[ A young messenger has come to give you a letter filled with hope.The starry angel comes with a letter for Hammie who might need some words of encouragement.

Ireland in the Spring. Rain. Wind. Frost. More rain. Cold. More wind. Bored with rain? Have some sleet.

So we rummaged about in the kitchen to see what was lurking, and assembled the necessaries for Boston Baked Beans, using the recipe from Jocasta Innes’s “Pauper’s Cookbook”, which I inherited from Mum.

We made a few adaptations based on what wasn’t lurking, like using cubed smoked back bacon instead of salt pork; the result was a different flavour and mouthfeel, very pleasant, but the way well-marbled pork turns to savoury chunks of near-butter is better. It didn’t stop the level in the pot being noticeably reduced before D thought to say, “take a photo”...

That salt-glazed beanpot is another inheritance from Mum, who got it from her Mum, who got it from her Mum...

Except for D’s genuine late-medieval Venetian trade bead (1480-1500) on the braid of her replica netsuke rat, and a book about the Crimean war written while it was still going on (1855), this is the oldest thing in the house, about 150 years if I’ve got the figures right.