Cooking on a quiet Sunday.

I try to make it a rule to always cook something when the Rayburn is lit. Even on a cold wet miserable day when it would seem enough effort simply to allow it to heat the water and radiators I like to get something in the oven. On inspecting the larder there was ample cake on the shelf, the biscuit tin was full and below the jam and preserves looked healthy.

 Then as I admired the wonderful sponge mincer that I’d picked up for a pound years ago an idea sprang to mind. I’d make kale and potato cakes as I had both in the garden and maybe I could try mincing the blanched curly kale and brown bread. It worked a dream and I have enough for the rest of the week.

 Don't you just hate people who take photos of food! Traditionally they are served with cold gammon, or with bacon or grilled sausages but unless some road-kill turns up I’ll be sticking to the staple vegetarian mushroom and cheese omelette. I had the remaining mushroom soup at lunchtime, made with field mushrooms that I’d filled my bonnet with when down sketching on Garry beach. I can guarantee here in New Tolsta that any fresh mushrooms are mine by rights or more accurately because I’m the only one who would dare eat anything that didn’t come in a plastic supermarket wrapper. “I’ve only poisoned myself once” I say with gay abandon and see them determined to politely decline any invite to dine at Tom’s house. This year with the dry summer I gave up bothering with growing lettuce as I now prefer the lemon tang of wild sorrel that grows here in abundance. I’m also celebrating not buying any jam having been self-sufficient on that front for the past thirty years.

Having finished cooking I put the scrubbed deer’s head on the Rayburn to dry. A neighbour had found it on the moor and brought it round for me in the week. Wonderful that the sight of a dead skull should immediately make people think of me.