Long forgotten memories.

We have the central heating  boiler serviced. It may seem unusual to have this done in August but it means when winter arrives we won't have to worry about anything going wrong. The man arrives at six thirty in the evening and goes an hour later. " All's fine Pal" he says breezily before adding " You needed a new timer ". With that he's off.  I also arrange to have the heating oil topped up to the brim. Who knows what will happen to the price as we head into the first frosts of autumn ?

Wednesday morning . At quarter to six the sound of heavy machinery tells us the farmer has started bringing in the wheat. From the bedroom window a cloud of chaff can be seen slowly but surely heading towards the back garden of the house. Like mad things we rush around closing all the windows.

Red Admirals much in evidence on the flowers today. They seem to be having a good year but nothing like the Cabbage Whites which flutter around in swarms. The lavender bed isn't so much covered in bees as alive with them. In our four summers here this is the best year, by far, for bees. There is something rather reassuring about that.

The night of the lunar eclipse. The Scottish weather remains mercurial so we may, or may not, see it. After a bright start to the day cloud and rain are forecast for the evening. There's probably a 50% chance we'll have some gaps in the clouds. An e-mail from the power company drops into the inbox this morning asking us to be prudent in our use of electricity during the eclipse. The loss of solar power may 'stress the grid '.

The fun fair has ended and this morning the whole caboodle is being packed up. The huge tower that winches youthful customers to the top and then releases them into a stomach churning free fall has been very popular. 

This music is playing from the loud speakers as the last of the rides are disassembled :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZANKFxrcKU . I haven't heard this since the age of 2 or 3. My father used to sing it to me as we drove around the island in the family Humber Super Snipe.  I always thought there was something ever so slightly sinister about the song ( the furtiveness of the Teddy Bears aroused suspicion )  although it may also have had something to do with my fathers singing style. It is an interesting insight into how auditory inputs  can trigger long forgotten but clarion clear memories.

I cannot imagine any dog being trained to sit through an MRI scan :https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1137798

The kids at the second ( and final ) summer school session are heading home. They only seem to have just arrived. At the 2:21 mark there's a cameo appearance of the owners sheepdog that keeps a watchful eye on the youngsters from its position by the summer schools front door. It is the best behaved dog we've ever seen :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBda0sfwPR4

Thoughts on architecture :https://www.bensouthwood.co.uk/p/eight-architecture-myths-busted-by

You could not make this up ! Harry Potter fans triumphant :https://www.nme.com/news/film/harry-potter-fans-succeed-moving-construction-project-avoid-dobby-grave-3961714

The beach procession.

Another beautiful, but chill, start to the day here in Scotland. It might get to 18C this afternoon. By contrast London is expecting their fifth heat wave of the year with a high of 35C. 

Last night a huge cruise liner drifted by the end of the garden. It's the closest inshore we've ever seen one. A little later another ship, almost as big, joins it going in the same direction. We stand at the garden wall with a glass of Margaux and watch them drift towards the wind farms and the horizon. If you'd told me ten years ago that cruising round Scotland would go mainstream I would have laughed aloud and thought you quite mad. Until three or four years ago the only folks cruising these waters were hardy bird watchers looking for puffins on the offshore rock stacks. Nowadays the tell tale signs of climate change and cool weather tourism are slowly but surely mounting up.

Sometimes the sheep warily watch us walk by. This morning they completely ignore us. I'd like to think this is because they recognize that we don't mean them any harm but it's more probably down to the fact that by sheep standards life in a grassy field by the sea is as good as it gets so why bother moving ?

We watch as a group of cheerful middle aged men dressed in white hotel dressing gowns process slowly across the fairways towards the beach. The caddies think they might be some fringe religious group but it turns out they're American golfers who thought it would be 'fun' to start their day with a dip in the sea. What seemed a brilliant idea after last nights dinner proves to be less so when they have to stick their toes in the water. It's called the North Sea for a reason. 

