Cookie, remember rowan and from the north.

1. Naptime means a special cookie warmed in the oven for mummy.

2. Every time we pass the tree outside nursery, we have to stop and touch the berries. "This is a rowan tree," I tell Alec, hoping the generous clusters of scarlet berries and dusty green pinnate leaves will stick in his mind.

3. "So you've come back for more," says the fishmonger as he wraps the plump smoked mackerel I'm about to buy. "A lot of people feel that way about them."
I love to peel the gleaming light-and-shadow striped skin off the succulent meat.
When I ask, he says: "They're smoked in Grimsby," and he adds "They're very oily because they are Scottish mackerel, not the ones from the south coast."
Perhaps they're so enticing because we starved of fish oils down here on the slim south coast.