Why my boat is worth a couple of blue lobsters

on Chesil. Quickly despatched, they are plunged into boiling salted water and begin to turn terracotta red.

Dean is descended from a long line of Poole fisherman. Initially he took a different course and after a degree in accountancy at Manchester University, he began a long career in business that took him all over the world. But here we are now, in our kitchen talking about lobsters and boats and fishing. My father used to opine that we have within us a ‘folk memory’, that we are drawn to things our ancestors did before us. I can vouch for that. I have always felt really drawn to working with wood. We knew almost nothing about my mother’s side of the family as both her parents died when she was young, but when I did some research into her father’s line, I found they were all woodsmen, sawyers and coopers, living in the woods of northern Hampshire making products from the trees there. It seems to be the same with Dean, that long established fishing tradition will not lie down. The lobsters are cooked and split open. The white meat within is soft and delicious, having that fragrance that one only finds in the freshest of seafood. We dive in with our fingers. Unlikely implements, an olive fork, the pointed handle of a teaspoon, are employed to ease the meat out of the claws, the prized coral is divided amongst those that like this tasty morsel. The emptied shells are piled into a large saucepan – I shall make a lobster bisque from them tomorrow with some homemade bread. Wine is drunk, conversation evolves around the fishing trips we shall do, where the best fishing spots are currently, the opportunity that having this larger boat will bring Dean to explore further our productive coastline. The bonds of friendship are renewed and further cemented. I know my boat will be well used and appreciated and that was what it was built for.

As Tuesday evenings go, this was a good one!