The braver of them get their knees wet. The less brave ( the majority ) don't even get that far. Soon they're heading bare foot back across the sand. The flimsy hotel slippers they set off in aren't up to the journey and are reluctantly discarded in the rubbish bins by the beach cafe. Bizarrely, this is the sort of scene ( hotel flip flops excepted )  you might have seen here half a millennium ago when pilgrims would wash off the dirt from their journey in the sea before going off to visit the shrine of St Andrew in the cathedral. Plus ca change. We and the local dog owners watch them in amazement.

The fun fair trucks have parked perilously close to the restored fountain. The staff will start dismantling the rides tomorrow in readiness for their journey back to Glasgow. Let's hope the fountain remains unscathed.

I'd expect to see houses with designs like this in London, not Kenya :https://unityhomes.co.ke/silver-hill/

Vegetables :https://www.sciencealert.com/the-worlds-vegetables-are-vanishing-and-its-quietly-wrecking-our-diets

A challenge for psychologists :https://www.sciencealert.com/what-if-the-brain-doesnt-create-consciousness-scientist-proposes-it-might-be-the-fabric-of-reality-itself

Coming to a surgery near you:https://reason.com/2026/08/09/ai-beats-doctors/

Cheeky souvenirs

11C when I get up. A high of 19 forecast . Over breakfast we discuss turning on the heating but agree to postpone doing anything until September. Turning it on in August just doesn't seem right.  In England, the BBC radio bulletin informs us, 25 million people are facing a hosepipe ban. 

A rum collection of stories make up the rest of the BBC's morning news . Gianni Infantino, the man that organizes the World Cup, has issued a statement claiming allegations made against him in the weekend papers were defamatory. These allegations, as so often seems to be the case, have something to do with a secretary, misuse of funds and a hastily covered up affair. I'd have thought that was the sort of legal challenge that was a red rag to the media bull . Being quiet and letting boredom set in might have been a better strategy ? 

This is followed by a story about Italy and Spain continuing to argue over the surge of Moroccan immigrants into Ceuta.The radio says it has become a diplomatic crisis. Until last week I'd bet not one in a thousand folk could find Ceuta on a map. This week it's probably closer to one in five hundred. The final story is about Iranian demands for the US to withdraw from the Gulf and pay reparations for the damage done in the last six months fighting. This intransigent approach, the news reader rather frostily observes, makes walking away from the impasse rather difficult for the US administration. A recently fired retired US Navy admiral is interviewed. He's remarkably eloquent and uses the phrase 'petulant desperation' . The admiral speaks a lot of sense but loses his British audience when he starts going on about some candidate in Michigan and the impact of the war on the mid-terms. This is too much detail for a foreign pre-breakfast radio audience on a Monday morning.

Town looks like Carthage after it had been sacked by the Romans. The fun fair runs until Wednesday.

The souvenir shops have a new 'cheeky' line of product designed to appeal to the influx of fun seeking tourists. What home worthy of its name is complete without a coaster or mug adorned with a Scottish backside ? 

The hydrangeas outside the Classics department are in full flower. The university gardeners have put in place a Mediterranean planting scheme to conserve water and make maintenance easier.  Looking at the hydrangeas through the light sea mist I think someone must have a sense of humour.

These old Stalinist skyscrapers in Moscow are home to lots of retired military so he is a brave man to venture into such confrontational surroundings :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiMdbuFreyg

Had never thought of this :https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/ai-coming-revolutionary-effect-third-world-healthcare

Irish and Scottish are becoming more English ( in pronunciation at least ) :https://eriksinger.substack.com/p/accent-tip-3-irish-and-scottish-nurse

We used to have a flat next to the castle in Edinburgh. During Tattoo time this was the sound that echoed around at night. It was literally impossible to sleep :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhKmoKrZOjA

Copenhagen, but I thought it was Rekjavik :https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/modernist-gothic-in-copenhagen

On the sand.

A decidedly 'fresh' start to the day . We're surprised to find that a young English mother has spread out a blanket at the edge of the dunes. She has a small pile of books and a picnic hamper to keep her, and her excited twin boys, fed and entertained. It's the twins first time away from home and they've woken early. She's of the opinion that getting them out out of their Airbnb and onto the beach will have them completely exhausted by lunch time. Then everyone can have a nap. GLWT !  'He's still snoring' she says  to us. 'He', in this instance, presumably being her husband. One two year old wanders around on the sand relishing the freedom while remaining at all time in her sightline. The other sits on the blanket and has a story read to him. Such different characters. Each and every local dog ( and owner )  is greeted by the twins with the sort of hand clapping enthusiasm that God only grants to two year olds.

