Five days in Ahakista and I still have not caught a mackerel. I went out in the boat first day and caught nothing and I was out again for an hour yesterday morning without even so much as a nibble on the line.

In between the wind and rain were too much to go out all.

It was still grey in the morning until it then cleared enough for us to be able to eat breakfast outside but after that another grey heavy cloud billowed up from behind the hills and it brought down a quick shower of rain. That cleared after ten minutes and as it did so the sun came out and the wind blew itself away. The sea came up a deep Caribbean blue, the tide was coming in and all looked right to out fishing.

I motored the small grey dingy out beyond the boats at anchor in Kitchen Cove but as I got out towards the point near Owen Island another grey cloud billowed up and I could see the pinprick splashes of rain in the sea. It came down heavy for ten minutes and I resolved to switch off the engine and start fishing once it had stopped. That took me another few hundred yards beyond the point. Most years this would be a prime position to drop down a line and haul it straight back in every hook weighed down with a fish. But this morning there was nothing. That didn’t matter at first. The sun was up high in the blue sky, there was light on the holes and from where I drifted I could look up and see the full sink of the Atlantic out beyond the head of the Bay.

After half an hour I still had nothing and the wind was starting up. It whipped at the water and suddenly there was a turn in the weather, the boat took on a heavier drift and there seemed even less prospect of being able to haul in a line of fish up from out of the water. I pulled in the line and made the hard beat back to the pier the small boat being pulled across the water by the wind pushing hard against the engine.

Later that afternoon we made up for the lack of mackerel excitement by volunteering for a rescue mission and being rescued ourselves.

One of the big boats that over-winter in Kitchen Cove had been out or a couple of days. Its tender had been left on a yellow buoy and in the gale like winds it had been tipped over with its engine on and so had to be rescued and taken to shore. This meant that when the big boat came back in it had no tender to make the journey back to the pier. So we volunteered to take the grey dingy out to pick up the man on board. This is all worked fine and we had ten minutes on the boat and an opportunity to take a look inside. Back on the dingy we headed back to the pier only to have the engine cut out and refuse to start. Now we were drifting with the wind and only two feeble oars row paddle us back to shore. At this point another small boat passed by. It was laden with disappointed fishermen who were happy to be handed a rope and pull us back to land.

That evening we ate fried breaded haddock with roasted potatoes and an improvised tartare sauce made from a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise, capers, olives, garlic and a couple of spoonfuls of the French mustard I found at the back of the cupboard.

If the mackerel drought continues then I may have to pick up a catapult and have a go at the rabbit that has been spotted nibbling the green grass in the orchard.

Third day in and the weather had closed round. Grey clouds barrelling up the bay followed by hard rain that came down in horizontal sweeps obliterating the hills across the water until the views was just a suffused hard grey.

The only option was a walk and so we took fifteen minutes drive up towards the head of the peninsula. The car was parked and we walked a few hundred yards along the road past a Holy Well and then took a track down towards the water. The weather was still grey but the rain had tempered off to a low cloud. It still came skittering along with the wind but there was more of a softness to it now.

Any softening in the weather was gone by the time we got to the water. There was a small strand of broken rocks hemmed in by land and all opened up to the full force of the Atlantic coming in. Blocks of concrete had been laid to make up a small pier and slipway but they were both smeared with the detritus that had been heaved in by the sea.

Turning left we put our backs to sea walking across fields and through an old path laid out with stones. At one point the path was blocked by a field full of cows and we had to scrabble through hedges and stones to get around them. Back on the road we walked past a field to our right studded with low stones. Looking at we realised we were stood next to an old burial ground and the stones were markers for graves. It was a bleak cold place in the wind and rain coming in off the sea. A lonely but beautiful place to be laid down.

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That evening we ate Boston Baked Beans. A large hunk of bacon picked up from the fridge in the shop in Durrus, cut inti one inch chunks, then fried in olive oil with onions and garlic and half a bottle of cider with beans and tomatoes. It went down well with hunks of bread.

We arrived early Friday morning after a mad drive through the night across the centre of Ireland. I have now worked out a method to help keep my eye on the road when in other circumstances tiredness might start to tell.

This involves having two cans of Coke beside me in the car. Pulling out of Dublin and as the building by the side of the road give way to countryside I start to play out in my mind when I shall open the first can and how I shall space out the sips that I take from it.. I had closed my eyes for an hour or so on the ferry and so felt refreshed in the car and on this basis I decided I could leave it until we got past Portlaoise before I open the can and then after that I could space out the sips for every 50 kilometres or so that were passed. That way the first can should get me to Cork and I could then open the second as we pulled up the Bandon Road under the viaduct.

It all more or less worked out okay. I finished the first can just as went over the bridge past Fermoy and next morning I found the second can in the car with one sip of Coke left to go.

We arrived at the Cottage at 3.45am having past just the one car, three foxes and a hedgehog on the road from Cork. I am still worrying about the hedgehog. It was in the middle of the road and staring right at the car as it came into the sweep of the headlights. It went right between the wheels.

Next day we woke slowly into sunlight and bright water and started the long slow fall into summer.

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That first morning we bought hake at Bantry Market and roasted it over fried potatoes and onions and tomatoes.

Last night we had a confusion of sisters, nephews, nieces and grand-parents round for supper.

It was, of course, a Tuesday evening and so there wasn’t a huge amount of time to manage the journey back from work and the space needed to make some good food. The intention was to have a BBQ. But in the event the weather was too grey to make it a convincing one.

Time was saved by me making a piri-piri marinade to go with a bucket load of chicken. It went down so well that it is perhaps worthwhile rehearsing how it was made. All credit should go to the Morito cookbook from where the recipe came.

The only hardship in the cooking of it was the roasting of a couple of red peppers and chilli peppers until black and blistered, letting them cool and then going through the mess of denuding them of their skin and seeds. Once peeled they went into the Magimix together with:-

• a good glass of white wine
• a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar sweetened with sugar
• a dried red chilli pepper
• ground coriander
• 8 fresh bay leaves
• some crushed garlic
• oregano from the garden
• paprika
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

and was all whisked up into a thick bright red liquid which was then smeared over a mixture of chicken wings, legs and thighs. Slightly smugly the Morito book says they neber marinade anything for less than 24 hours. My chicken was in its red mix for 48 hours and tasted all the better for it.

The chicken was cooked on the BBQ but I misjudged some of the timing and so as to avoid our all eating sometime after midnight it was finished off in the oven. Some things just need time to get right.

We ate it with a chopped vegetable salad, salad from the garden and new potatoes. It was followed by a salted liquorice courtesy of The Good Things Cafe.

I had hoped some of the chicken would be left for my lunch today but a hungry nephew finished it all off.

Now we are girding loins and getting ready to make the drive tomorrow evening to Holyhead and then the mad overnight drive across the centre of Ireland. We should arrive in Ahakista early Friday morning as dawn is starting to crack across the sky behind us and the fishermen are pulling up with their cars against the pier for their days work.

We will soon be eating in The Good Things Cafe and drinking black pints with men with beards and sloughing off the skin of the daily grind.

We are all looking forward to it.