You would expect a waterside place like Dartmouth to have a good supply of fresh fish and the town certainly doesn't fail to deliver here. In the market place on most days, there is the best wet fish shop I have seen in recent times. It's a veritable cornucopia. There are fish there that I couldn't name nor recognise. It reminds me of the description of a similar stall in The Prawns of Lebowa. There really are all varieties and it is quite a challenge to come away with only those items decided upon before arrival. I have tried huss for the first time. An interesting texture a bit like a sort of fish tofu that soaks up flavour beaustiful in something like a Thai Curry. Having only ever seen the long pinkish fillets of the fish previously, I was fascinated when a small shark like creature was produced from a large bucket under the counter, eviscerated and then filleted by expert hands and a sharp knife. In no time at all two good (pinkish) fillets were on the counter before me. " It was in the sea yesterday". Sea bream just tastes divine even though it is a bit picky with the bones. Oven baked it was a tasty meal. Red mullet of course an utter gem: have been back a few times for those. Hake, another new fish to me and one that I thought would be flakey in texture . How wrong I was. I wanted two thick pieces and a huge fish was duly lifted from under the counter and two large pieces of 'loin' we removed. That was cooked in the pan and served with new potatoes, a fresh tomato melange and samphire. The mussels are truly the plumpest ones that I have ever eaten. Again, simply cooked: finely chopped onion and garlic and black pepper fried up in a little olive oil or butter in the base of a large pan, a little dry white wine and then the prepared mussels into a large pan for long enough to cook. Discard any that don't open of course. And served with some sourdough baguette from the French Bakery just opposite the market. And the prawns - where to begin? Juicy and sweet, it is like rediscovering food every time. This simple dish is one that could very well be a picture of the Prawns of Lebowa. Served whole and eaten (mostly) whole for the benefit of my knees. The scallops! Well what can I say about those? Huge plump juicy things with beautiful orange coral. So fresh that they are often still alive ( which may or may not sound gross). Pan fied in a little olive oil and butter, they taste like a slice of heaven on earth. The freshness of the catch can be a little disturbing. My particular distress was to see a collection of octopus on the stall. I watched in horror as one of the tentacles unwound itself with deliberate yet hopeless intent across the surface of the other dead or partially dead flesh. I have to confess that I was sorely tempted to buy the creature just so that I could drop the unfortunate thing back into the estuary. No such scruples about the excellent samphire that you can buy there however. Always a great addition to a fishy feast!

The biryani is a perfect one pot dish that is so easy to prepare and cook that its a wonder it isn't more popular. This recipe has been cobbled together from a number of sources and adapted to suit my taste and the amount of time required to prepare and cook it. This one pot curry is a little different to the one described in the novel, The Xandrian Quarters but in the spirit of the book and its influences, I have chosen lamb as the meat. It could equally be chicken or indeed vegetable based. I have a fancy to try aubergine and will report back in some future post. Ingredients ( for two persons), the following:- 1.5 cups Long grain rice (white) 1 cup lamb stock 3 cups water 325g butterflied lamb leg 1 medium red onion finely diced 2 garlic cloves 150 waxy new potatoes 1 tbsp (heaped) Greek yoghurt 70g long stemmed broccoli 30g Celery tops finely sliced / diced 1 Bird's eye chilli (finely sliced / diced) 1 tbsp Ground coriander 1 tbsp Ground cumin 1/2 tbsp Ground turmeric 1 x 2 inches Cinnamon stick 1/2 tbsp (half) Ground cayenne pepper 1/2 tbsp Ground paprika 3 whole cloves Salt to taste (we didn't add any) 1 tbsp oil for frying Method Pre-heat the oven to 180C (Fan) or 200 conventional). Gas 6. Make sure that you have a large enough oven proof pot with a close fitting lid. The pot in the images below was just about sufficient for a recipe for 4 (i.e. doubled up). Wash the rice a few times in cold water and then leave to stand in a large bowl of warm water for 20 to 30 minutes . Slice and chop the garlic, chilli and celery tops if not already done. If the lamb has a skin , remove it. It doesn't matter if the meat is in parts once this is done, but the meat does not need to be diced. Rub some additional paprika, chilli and coriander powder into the lamb meat. Meanwhile in the pot that you will use for cooking the biryani in the oven, fry the finely diced onions in the oil until soft then add the garlic and celery tops and chilli and continue to fry for a further 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Drain the rice and then pour the fried vegetables into the drained rice mix. Remove the tops of the cloves and discard the stalks and then add all the spices to the rice bowl. Mix thoroughly. Place the small potatoes to the cooking pot and add the yoghurt and mix together loosely. (Yes there are small carrots and one brussel sprout in the image - these extra raw ingredients were just available - waste not want not!) Pour the rice mixture onto the potatoes and level out but do not mix . (Leave the potatoes on the base if possible but it doesn't matter if a few get to the surface). Add the lamb stock and the water to the pot. Drop the broccoli into the pot and leave spread about the surface then add the meat to the top. At this point there should be liquid covering the surface with the lamb sitting just like a meaty island. Place the lid on the pot ( preferably a tight fitting one to minimise evaporation) before placing in the centre of the preheated oven. Cook for about 50 minutes to an hour or until the rice is done. Remove from oven and leave to stand for about 10 minutes before serving. The meat will need cutting. Dig deep for the potatoes! Add some fresh cut green herbs ( eg coriander or parsley or methi). We used parsley from one of our two Auks.(Our indoor herb garden) bon appétit! Our Two Auks

