Fresh

The farmer tells us that what we thought were Siskins are actually Yellowhammers. These are much rarer and are on the 'red' endangered list. The High Court judge , who has heard about their arrival , wanders down the track with his labrador to see if he can catch a glimpse of them. He brings with him the sad news that Squirrelpox has now appeared north of the Central Lowlands: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-68740155 . The first confirmed victim has been reported in Dunfermline - thirty miles away. This does not auger well for our local red squirrel population. 

The sunshine has brought  out the students. They sit outside the coffee shops enjoying the warmth and sun bathing to top up on vitamin D levels after the long winter. A slow but steady stream head off to the library for the early am pre-exam opening.

The four American golfers we saw yesterday are also up and about.  They're in town looking to find somewhere for breakfast. Let's hope they've moved their rental car from its pay by the hour parking spot. Ryland continues to lead the way.

This morning Angus accompanies 'The Font' to the farm shop where he finds they have caviar flavoured crisps. Is there anything else as decadent ?

They also have 'fresh' chocolates. This terminology could be a variety of interpretations but Angus takes  it to mean that they should be bought and eaten asap. 'The Font' prosaically points out that all chocolates are, at some stage in their lives, 'fresh'. Each packet has a hand written use by date on it. How artisanal is that ? 2 packets are purchased.

The sheep are firmly established in the cauliflower field. They seem very content with their sea view and ample supply of cauliflower stalks.

Decaf :https://www.acsh.org/news/2024/04/15/cnns-toxic-take-danger-methylene-chloride-decaf-coffee-17774

22% say they go to church but only 5% do :https://www.nber.org/papers/w32334#fromrss

Sprucing up.

The garden busy with new arrivals pausing on their way north. Two Siskins on the bird feeder this morning. They look exotic out here on this northerly peninsula. https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/siskin. The chaffinches have had a good year for breeding. 'The Font' counts 23 of them on the lawn in the warmth of the sun. They're certainly more numerous than the greenfinches and goldfinches who seem to have struggled in the damp conditions.

Dog walkers already out and about in the village. It's getting light at a little after five and family companions are keen to get their day started. Give it another three or four weeks and, for all intents and purposes, it won't get dark. The farmer is already hard at work planting potatoes. Worm hunting seagulls and crows wheel around his tractor. Nothing like a bit of deep ploughing to bring out the choicest worms.

A different kind of visitor in the field at the end of the track . Fifty sheep making short work of the cauliflowers. They seem completely unperturbed by our arrival. Can there be anything in nature as happy as a sheep in a cauliflower field ? They shred the green leaves with an efficiency matched only by their enthusiasm.

A few of the more adventurous members of the flock have wandered off and are eating the reeds down by the fish pond. A heron watches them warily.

In readiness for the arrival of the summer visitors the expensive golfing stores facing the 18th green  have redone their window displays. The mannequins have large labels saying 'New Seasons Fashions '. To an untrained eye the fashions don't seem to have changed since the 1950's. Pastel Polo shirts are still the thing in golfing circles. 

Local golfers the first to tee off this morning. You know the locals by the fact they wear bobble hats. Foreign visitors sport baseball caps which are not as warm and are prone to blowing off in the coastal gusts. The locals also have a more relaxed 'mix and match' approach to fairway fashion than foreign visitors who tend to be colour coordinated.

The Ladies Golf Union have new  faux lead garden troughs in their front garden. A sign that at this end of town there is a general pre-summer sprucing up going on. Quarter of a mile down the road things are quieter in Quad although the library a block away is already busy. Exams that once seemed so distant start next week. 

This mornings car radio music :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYdDYSTEuWo

Toothpaste :https://bigthink.com/health/do-you-need-toothpaste/

A good reason for a nap after lunch :https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/04/sleeping-more-flushes-junk-out-of-the-brain/

Ryland knows the way.

We've now finished watching Ripley on Netflix ( the cast devoid of emotion but the black and white screen shots sumptuous in a 1980's Chanel 5 advert sort of way ). There's nothing else that piques our interest so we go to the cinema where there's a choice between a demonic nun movie, something to do with super heroes and 'Civil War'. The few students queueing for ice creams seem keen on the demonic nun option . We show our age and opt for 'Civil War' as being more palatable than a night in a haunted house with a vampiric wimple wearer or a group of folks in leotards battllng alien monsters. Our seats are upstairs but we're directed downstairs due to a leak in the balcony ceiling. "It's the wet weather we've been having "says the lady at the ticket counter as if rain is something unusual in these parts. The place smells slightly damp. Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake can't start updating the place soon enough as far as we're concerned. Sunday evening ahead of exams is clearly not peak cinema going time. We reckon there are twelve customers - in total. At £9 per ticket that's not going to cover the staffs wages. 

Be warned - the soundtrack to 'Civil War' is very loud - as in very loud.

