Life's Baleen Good

A big boat off the Banffshire coast
by fitaloon (sourced from Flickr)

It's cloudier today, with a curiously warm east wind pushing a swell in towards Gastrobeach. The swell made for interesting swimming conditions yesterday: It had churned up seaweed and sand murk from the bottom of the wee cove, so I couldn't really see what I was swimming through. Being carried back towards shore by rolling waves was fun despite the several mouthfuls of salty water I scooped up along the way. Just give me some baleen and I could filter-feed.

A summer (so far) of sea, celebration and spectacular sunshine. All, as you would expect, a bit fishy too. Shiny new memories glittering like a line-full of darrow-hooked mackerel.

We headed north-east at the start of the holidays, to stay once again at the tiny fishermans' cottage, and indulge in a week of fresh seafood and coconut ice-cream. My menu for the week turned out something like this:

• Saturday - out to the chippy for scampi, chips and a bottle of too-sweet rose wine (from the Spar across the street)
• Sunday - hmm, didn't write that one down, so it must have been meat
• Monday - smoked hake with salsa and oatcakes, followed by rock turbot in a cream sauce with roasted tomato salad on the side
• Tuesday - mussels cooked in white wine and garlic, followed by sea bass in a teriyaki/balsamic/chili reduction
• Wednesday - dressed crab, then skate with a lemon butter and caper sauce
• Thursday - fresh hake with herb butter, followed by that very special coconut ice-cream
• Friday - didn't write that one down either, but I think it was a large bag of prawns cooked in garlic butter

While I'm making lists I will create one about some of the inferences we can draw from the above:

1. We ate a lot of (excellent) food
2. We were not on any (recognisable) form of low-fat diet
3. We were (unequivocally) spoiled
4. While I have no particular problem with the lingering odour of fish and garlic, Glade will not be marketing that particular fragrance any time soon.

Now we're back home, and work beckons. But the Perseid meteor shower on a balmy, midge-free August evening was a rather special way to round off the holidays.