Went walkabout around the Quay just before lunchtime today. It was quite busy as the season is picking up and the number of people walking aimlessly about at the waterfront is increasing now. I stood at my door for a while until I had a suitable slot and then I slipped into the stream and joined the flow avoiding, with moderate success, some butt-ugly dog that was gasping and snorting on the end of a short leash. On the south embankment, there is only one pub near the waterside. A decent enough sort of place: not the kind that graced the pages of Seagrum the Dwarf. Just up from there was an ambulance and a coastguard search and rescue vehicle. I assumed that someone had gone in the water earlier. Not wanting to appear too curious, I made my way further down the embankment to look at the water as it rippled vigorously in the light breeze that was blowing. I have recently been struck by the refraction of light in water. I guess that is because I see the stuff more frequently: morning noon and night on dog walks as a minimum and plenty of other times in between. I am not entirely sure whether it matters if the light has natural source or is man made; is night or day; sunny or overcast; early morning or as the sun goes down. It seems, at certain times, to give the water a viscosity that goes beyond its actual physical properties. To give shape to the water. I am not observing this as a scientist and I am not referring to any of the physical qualities associated with the liquid. It is simply the mystery of light as it reflects and refracts on and in the water of the river. Take some observations from today as I walked around the boat pool and along the Quayside... A hot midday sun with some cloud and enough of a breeze to ruffle the water in the estuary, leaving the river with a surface of quicksilver. Yet, insufficient wind to disturb the surface of the boat pool...where the surface looked like an impressionists palette.... However in the boat pool there was a shoal of young mullet milling about and occasionally making the surface bubble and roil to keep the visual momentum. You can just see the ripple of a fish rising in the "impressionists" shot. I watched them for a while hoping to catch a good shot of the shoal itself but only managed that with a video , the single images more apparent as the shape of water than the texture of the fish. My musings were brought to an end by an alarm on my phone to remimd me of another client call in a few minutes. I headed back home leaving the mullet to do what they do whilst above them in shoals, the humans swirled around and around.

Well, we moved onto The Quay on 20th March 2025 after living for over 40 years in Frome in Somerset. It was quite a transition from a large four bedroomed house built in 1867 with a large garden and 4 decades of clutter to a second floor apartment on a Quayside in Dartmouth with no clutter. Well almost. There were a few things that we could not part with and that small collection of things came with us. We couldn't bear to leave these guys behind It was quite an experience, getting rid of so much that we had held dear for so long. Much of it went 'on the wall' as we put it. Anything small enough to sit on our front wall went out there. Over a period of about six months we had moved pretty much the entire contents of our loft through the house, onto the wall and then into the new owners car or carried off in their arms. Death cleaning, the Swedes call it and I guess that is what it is. We have at least spared our offspring the bitter sweet experience of sorting out the belongings post mortem. More Brio trains From a purely personal point of view I think that we both found the action quite enlightening in most senses of the word. The sheer weight of having two huge prams in the loft; the boxes upon boxes of clothes ; treasure chests of lego; almost all the large activity Playmobil sets that were around when our children were growing up; more Brio train sets than you could count. It all went. One last fossil - a doorstop Even my library and my collection of fossils ( admittedly they went to one of our grandsons). The books went in a mixture of ways: gifts to second hand book sales; some, I'm afraid, went to the local recycling; some on the wall to avid readers. St Augustine's, De Civitas Dei went to a retired Anglican clergyman just up the road. It was a sad series of days that they went, I have to say. Now I have a small but select collection of about 10 books, plus my own scribblings and about 15 cookery books that I was unable to part with. The learning that we took from that experience was probably as follows. Firstly, they are only possessions - it's just 'stuff' - and let's face it none of it is going with us when we take the final journey in this life. Secondly, it was helpful to gift things rather than sell them. That way we felt that we hadn't crystalised a loss but had contributed to other peoples lives. Thirdly there was a kind of symbiosis thing going on. We had a number of small chicken houses that were fit for burning along with a couple of old water tanks that were littering up the garden . Not to mention two survivors of our great chicken experiment, two unnamed hens that still occasionally provided us with eggs. The great chicken experiment These all went at no cost to us and at considerable value to him, to a local gypsy who in the end proved to be very resourceful in removing unwanted things from our garden (with our blessing). The hen houses he tidied up; the water tanks went to store water for his goats; the hens went to live out their old age in his garden. Finally, we got the chance to hand things over to our kids in their lifetime without the difficulty of bereavement (for them) or the risk of quarrels over the spoils.

