In the pond with the frog spawn and the black dot in the middle of each egg has grown and started to thin out. As I walked up to the pond there was the noise of something puling back under the water but I was too slow to see what it was.

Despite the frost one morning last week it is starting to feel warmer outside and the light has changed – as if the extra few hours of sun at the beginning and the end of the day has somehow made the day brighter – scrubbed away some of the grey and the wet.

There was some mashed potato left over from last nights supper so I used it to make four potato cakes stirring into the potatoes some chopped chives, parsley and spring onions and a small half block of soft goat cheese all with plenty of pepper. I then used my hands to squeeze it all together and shaped them into four cakes.

I fried them in bacon grease using the same pan I had used for breakfast and we ate them with sausages.

If there was a top list of unexpected sights then me on a bike might be up there in the top four or five. Despite that I managed an hour on the back of one this afternoon.

I was obliged to drop a child off in Caldy for three hours of swimming lessons so I shoved into the back of the car the now slightly rusty and cranky bike I bought more than ten years ago.

I left the car in West Kirby and started on the bike. I think, so far as bikes are concerned, so long as it is flat I feel reasonably comfortable. This may be part of the Dutch heritage. So  I was okay on the Wirral Way, a straight flat line of track with nothing to avoid but people.

The ride took me up to views over the Dee Estuary which was in full tide. Strange to see fishing boats out there.

Back at home we had chicken in a tomatoey, vinegar sauce courtesy of Simon Hopkinson.