Eloise cat was very happy to see Wink again and has spent a lot of time with her this week. Which means, of course, that I haven’t had her companionship very much at all. But she spent most of Thursday night on my bed, which was nice. She jumped on my chest at about 2.30 in the morning, but luckily I’d already been awake for an hour or two, so I wasn’t disturbed.

Last night, for a reason I’ll explain another time, I slept in Wink’s spare room. ECat was thrilled and slept on my bed all night. She was pleased that we had breakfast together as well. Since then, she’s gone between our two houses and has brought Wink through, saying that she’s hungry and no one has fed her, three or four times. Eventually, Wink said that the cat clearly wants the three of us together. “She’s herding you!” I said. “But you keep going back again. She must be thinking ‘it’s just like herding bloody cats…'”

Blue Witch liked the sound of salmon kedgeree, so here’s the recipe I use – though once you’ve got the idea, you don’t need a recipe. I vary it a bit anyway. I don’t bother to skin the raw salmon, but start gently frying it in a dry pan. Once it’s part-cooked, you can just peel off the skin and carry on from there, much easier. I add some cumin seeds and turmeric, to go with the curry paste. And I rarely have cream in the fridge, so I add some yoghurt, crème frâiche or extra butter, whatever I have. It is very good with the cream if you happen to have it, though. I sometimes use brown rice, which needs longer cooking.

It’s from this book, which is excellent. Caroline used to live in the village, we were good friends, though she’s moved back to Sussex now.

And here are a couple of recipes for khichri, which kedgeree is based on and is, of course, vegetarian. It can easily be made vegan if you use an alternative for the butter. This is another good book. There’s a splendid, easy egg curry in there and the tomato sauce can be used with other things, it’s so straightforward and uses ingredients that I always have.