Aggie's Baked Eggs

Make this sauce -

1 diced onion

1/2 diced capsicum

1 can cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup tomato passata

2 tbs salted capers, rinsed

3 shakes tabasco sauce or a few slices fresh chilli

12 pitted olives

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

sea salt, black pepper

4 big free range eggs

marinated fetta cheese

In a cast iron fry pan fry onion and capsicum in olive oil.

Add tomatoes, capers and olives and cook into a nice sauce -

about 15 minutes.

While sauce is bubbling, drop the eggs in to poach and spoon the

sauce over them a bit. Reduce the heat, and put a lid on the pan.

Toast some sourdough bread, and pour some oil onto it

or some of the marinade from the fetta.

Check the eggs - don't overcook them. After about 6 minutes

of poaching, spoon them onto the toast, and cover them with

some of the hot sauce.

Sprinkle the fetta over, grind some black pepper and serve.

(If you want your eggs to be cooked hard, you can put the

whole pan into the oven for a bit, or under the grill.)

This serves 2 people very happily!

Requiem for my father

Talking about people who've gone in the physical sense,

here's a piece for my father.

The ipod shuffle plays the music from your funeral in the car.

The full moon

climbing a swatch of cloud reminds me

of the purple, wood-smoked dusk of home.

It's the coldest night since Christmas,

the weatherman said - the Christmas we spent

not knowing it was our last day on earth together.

When you squatted

in my garden, the hail stones like snow,

tying up my tomato vines with your old hands - still nimble.

Now the summer of your death has left us. Today

we looked for mossy branches in the garden

for the next family event after the wedding

(I don't like cooked pear, you'd confided to me),

Christmas, your funeral, and now: my daughter's wedding.

Your chair will be empty.

So now it's cold

and a row of late picked, ripening tomatoes on a window-sill

reminded me of the way you stored your persimmons -

in a line-up,

their leathery skins

slowly turning to satin

under your greedy gaze.

We met today at the cafe

where we planned your garden funeral -

your daughters, and the mothers of your children.

They exchanged an awkward greeting.

The handsome waiter - your son, has your cheeky charm.

The mother of your daughters,

your first love, said he's just like you were

when you loved her.

I played the piano after lunch. The hymns

you sang and taught us, and others -

choirs, song services and a duet with my mother -

each song a freshly ploughed memory.

Randomly, the ipod plays your funeral music,

your requiem, on the lonely drive home.

Arriving at my gate the final song

Wayfaring Stranger - 'I'm only going over Jordan,

I'm only going over home..'

You haunted me today.

The first person to ever say the word 'blog' to me was a woman called Jen. She was a wonderful writer, a kind of witch with a life-long dream to see the Aurora Borealis. Sadly her life did not last long enough for her to see them.

I dedicate this blog to her memory. She liked what I wrote, and we encouraged each other. I opened the paper today to a piece on the Northern Lights.

It's a sign. I hope that Jen wherever she is, has a good view of the dancing lights over the North Pole.