A week or so ago there were swallows darting low over the fields. Now they seem to have gone. Can it be they've upped and offed so quickly ? I thought they usually migrated at the end of August. The departure of the Swallows is that first visible sign that autumn is drifting towards these northerly reaches. Down south  the radio is still going on about heatwaves.

The farmers cabbages are swelling by the day. In places the daisies peak through. I've yet to see any berry pickers but it can't be long before the village pie  makers are out scouring the verges for fillings. This years bramble harvest  looks set to be a bumper one.

The farm on the main road has already harvested its wheat. The straw neatly bound and ready to be stored in the barn. Here the local farmer has yet to spring into action so for the time being we live surrounded by a sea of waving gold. Youngest son stops to tell us he's opened his student bank account. This allows him an overdraft of £1500 and (oddly) a £10 a month meal coupon exchangeable at ZiZis and Pizza Hut. The boy seems to be taking his imminent departure to Cambridge with stoic calm. This may not last the closer we get to September and the start of his first semester.  We guess his mother is less stoical.

An American woman discovers France :https://kimberlyannwheeler.substack.com/p/the-french-behaviors-i-thought-were

Helping others : https://www.piratewires.com/p/the-bezos-list-the-top-20-founders

Earthquake hits the operating theatre :https://x.com/nhk_news/status/2085320462637334778

Surviving :https://www.persuasion.community/p/a-missile-has-hit-your-apartment

Tragedy or malice ? :https://www.theoldmoneyluxury.com/p/the-untold-stories-of-ethel-and-robert

Ne'er-do-wells.

A wonderful morning. The scudding clouds giving way to blue skies. There's a warm southerly wind that makes being out a pleasure. One of the wild flowers that line the farm track has lantern heads that have dried in the recent dry weather and now crackle and snap in the breeze. There was a breakfast cereal that used to snap crackle and pop. I wonder if it's still made ?  

The crows that congregated on our roof have moved down to the  potato barns where they line the field walls, glare at passers by and sunbathe. Periodically they take off in a huge swirling argumentative mass before settling on the power cables which sag alarmingly when they land. Is it the near presence of humans that's made the birds suspicious or have they always been jittery ? When we moved from Scotland to Italy we spent our first night on the road at a hotel in Northumberland. The wire fences on either side of the entrance gate were adorned with dead crows. Probably twenty of them in total. This gave the place a Hammer House of Horrors feel that presumably served some farming purpose. A country warning to crows 'Don't eat my barley !' or ' Don't glean my corn !' or some such thing. I'm glad our local farmers are content to leave the crows to their own devices.... as they do with everything else including the light footed young foxes who scamper on the path ahead of us.

It's a couple of days since we returned from Glasgow but we're still happily commenting on the cheerful service at the restaurant and the hotel . To be greeted with a smile is a delight.

We think we're out and about early but the farmers automated dispensing machine is already running low on strawberries and only large trays of a dozen or more eggs are left. All the half dozen cartons are gone. The second home owners continue to snap everything up.

In town the fun fair is being set up. This has been going for centuries in one form or another. Local residents disapprove of the sort of clientele it attracts. The retired Church of Scotland minister ( the one who raged at the students who 'cavorted amorously' on his new flat roof kitchen extension )  refers to them as teenage Ne'er -do-wells. This is the sort of archaic term you only hear in places like St Andrews or Crieff. The art that festoons some of the rides is so awful it serves as a reminder that aliens must surely live among us. They almost manage to get things right but somehow catching a true human likeness is just beyond them. Two 'luscious lovelies' - as the fair attendees might call them - painted on the side of one ride also serve to tell us the fairground aliens exist in a time that isn't woke.

