From my position on a sun-bed from which I didn’t much move for a couple of days (having worked my backside off for the days prior and in anticipation of the days coming ahead where a list of jobs is mounting) I was dreaming of sardines. Funnily enough not the fresh variety at that moment but the really high quality tinned ones from St Jean de Luz on the Atlantic coast, which are canned in wafer thin lemon slices and dressed in light olive oil. They are delicious and make a great snack.

The other thing I was thinking was of toasted campagne bread, with the sardines on, drizzled in some of their own oil and topped with a slice of these wonderful heavy moist tomatoes.

I rolled over – Rocket was up and scuttling around….I peeped over my sunglasses “what do you fancy for lunch?”

“Well” I said and he smiled because this is usually the point of some debate and I often end up eating some bread and butter or a bowl of chopped salad veg…

I described my fishy hearts desire. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting that!” I said “I’ll do it” struggling to my feet but no, he would go and make it. It would be a while, he is not speedy, he is very precise and would use every implement in kitchen and pantry…

We have this pantry, we don’t know what else to refer to is as so this is what we call it. It’s almost our most coveted part of the house, stocked as it is with kitchen implements and jars of this and that – when here for a long period a few hams have been known to hang from the ceiling. When we first bought the place, my intrepid Uncle and Aunt, Little D and Little P offered to help out with some DIY. They are quite good at this kind of thing so I said, well there is this pantry and we’d love to tile it floor to ceiling to keep things cool in the heat.

Ah, they said, no problem. Except that they say my description led them to believe this was a walk in larder, a small affair and not the full scale room they were presented with! I got some stick for that, but they got their heads down and got on with it…Not that it has never been mentioned since you understand. Back to the tale.

So Rocket arrives back in the garden with his delicious snack  in tow, telling me how we need to go the coast for a day to re-stock the old sardine cupboard because he has made us a bountiful quantity.

I started laughing and he thought I’d gone nuts. What did we buy for dinner this evening? Fresh Sardines…

Also some Mackeral so we are in oily fish omega 3 heavan.

We simply seasoned and griddled the sardines and Mackeral fillets and served them with a salad of tomato, white peach, avocado and shallot with a little crumbling of fresh Brebis (like ricotta but the pyreneean version) to give a salty note.

A good day, full of goodness!