a message from beyond

I don’t believe in ghosts or messages from the other side or anything like that, but occasionally something happens which if I did believe in these things, would seem significant. I confess I am an untidy person, and absent minded too, so I put things down and forget where I have put them and possibly have no thought of having had them as my mind was taken up with something else when they were last in my hand. I’ve been making feeble attempts to tidy here where I work, which means moving things from here to there, and there to here.

Yesterday, I was surprised to see a handwritten recipe just by my keyboard. How had it got there, where had it come from? I had no memory of every having seen it before, but the it was, a mackerel recipe o a piece of white unlined notepaper, maybe three inches by five. It was written in blue fountain pen, and was, unmistakeably, my dear mother-in-law’s elegant handwriting. On the back, in black ink this time was written ‘Glacé cherries’. I’m sure this recipe had been slipped in among the pile of stuff, possibly fallen out of one of her cookery books I have inherited, but it did make me smile as I imagined someone who believed in the supernatural might have had different ideas, a message from beyond, maybe!

Here is mother-in-law’s recipe:

• 2 filleted mackerels
• juice of 1 lemon
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp dry white wine
• 1 tsp finely chopped parsley
• 1 tsp finely chopped shallot
• 1 tiny piece of bay leaf

1. place fillets in flat dish with all other ingredients
2. season and cook – 200º C I think he said & about 10-15 minutes