A garden tended well should give back far more than a human can put into it. We tended our garden in Frome for over forty years during which time we grew a mini coppice at the side of the house and managed the decline and removal of the ancient apple trees that defined the garden when we first moved in. We kept the original paths and added to the number of borders, reducing the area of lawn. We went through a fortune's worth of plants as we painted this wonderful canvass with iris (the flag varieties refused to grow), monarda, primula and peony to name but a few. At one time we had over thirty species of salvia. Despite the hard work, it was a place of peace and tranquility; a place of sense and sensuality . At the end, the herbaceous borders were still growing strong when we left Broadway. Nothing short of a mechanical digger was going to stop the crowns of astilbe, phlox, goats beard, hemerocallis, Siberian irises and so on. Yet in truth it was more than we could manage. We had already failed to clear the main paths around the garden for the first year ever. I had also rebuilt a large part of the surrounding walls ( five foot high) as drystone on my own in recent years because the older constructions had fallen over, the thought of having to repeat the task for some of the remaining areas, was more than my aging self could handle. The limitation brought about by age, or rather in anticipation of the limitations that would eventually be imposed by age were one of the deciding factors in our eventual move to Dartmouth. So how do you go from managing God's quarter acre to living in a second floor apartment in a Grade II listed building of 77 square metres? Decisively, of course! Initially we had thought that our only gardens would be Royal Avenue Gardens on the other side of the Boat Float. However on a cold December's day on Newcastle's moor, we had a conversation with a friend of one of our daughters. We had just sold our Frome house and were expressing our regret at the loss of a garden and in particular the loss of access to fresh herbs. "Why don't you try hydroponics," he said,"you can get units that will fit a kitchen." The conversation went on a while and then eventually his children called him away but it left the germ of an idea. When we got back home ( our daughter's home as we were at that point technically homeless) we dived into Google and found some interesting results. Eventually we found a product by Auk in Sweden. It looked practical and the idea seemed plausible and it would give us ( if it worked) fresh herbs all year round growing in our kitchen. It is a measure of our outlook on life that we ordered two of these units even before we had a home to move into. For more about Auk click on the link here but from our point of view it is a brilliant idea. Setting up was easy; growing and watering was easy and tidy; all the seed varieties germinated and started producing. So far, since planting in March, we have grown and continue to benefit from the following crops: Lettuce Oregano Sweet Mace Argula Basil Watercress Flat-Leaf Parsley Coriander They are still cropping on the kitchen worktop four months on and look as though they will continue for some time to come. We have just bought a new supply of coir, nutrients and seeds to replace the stock when they stop producing ( although I think that we may have to force the issue). The only aspect that might be a negative ( and we haven't bothered to work it out) is the potential energy cost for the LED lighting. This is a passion for us so frankly we don't care. So that was the productive gardening sorted out. All that we needed now was a form of flowering and ornamental planting. Did I mention that our apartment is north facing? It has a lot of benefits but it does limit what you can grow indoors. We have gone for the easy option of three medium sized foliage plants that we picked up from Marks and Spencer and we may eventually go back and get another. So that just leaves the trees... perhaps we might consider a bonsai?