Monday morning. A group of four American golfers have parked outside the Medieval History department. They're talking loudly and we can hear them from the other side of the road. I'm guessing they've flown in overnight,  hired a Mercedes at the airport and driven up. The Mercedes is smaller than they thought it would be and extracting themselves, their clubs and their baggage - while dealing with jet lag -  is not a simple process. Having the steering wheel on the wrong side doesn't help. They get in each others way. The alpha male amongst them is called Ryland. He claims to have been to St Andrews before but his ' I know the way to the club house. Follow me ! ' would be more convincing if he was heading towards the golf course rather than away from it. Ryland is also of the opinion that as it's an electric vehicle you don't need to pay for parking. He's in for a surprise. We both wonder if Ryland is a popular name in America.

The good little Italian coffee shop closed at this time of the morning. We go to Starbucks instead. It's warm enough to sit outside without having to wear a hat and quilted jacket .

I make a note of a lecture on Thursday evening.

The gutters on a  house down by the harbour are alive with noisy sparrows and gulls.

Back at the parking lot we find a well behaved dog sitting watching his mistress feed breakfast to a set of lively two year old twins. The tailgate of their car is up and they're sitting in a line swinging their legs and watching the oyster catchers. The twins are messy and enthusiastic eaters. What doesn't go in their mouths is picked up off the grass by the dog. The dog seems to think this is a pretty good deal. When breakfast is finished the twins, mother and family pooch go for a stroll along the waters edge. The twins are attracted to the water like moths to a flame. I'd reckon mother will be frazzled by noon.

So starts a Monday morning when the sun, is at last, making its presence known.

Monday morning car radio music :https://youtu.be/OnFNWV0tid8

Some clarity on a  hot topic :https://www.vox.com/24127431/smartphones-young-kids-children-parenting-social-media-teen-mental-health

Tableau vivant.

The first pair of sand martins appear in the garden. The swallows and swifts can't be far behind.  Summer is on the way. The hares watch us as we follow the farm track down to the shore. The hares think they're invisible but their ears stick out above the top of the long grass. This makes us chuckle. Having been up since three talking  to  the Los Angeleans  and Manhattanites about the drone attack on Israels Nevatim airbase a good chuckle is welcome. 

The students annual historical pageant in town. A couple of hundred people standing in front of the chapel watching horses and carriages getting ready to re-enact 'moments' from Scotlands history. 

There's a wee bit of a mix up with the traffic management and a woman in a black Honda SUV finds herself face to face with a mounted Robert the Bruce. Amid much grumbling ( and some decidedly unlady like expletives ) she does a five point turn and is escorted back through the bollards that have closed off the street. ' Ye should have put them where I could see them ' she tells one of the stewards . This comment raises more questions than it answers. As she goes she lowers her window and gestures impolitely to no one in particular. Robert the Bruce remains stoically silent although the horse chooses this very moment to generate some manure for the university flower beds.

Finally things get under way. Anywhere else the streets would be lined three or four deep with tourists watching this quaint annual ritual. Here it's a decidedly low key affair. April in Scotland is not going to attract the casual visitor. American golfers who venture away from the Old Course are delighted. This is the tartan and history draped Brigadoon country of CNN travel programmes.

The procession is a lengthy one. It takes a full twenty minutes for everyone to pass by. Some of the students stop and have a wee blether with the householders who have come out onto their doorsteps to watch proceedings. The organizers try to chivvy everyone along to stop the procession 'bunching'. They are not entirely successful.

Just as the tail end of the parade passes by the skies open. A red weather cell unloads a concentrated deluge on top of us. It lasts for only four minutes but it scatters the onlookers and drenches the participants.

The youngsters don't seem to be put off by the weather although St.Andrew ( who is barefoot and wearing sack cloth ) looks as though he might have drawn the short straw.

We watch Benjamin Franklin wander by. An American student is carrying a flag with 13 stripes and the Union flag in the corner. Did the 13 colonies have a common flag before the late unpleasantness ? After Culloden many of the Highland rebels were shipped off in chains to the American colonies to get them far away. A generation or so later the children of these rebels proved to be some of the most fervent revolutionaries. A reminder that then , as now, actions have surprising second order consequences.

Mary Queen of Scots asks us if we're enjoying ourselves. 

Choirs sing and we have simple , old fashioned, fun.

Good news : https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/04/12/are-we-facing-an-insect-armageddon-caused-by-intensive-industrial-farming-and-agricultural-chemicals-the-media-say-yes-science-says-no/

Travelling in a straight line:https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/travel-straight-line-forever/

Green at the gills.

 

It rains ( heavily ) overnight but the morning dawns bright and fair. Just the sort of weather that is needed for the plants in the garden. Eight deer are eyeing the new hedge of flowering currants that has been planted to screen the oil tank but they scamper away as we set off down to the shore. On either side of us pheasants, partridge and quail explode out of the long grass. It still comes as a surprise that we are seven minutes from town and yet live in a spot that is so calm and unspoilt. The local wildlife seems to see humans as more of an irritant than a threat. 

The Kitchen Store has a special on butter knives. A pack of 4 for £17.95. I'm not sure we have any butter knives and I can't think of any situation in which we might use 4. 'The Font' thinks that there may be some inherited from a Swedish forbear somewhere in the garage. Neither of us feels sufficiently inspired to go down and look. Perhaps Millennials are becoming more formal in their eating habits ?

