Filey Crab and Samphire

It doesn't take much to have a really good time . You need newspaper, an old hammer, some cocktail sticks and a Filey Bay crab from Lovetts.

Every time my grand -daughters are here with us , I am asked every day 'When are we going to have a crab Grandma?' 

I forget that even a trip to a Fishmonger is interesting  for some small children .Even the buying of it fascinated my small girls, wanting to know why one buys a male crab for claw meat, why do you have to have it opened in front of you, how do you tell its a male? The Samphire is   something they have not tasted before, and we buy just a taste to go with the crab. Sitting under the pergola on a warm August afternoon, salad made,and the promise of chips from Browns , we sit and  attack the crab . We pick it and eat bits as we go, discuss the barnacles on the legs and the dead man's fingers. It takes just the right length of time to occupy  5 and 6 year olds. 

Crabs featured in  my childhood too . I was sent to the Hull Indoor market to buy crabs for my aunt in Sutton. I had to get it just right! We would have Crab salad teas  at Church Mount, and I was always sent next door to give Mrs Rook a crab sandwich. Last week my neighbour gave me a lobster to cook and eat. That was so easy to do-much more white meat, but did not have the fiddle ,teaze and prod that dressing a crab entails. 

Its been a Sea food week. We were given a whole Filey Bay salmon on Saturday too. It was so big I could not get it in the freezer so had to cut it up first. Only a few boats take up the task of line-netting these fish looking for a river . Visitors to Filey are entralled by seals basking off the Brigg, but realise not that they are after the salmon.

So only a few more days with small girls staying  , to remind me of wonderment in everyday things, and reminding me not to take them for granted.

I have been given a Crucifix too, made from the cardboard in the scrap box.