Shooting Shags

I was alarmed to hear this morning that the government have issued a licence allowing anglers to shoot cormorants. We have plenty of fishermen in Surrey Quays and plenty of seabirds. Up until now they seem to have co-existed without incident. Londoners are trigger happy enough already without this kind of an excuse being offered to them.

Fortunately, our resident cormorant seems to be ahead of the game. He still spends much of his time sat on the island in the middle of Canada Water, wings wide like a blood sucking bat. But he's also taken to wandering down the Albion Channel. He waddles like a penguin, a gait that he must imagine is endearing, and drags his tail along the ground looking a little morose.

And then he puts on a fantastic display of ducking and diving in the shallow water, hungrily gulping down whole shoals of minnows - all too small to be of any interest to the fishermen.

Let's hope that he attracts the same respect as the coots who raised two broods this year on the same spot. Despite being within easy reach of the thoroughfare, none of the local brutes and vandals bothered them at all. Perhaps those Millwall fans are soft-hearted after all.

Chillification

Skene has tried to bring me over to his way of thinking on a number of issues over the last few years. He hasn't been entirely succesful. We still argue, for instance, over how often a house should be cleaned, whether the Booker Prize represents the "new illiteracy" and when to use a semi-colon.

One area where he has made progress though is chilli. I'm still not convinced that tabasco should be added to every meal and my vegetarianism has prevented me from trying a vindaloo or phal. But I have progressed from finger chillies to bird's eyes and from one per dish to four. Next stop Scotch Bonnets. And I've finally learnt not to rub my eyes after chopping them.

And so I was rather blase when Dave's Insanity Sauce appeared on the table at Dan and Lorna's farewell barbecue. I chivvied Skene into trying it and was seemingly oblivious to his look of surprise and discomfort. I didn't even read the label.

My turn next! I took a tiny dab from the sauce on Skene's finger tip and licked it eagerly. Nothing. And then five seconds later it kicked in! My eyes opened wide and I gasped for breath. Never before had my throat tingled from chilli sauce. Madness indeed.

One tiny drop was more than enough for me and so I opted for Lorna's delicious blue cheese dip on my chargrilled aubergine. Much more sensible.

Click for photos.

Beside the Seaside

With the summer drawing to a close, it was time for our annual trip to the beach. An early start was out of the question with James Clarke involved so our journey took twice as long as it should have done. We arrived in West Wittering famished and headed straight to the pub for re-fuelling. Once everyone had consumed twice their own weight in fish and chips, we headed for the beach.

We set up camp behind a groyne in earshot of some live jazz from a beachfront house. The boys threw themselves into tossing a ball around and flying Simon's power kite. I didn't quite know what to do with myself, being hopeless at catching, throwing and sitting still. I settled on a paddle and wandered down to the water's edge.

Having established that the water was not absolutely freezing (the blackboard said 19.2C), I was persuaded by JC and Skene to take a proper dip in the English Channel. They swam around whilst I tried to acclimatise by immersing myself one inch at a time. I kept an eye on the windsurfers (the byelaws impose £1000 fines on any surfers disturbing the bathers) and admired the Isle of Wight.

By the time they were ready to get out, I was ready to get in. I managed a few strokes before being dragged out of the waves by my impatient companions. It took us a little while to find our towels though as we hadn't taken a good enough mental note of where we'd left them and so had to wander up and down the beach a few times first! A very basic error revealing lack of practice.

Chichester was chosen for dinner. The only place that could seat eight was a melodramatic restaurant named "The Garrick". It couldn't have been further from the real Garrick. I knew that we'd made a dreadful mistake as soon as I saw the menu - "Act One", "Main Performance", "Encore". The sweaty, nervous maitre'd who turned up the CD of showtunes as he showed us to our table, didn't boost my confidence.

The decor was appalling: stained-glass panels stuck to the ceiling, red curtains halfway down the room for no apparent reason, faded table mats, Art Deco pound shop lamps with half of the bulbs blown... The chef's specials were forced upon us and I was cross-questioned when I asked for a glass of water rather than an apple and blackcurrant juice. The bottle was snatched back from Mark when he tried to pour his own wine. Customer service in the extreme.

And the food! The food? Soft white baps, halved, were served as bread. How much more difficult or expensive would it have been to serve a classic baguettte? We skipped starters, not wanting to prolong the agony and it proved a sensible decision when the main courses arrived. The lamb steak was accompanied by bisto gravy, there was no sauce in the "authentic Italian" lasagne and the dominant flavour in the chilli sauce accompanying my (surprisingly well cooked) red snapper was tomato puree. Not a very special chef's special.

We could have filled two episodes of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares but instead spent the evening giggling behind the maitre'd's back and debating whether it would have been too late to run away when the bread had been delivered. I can only imagine that O.A.P. coach trips keep the place afloat.

Tired out by fresh air, it was with a sense of relief that we turned north for civilisation.

Check out the photos here.

Sempervivums?

It seems that there's a Trade Descriptions Act issue with my succulents. Although billed as "sempervivums", they're now dying. I was pleased to see them flower but I'm told that that represents their death throes. Harumph.

There are signs of life elsewhere in the garden though. There are huge yellow flowers about to burst into butternut squashes and tiny yellow blossoms which will soon develop into succulent organic tomatoes. The aubergine plants are thinking seriously about being fruitful and the spinach is expanding.

So it looks like we should be able to survive the winter.