After an ill-tempered sleep last night I tried to catch up this afternoon in the hammock.

I was close to it when my body forgot where it was and I tried to turn over and almost found myself on the ground. Before I could get back to it I felt the first drops of rain and beat it back inside.

Before that I spent some time de-cluttering. First to go was the 12 month pile of post that has been gathering on the table in the hall. It was then onto the fridge which yielded three opened half empty tins of sweet corn, three jars of almost empty red pesto, a full jar of pickled chilli slices and two half full jars, two half full jars of grain mustard and two half full jars of mayonnaise. There was also a small tub of yogurt with a use by date of September 2014 and various tubs and jars covered in a grey layer of mould.

No doubt they will all be back this time next year when I get round to doing it again.

To make up for all that bad old food we had a wild sea trout this evening cooked on the BBQ.

It was presented to me yesterday morning as an offer that was too difficult to refuse. A modest monster of a fish that just needed to be roasted for an hour or so before being eaten with a good sauce.

The sauce was a sala verde mayonaise from the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall book on fish. I started off making it in the food processor but that split badly so I had to set to work again with a strong right hand and a whisk. Turns out that initial failure works well as we were left with a thick unctuous lubrication that was almost good enough to eat by itself.

There will be enough sea trout for fish cakes tomorrow. In the meantime we are listening to devastating flamenco.

I can relax. My courgettes have now caught up with the best of those in Oxton and we have flowers. I will be munching them down within the week. The courgettes themselves still have a few weeks to go and will probably reach their pomp whilst we are away in Ireland so we can come back to a bunch of green monsters.

Behind the courgettes the quince bush is heavy with small fruit. I am sure it has done this in previous years and they have all come to naught.

In the kitchen we have been eating chicken.

Before the Father’s Day treat of a walk through the Secret Garden’s of Oxton we had some presents and one of them included Diane Henry’s book on chicken.

Now Diane Henry is responsible for some of my favourite recipes. They come from her book Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons and include what she calls Pearl Diver’s Rice – which is basically a very rich Persian rice topped off with honey and more sweetness in a dish of monkfish with caramelized onions, raisins and more honey.

so I have been quietly excited about the idea of her doing a whole book on chicken.

We were not disappointed last night when I cooked some vietnamese caramelized ginger chicken. There is something about the combination of fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and chilli that always makes me want more.

Coming from work there wasn’t time to marinade the chicken for quite enough time but it still took on some of the flavour it needed. A vegetarian alternative was made with aubergine and sweet potato.

We then finished the leftovers off for lunch with a salad made with rice vermicelli, radish and cucumber and a dressing made with more chilli and garlic, ginger, lime juice, sugar and fish sauce.

So this evening it appears we have fallen out with the neighbours.

For most of the day it has been grey and cold and late in the afternoon I was able to fall asleep in the hammock with a warm sun on my face. The warmth has carried through to the evening but we are all sat indoors windows and doors closed trying to keep out the noise from next door.

It might have been okay if the music was okay to listen to but they appear to have dragged in a warbler over an overloud guitar singing feckin’ Oasis sub covers. We do not need this on a Saturday night.

There has of course been a temptation to show them some proper music and give out a good full blooded blast of Rocket from the Crypt. But the temptation has been resisted so far.

Instead we have had a good supper of salmon with pasta.

Four smallish salmon steaks poached in white wine skin side down until cooked through enough so the skin could be peeled off then taken out and put to one side.

Garlic was then fried in the pan in olive oil for a minute before a couple of handfuls of halved cherry tomatoes were added with the white wine in which the salmon had been cooked. As that came to a simmer I stirred in a tub of  creme fraiche and a similar tub of creamed cheese.

In the meantime pasta had been cooking.

A few minutes before the pasta was cooked I cut the salmon steaks into chunks and stirred them into the sauce.

It was then a question of seasoning with lots of salt, pepper and dill. And listening quietly to some kick ass rock’n’roll.