Norway may be one of the more expensive countries to visit but it is a marvellous place in terms of its scenery, its culture and its people. After all, you have to recognise the simple efficiency with which the public transport services are run. The fact that everything looks clean. The simple observation that even the people begging on the street have a VIPS (sort of bank account) to receive payments from donors. Our reason for travelling there is to visit our daughter and her family in Oslo and we have managed three trips together, two in the summer and one in November. The November visit introduced us to the concept of cold. At its coldest it was only -12C for one day whilst we were there but the whole idea of Sognsvann being frozen over for a further five months at least was a bit mind bending. The cold pop pool I’m a made me think about the first chapter of The Collector of Tales. I was particularly excited to explore the culinary delights of Norwegian food, traditional food that is but the whole concept was more or less dispelled on a first walk into downtown Oslo. Looking at the various eateries on offer, there were every variety of cuisine under the sun. The most dominant appeared to be sushi, followed by bakeries but there wasn't anywhere that was clearly set out as a traditional Norwegian menu. Indeed, in the first visit we made we didn't try anything specifically Norwegian ( ok maybe other than brown cheese) except the bolle. Whilst not exactly a healthy snack especially in terms of the butter content, they are difficult to refuse. We found an excellent little bakery on Inkognito Terrasse in Oslo called Apent bakeri. In my opinion, they offered the best bolle and kanelsnurra. We liked them so much that we brought a copy of their Bread Baking cookbook back with us and have tried our own versions with some success. It wasn't until we took the second trip that we risked something that looked at least like it was Norwegian food. We were visiting a viking village at the end of the world's longest road tunnel at Njardarheimr. It was a salted meat fest with mashed kohl rabi. It was good solid comforting food. The kind of thing I guess a viking would expect when he came back in from viking. I wouldn't repeat it though and was indeed only glad that it didn't repeat on me. Looking back at the menu board it went by the name of Potato dumplings and I guess that I can see that now. Actually it was better than it looked by a long way. This all being said, am sure that I haven’t done justice to Norwegian food and so I will have to explore further when next we visit.

Food has always been a big part of my life and cooking for other people is one of those pleasures that makes life worth living. This love of cooking is a theme that permeates the ideas and behaviours of many of the characters in my novels. Have a look at the chef Leon in A History of the Troll Wars for example. There was a chef who was always prepared and ready to cook! There is a page on this site that is dedicated to some favourite recipes that I have included for interest (hopefully) and to remind myself of the ingredients for when I want to recreate the meal. I find that as I get older, I tend to forget small matters about the taste or combinations of taste. Besides it hopefully provides a little variety. It seems to me that we have a natural tendency to follow the same culinary paths and retrace our steps over the weeks and months. With that comes the danger of familiarity and then what was once an experiment in taste becomes comfort food that is turned out with no sense of soul. That being said, the biryani that is shown here is truly comfort food. It is a one-pot dish; is so easy to prepare and cook; can be cooked with different meats; would probably do well with aubergine and okra; tastes delicious. I have tried a Spanish style recipe replacing Indian spices with smoked paprika, chilli, coriander and preserved lemons. It worked ok but it needs a bit of further thought to make it worth reporting on here. Some of the recipes that will be included are comfort food in their own right. After all, the first entry is Migas, the Spanish 'leftovers' meal shown in an image at the head of this post. The second recipe is the ubiquitous pizza which I have included so that those of my children who wish to go there, can try it out. It is weird to think that back in the late seventies (1978 to be precise) when eating a pizza in a restaurant was a trip to Pizzaland, our own homemade version included cooking the topping ingredients first. Well what could we do, there was no internet? Our parents , along with most of the country it has to be said, at that time were pretty ignorant of Italian food than the ubiquitous spagetti bolognaise (smothered in long life parmesan of course). Ignorance is not necessarily bliss. Now of course we have a surfeit of information available” to us. You want a chocolate pizza? I'm sure there is an offering out there on the web. The question now is whether you should go there or not. So the theory is that now I have a bit more time available, some of the recipes and menus that are used on a monthly basis will be documented and recorded for others to consider and maybe use. Equally, it will provide place to go for a revisit of some favourites. I'll share failures as well as successes. Take a recent meal of wild mushrooms and pasta. Raw ingredients were good but there were basically not enough of the fungi and the whole thing whilst tasty, didn't look much on the plate! I'll also not exclude vegetable dishes. If you're a vegan then you probably wont get much out of the recipes but if you like vegetables or are looking for vegetarian dishes, then there will be a few offerings. In some cases - aubergines in particular - I prefer them to meat. Indeed often I wonder just exactly what the meat itself actually brings to the table in terms of taste. (Perhaps I'm cooking it wrong.) Fish on the other hand is a subject to itself. The only substitute for fish is another fish! As has been said before on here. There is no point being in Dartmouth and not being able to access fish and shellfish in particular. And below is another example of a prawn dish similar to the title of the book, The Prawns of Lebowa.