There was a careful calibration to the tone of his voice. He took it on as the pints got a hold.

There were other men for whom the words would get lost in a slur but he slowed them down and took his time to pick over each word, treading carefully around its proper pronunciation until he got it out right and could move on to the next one.

My mind was almost as tightly wound as his tongue and as each word came out I tried to piece together its constituent parts and keep them together for long enough so I could take on the meaning of the next one. It was a bad combination and over the evening our conversation slowed down until he tried to explain something of his bad behaviour towards the mackerel.

‘There’s nothing in it’ he said. ‘A fish like that can come over a man until all there you need do was take the feckin’ thing off its bones and cook the two pieces in some butter and bacon fat.’

‘You’ve seen how they are in the light and their colours and how the skin will go hard and paperlike after a few hours. They are not a fish for waiting around and the fecks who try to put them in a deep freeze and eat them then are more fools than I can put a name on.’ ‘

Out of the water with the wet still on them there’s no grip in your hand to be had against them. And then if you try hold to take it off its hook.’

It is funny how a recipe can stay with you.

Almost twenty years ago I was given as a birthday present Sophie Grigson’s Meat Course. I am not sure I have looked at it much since then but one of things that I have made on a regular basis is her receipe for Mango Salsa to go with some spiced grilled chicken breast.

I made it last night again and looking back at the recipe this morning it was good to see that I had followed it exactly.

• 1 ripe mango peeled and chopped into small cubes
• 1 small red onion finely sliced
• 1 red chilli finely chopped
• a crushed clove of garlic
• juice of a lime
• olive oil
• salt
• a handful of finely chopped coriander leaves

Mix all together in a bowl and leave to stand in the fridge so the flavours get to know each other.

In the meantime cook your chicken breast – or for last night – pork chops and veggie burger all done on a small BBQ.

Eat with the salsa piled on your plate with some basmati and wild rice as the sun goes down and you listen to your youngest daughter tell you tales of Cornwall.

I have been up to the attic and forced open one of the windows that has been closed ever since we moved in 15 years ago and crawled halfway out onto the roof to get a a view  across the trees into the western sky and just about caught Venus and Jupiter in line.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

So tonight is one of those rare evenings we can open all doors at the back of the house and they can stay open until the sun has gone down and bats replace the swallows in their frittering around the trees.

It wasn’t quite so warm last night but all the children were away for forty-eight hours. More chance than any design they had managed to deposit themselves on almost all available options for the Celtic fringes. As has been reported already the oldest is in Ireland – in the meantime the other two have taken themselves of to Bude in Cornwall (the youngest for a school trip) and somewhere in North Wales (the middle one).

So with the new found freedom we took ourselves off for a walk along the old sandstone wall that runs north from Parkgate. It was just us and the birds and a few dog walkers. The dog walkers seemed appropriate given the joke just heard on Just a Minute around the topic of ‘a fork in the road’ and the Irish for dogging.

As we walked the full force of the evening sun was hidden amidst a bank of clouds but it gave out a clear distant light that picked up the mark on the horizon of Hilbre Island and the yachts on their side that lay in front of it.

Back home we finished off the cold sea trout, new potatoes and mayonnaise. The sea tout was almost better second time round.

Later in bed I filleted through the books on my bed side table and found that last year I had bought myself a How to Fish book on sea trout and read about them until the early hours.