Sunday 11 April 2010

Seaweed and leave it

Found my friend out on the deck this morning, drinking a cup of coffee in the blazing sunshine. Still in pyjamas. He's leaving today and is making the most of the unexpected super-clement weather bonanza.

We went for a stroll on the shore yesterday and I picked up various bits of unappetising-looking sea vegetation. Bright green gutweed is slimy and cold on the shore but I was imagining drying it out and sprinkling with sugar to make a crunchy wee snack. Too many sewage outlets around though, so much better to collect closer to the low tide mark another day. The outlets from the newer houses should be much cleaner - SEPA now insists that the "grey water" goes through secondary filtration before discharge onto the shore. But there are still many older outflows which are basically leaky septic tanks.

Later we ate barbecued food. This was cooked on my "unique" contraption composed of an old submarine pressure hatch (or maybe a ship's porthole cover) sitting atop part of the base of an ancient stove. Various tasty fake-meat products (I love a bit of mycoprotein); and griddled/fried vegetables in olive oil, herbs and garlic. Shove that lot into a crusty brown roll with some salad and, voila, a very sore jaw. Actually quite tasty but I did feel a bit like a snake learning to dislocate its jaw in order to accommodate a whole goat.

After the meal we went out and stoked up the barbecue with wood. Instant fire pit. A clear, starry night; we identified a few constellations and saw the dot of a satellite flare up as reflected light briefly caught its mirrored surfaces.

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