How to make the perfect fry-up

Catriona went to England and Scotland for ten days. The last thing she said to the lean and slippered pantaloon as he stood on the doorstep to wave her off was: ‘Please eat healthily, darling.’ Pretty much the first thing I did after I’d watched her disappear down the path and rubbed my hands together was to peel, salt and boil a kilogram of spuds. I monitored them carefully and removed the pan from the heat at the point where a little pressure on a sharp knife was needed to penetrate right to the middle.

The dear thing had left the fridge crammed with nature’s bounty, including sealed containers of her incomparable homemade soups. I squinnied past these and rifled about until I spotted it. No, I hadn’t been dreaming. An unopened pack of smoked streaky bacon. French bacon unfortunately. Carefully peel off a rasher and hold it up to the light and you can see through it. But bacon nevertheless. And yes, check, a dozen fresh-looking small eggs and one ripe tomato as big as a cooking apple.

With Catriona away it was back to self and banality and bacon and eggs. Strictly speaking, Catriona isn’t against bacon and eggs. Not on moral, health, economic, ecological, religious or any other grounds. She sometimes makes it for me as a treat. But owing to the lingering, infiltrating smell in our small cave, not so often.