting them from the sea to the restaurant in the hour or so window you have once they are out of the water before they start to deteriorate.

The main article throws more confusion onto the issue concentrating on the fishing port of Grimsby which is now largely dependant on the Icelandic fishing boats that call there to sell their fish.It is difficult to pick your way through the talk of both sides to get to an answer. There is a suggestion that the downgrading of mackerel is not so much because it is currently in danger but more to try and galvanise both sides into a sensible discussion.

You might also suspect that Iceland has a point. There are a lot of conflicting vested interests on the European side of the argument and it is easy to believe that whatever they come up with will be a fudge. Whilst Iceland is a great deal more dependant on the fish that they catch and may in fact be able to make a good fist of managing their fisheries.

We shall see.

In the meantime I am watching two fat wood pigeons eating the bird seed that has spilled from the feeder that is hooked up to the apple tree. They look good enough to eat and put me in a frame of mind so I am thinking it might be a good idea to have an air rifle to hand in the kitchen.