The cheese shop already open and busy.

A pop up souvenir shop is ready for the summer influx of visitors and school parties. Highland cattle and ginger bearded men with bagpipes seem to be this years ' must have ' items.

The fancy breakfast place is already filling up with golfers. A large group of Dublin lawyers make Irish accents very audible this morning. They have that enforced enthusiasm of men who wish they'd not had that last drink at one in the morning.

Back at the 'Last wee house before Denmark' the heather in the courtyard is attracting an army of bumble bees. 'The Font' who has been on a bee and butterfly conservation course at the Botanical Gardens ( £15 and bring your own packed lunch ) informs me that Scotland has more than 30 varieties of bumble bee. They survive the cold northerly winters by 'squatting' in field mouse burrows. From the number of people who attended the course it can safely be said that St Andrews is a town that takes the well being of its bees very seriously.

Saturday morning radio music :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1baWOAulmY

This has been getting rave reviews. Even the weekend FT ( which isn't big on Scottish culture ) praises it to high heaven. We have booked tickets for its arrival here in two weeks time :https://www.capitaltheatres.com/whats-on/all-shows/james-v-katherine/2262#scottishtour

Cheerful evolutionary biology :https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00999-5

The hidden third :https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/mapping-pompeiis-undiscovered-country/

The lions winning smile.

It seems to have done nothing other than rain solidly, every day, this year. Now that the new garden plants are in the weather has changed and it's now dry and warm. This means Angus is out at six this morning watering in the new trees .

We enjoyed the trip away. Edinburgh is a very livable small city. The elevator doors in the hotel  have a pattern  etched onto them. 'The Font' thinks the design is of flowers and trees. Angus thinks it's garden forks and bones. Possibly, just possibly, they could be thistles and rolled up parchment. Whatever they represent great time and expense has clearly been spent on them.

The hotel also has a skylight that runs up from the centre of the lobby to the roof. The architect must have had fun designing it.  From the top you can see all the way down to the reception six floors below. The skylight is surrounded at the top by a white sloping balustrade not unlike a funnel. Angus thinks this is cool. It is not a popular feature with those who don't like heights.

The carpet design has a 'strobe' effect . Was this intentional or just one of those things ? The quicker you walk the greater the strobe effect. 

The room has a huge sofa and a marble topped table with benches. The marble topped table is a definite hit. It makes reading e-mails so much more comfortable.

A large sandstone lion has pride of place in the gardens  facing the hotel.

Closer examination shows that the lion isn't merely large - it's huge. It also has rather a winning smile. How did they get it there ? The thing must weigh ten tonnes. Maybe more.

This morning the Volvo will be going to the local garage to have new tyres fitted. They will supply and fit the exact same make of tyres for 50% less than the dealership. There again the dealer manages to charge £117 for a pair of new wiper blades. 

Annoyingly, this does not bother some folks :https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-its-harder-to-shed-weight-as-you-get-older-and-how-to-fight-it

The bizarre things that catch your eye :https://www.umt.edu/news/2024/04/041024cart.php

Probably not :https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24125481/consciousness-mental-health-language-science-ineffable-math

To Edinburgh... and back.

Wednesday morning. The gardeners announce they'll be working through until eight at night to catch up with their schedule. Stone cutting and sand blasting are planned. This is our cue to change our plans and head down into Edinburgh for dinner before an appointment with the eye man on Thursday morning. We try the train but there's been a breakdown on the line south from Stonehaven so we head back over the footbridge to the station car park and continue on in the Volvo.

Edinburgh has already had more than double its average April rainfall in the first week of the month. Amazingly for our overnight visit the weather is not only dry but warm. A quick search throws up a hotel on St Andrews Square. This proves to be as good as our last experience with the new 'W' was bad.

The first of the tourists arriving. Our Edinburgh early morning coffee stop already full with students and Scotland savvy Californian retirees. Seems there are a surprising number of folks who spend six months in the US and then head to their pied a terre here for the rest of the year . We head to Starbucks across the street. It is completely empty.

The squares in town looking very springlike.

In the evening a chance to stop off for a pre-dinner drink. 'The Font' orders a Negroni and receives a Negroni on steroids. It is exchanged for a Campari and Soda.

Our usual safe bolt hole closed on a Wednesday night.

A new favourite presents itself. They're fully booked but as we stand at the front desk a man phones to cancel. A window table magically becomes available. The food is good and the service excellent. The price half of what you'd pay in London.

After an ' I'll see you again in four months ' visit with the surgeon ( Whatever happened to eye doctors ? Angus discovers that these days there are front of eye, mid-eye and back of eye specialists ) we head back to the airport. We've parked the car there in the belief that finding anywhere in the middle of town would be impossible. Angus has managed to find a spot in the short term parking area.  The first 24 hours cost an eyewatering £60. We arrive 9 minutes over the 24 hour mark and get charged another £60. I'll not do that again.