Foam, sweet foam

Air temperature 22 deg C, water temperature 10 deg C, which is now comfortingly into 2 digits, very arbitrary of course, because in Farenheit it has been in 2 digits since minus 20 C, but it is just a little lift and it feels like summer is arriving, at long last.

I wish my camera was working - there would be some sumptuous shots of the clear skies of Berwickshire this morning, and the duvet of haar mist covering the sea to the horizon and nestling up to the edges of the cliffs, fluffing and filling the bays and warming the toes of Torness power station. The mist gradually cleared and left one of those silky days where the sea blends into the sky and invites a dip.

I could hear the waves crashing on the rocks before I saw them - the "Ladies" was surrounded by breakers  and Green End Gully at 5pm was infested with snorkellers, 2 no., whom I forgave when they chatted helpfully. They had been in "The Ladies" with just fins, masks, and snorkels, to me it looked like Scyllla and Charybdis. They said it was full of bubbles, but I decided to go in the Gully, ouching because I had forgotten my sea shoes which protect my poor feet and their lumpy ganglions from sharp pebbles on the way in and out. The water felt a tiny bit warmer that last week, so I didn't follow my full improvised hakka/bushido routine to get my blood up and scare myself into the water. Other Half says this ritual is not intimidating, but rather funny.

The water was seething in eddies around the rocks and was covered in foam, I found myself inside a Heston Blumenthal dish, this is the fish course I had on my birthday; "Sound of the Sea", acompanied by a shell which contained an MP3 player and had earphones to listen to the sounds of waves on a beach.  You would have to try the dish to get the full effect, or try a dip in Green End Gully after a Northerly blow, snacking on floating bits of sea-lettuce as they come close.

While I was swimming, Bob the greyhound was trying hard to keep an eye on me - but he was on the grass in the sunshine so he was nodding off, as he was sitting there, lurching awake when his head lolled.  I swam to and fro for about 15 minutes, thinking that lengths in a swimming pool never felt as good as this, gasping with the waves smacking my face and floating on the tow of the sea moving towards the shore and then out towards the open sea. The swimming mask is a great thing, I have almost 180 degree vision which is good when I am worried about Porbeagles. I saw one last summer off Heugh Ness, quite a distinctive shape and motion, just not mistakeable for anything else. As I walked back up the rocks to the way home I saw a small boat out in the bay and thought how lovely it looked, it was then that OH rang to say that it was him in that little boat and was going to catch something for supper. He is out with the retired smoke-house owner; I think they set off with Mustad feathers so I will be interested to see what they catch.

On the way home I told Bob the Greyhound that I thought that days were not much better than this- a happy but poignant thing to consider, so to add to my joy, I had a whisky and ginger when I got home and put on some cool and groovy tunes. Other Half brought home the bacon, or fish, rather, in the form of a bucket of coal-fish, or coley so I heated up some new potatoes in a bit of butter. Coley is what posh southern ladies feed their cats. I enjoyed "woman with cats" translated as "spinster", I think it was the writers on Have I Got News For You, words delivered by Kathy Burke.  Anyway, coley when cooked, does not go bright white so is a bit of a hurdle for conservative eaters - it's more like mackerel in appearance, but more like cod in taste, but oh, so mild. I'm going to leave the other half bucketful in the fridge to see if it matures like a flat fish.

Note to self: must stop doing punny post titles. Not big or clever.

Auld Reekie

Just back from a dook at Green End Gully where the sea has been whipped into a froth, a fresh, sweet end to an exciting day. At lunchtime we drove away from a small private medical clinic in a bit of a lather - Long Suffering had just passed his medical certificate for sea-farers, always a bit of worry for anyone not a vegetarian fell-runner. Feeling our way back East through Edinburgh (after London) is a bit like a combination of a benign video game and orienteering, without a Satnav, that is, and what delightful places we found, so little of Edinburgh is iredeemable, unlike parts of Greater London.  Our behaviour was pretty irredeemable however- in a traffic queue we heard a taxi hooting, and in harmony, he a tenor-baritone, me a dodgy alto, we gave voice "TW*T!!" And found ourselves ashamed because the cabbie was just attracting a friend's attention in order to have a chat. Edinburgh drivers are incredibly laid back, while I was waiting I saw a woman change her mind about her chosen turning off a mini-roundabout, so she just reversed back through the roundabout to where she came from and the set off again; the driver in the car behind just reversed to give her room and then carried on without even banging his hands on the steering wheel, a paragon of patience and compassion.

Anway, lunch outside my favourite Turkish, "Truva", in Leith, LS relaxed in the sunshine for the first time this year and Bob the greyhound enjoyed lying on the pavement and being admired. I went indoors and was smiled at indulgently by obvious greyhound appreciators; lovely when I get beamed at merely for housing a retired athlete. I wonder if Mrs Lynford Christie enjoys the same approbation.  My brother used to own a leg of a racing greyhound bitch and it was during the time that the trainers stopped injecting testosterone, I wondered if that was because of concerns about excessive facial hair.

Something about having spent 30 years in London makes me shift into warp drive when I get into a city - I wish I could just dawdle like the other tourists. I made a lightening raid on a superb cheesemongers in Victoria Street, Mellis, that is and had a great chat with the lovely boys in there.  Corra Linn is a sheeps cheese http://www.cheesechap.com/2012/04/ij-mellis-scotlands-answer-to-neals.html made in Lanarkshire, the closest I can find in Scotland to pecorino. I am making it into a wild garlic pesto with rapeseed oil, I also bought some Isle of Mull Cheddar, but the year-old Corra Linn is lovely but almost gone now. The current new stock is still deeply complex but much "cheesier", strangely, without the fruitiness and the crystalline bite of the vintage stuff. I am hoping to persuade Mellis to "cellar" one for me, just like my brother's wine merchants care for his claret. Also has the effect of stopping me eating it.