We stop to read the menu on the burger wagon. It has an exhaustive chip offering. 'The Font' thinks " Chips with any of the two above " will be a favourite of the ne'er- do-wells. Donuts are served in portions of four.

The souvenirs on sale in the local shops tend to the 'tat' end of the spectrum but the candle shop has a new range of mugs and jugs which are a higher order of creation.  The robin and Scottie jugs pass muster although demand for jugs by the day trippers might be limited.

An iconoclasts viewpoint ? :https://www.noemamag.com/why-is-everyone-in-tech-so-sad/

Briefly in the news and misunderstood but Russia and MAGA playing it up :https://www.dw.com/en/whats-behind-the-algeria-morocco-rivalry/a-78258062

Updating high rises :https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/articles/engineering/civil-engineering/2026/a-new-way-to-build-safer-more-sustainable-skyscrapers/

Always worth reading for saying it as it is :https://michaelmcfaul.substack.com/p/july-2026-reflections-on-europe-nato

Crowds

 

It's grey and cloudy but the golfers are happy to get out onto the Old Course while it's dry. 

Down by the starters hut a group in matching red outfits are recovering from their flight from Chicago by going on a long walk. Three of their party have gone missing. We know this because they ask passers by if they've seen three folks in red jackets.  We haven't. Their jet lag doesn't seem to be bothering them at all - or if it is they're hiding it well.

This must be the week when absolute peak  visitor influx is recorded. So far everyone seems to be in a convivial 'laid back' frame of mind. The number of visitors from mainland China has surged this year due to the introduction of direct flights from mainland China to Edinburgh. Some, most, arrive in tour groups but more and more hire a car at the airport and drive up with their famillies to spend three or four days here. This morning - if their matching caps are to be believed - there's a perfectly turned out foursome from Pine Valley  Beijing waiting to tee off . By lunchtime the pavement down here will be packed solid.

Badly parked tourists in enormous SUV's ( that stick out into the street ) and local farmers tractors do not make for happy bedfellows. Driving through town is like an obstacle course. The potato harvest is about to kick off. We now try to avoid town between nine thirty in the morning and five . Parking is literally impossible.

Transparent flower :https://x.com/Hana_b30/status/2085589560562459060

In a small place you recognize so many of the youngsters who graduated. This young lady seems to have enjoyed her time here and now deems herself an 'influencer' with a devoted following:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tom03mEVW5E

An American summer spot :https://www.farawaysagharbor.com/

Warm welcomes in Glasgow.

Great cover on the front of  the latest Private Eye. Pithily sums up life in Europe this summer .

We go to Glasgow for dinner with old friends visiting from Florida. The city in August is surprisingly quiet and feels even more so because so many restaurants are closed . The absence on vacation of 100,000 students and decidedly 'changeable' weather  may also have something to do with it.  Glasgow is chosen because Edinburgh ( a mere 50 miles away ) is booked solid with tourists in Scotland for the Festival. More than 3 million are expected this year which is a lot for the infrastructure to cope with.

The train to Queen Street is one of the old InterCity types that used to run to London and are now relegated to the Inverness and Aberdeen routes. They are due to be retired next year and have a spaciousness that modern trains don't have. The ticket inspector happily informs us that this one first entered service in 1976. 'The Font' observes that we may well have taken it to London when we were students. The conductor responds to this insight with a dour  " Aye. Use it while ye can . We'll all get withdrawn from service one day ".  A reminder that the Presbyterian undertaker school of client 'interface' is still alive and kicking north of the border.

We try a gastro pub, The Clarence, for dinner. Cheerful and  efficient are not words you often use about Scottish service but here the staff welcome us with broad smiles and show us straight to our table by the window.  The wine list is full of reasonably priced gems and we start with a spicily zestful Pouilly-Fuisse.  Angus has a Barnsley lamb chop largely because it must be at least 30 years since I last had one. I also can't remember the last time I saw one on a menu. It was good but there is only so much you can do with a lamb chop. Oddly, there are no green side dishes on the menu but there are more potato based options than you might expect to see. We end the evening sitting at an outside table drinking our decafs by moonlight while  commenting on how light the traffic is.

This time we're staying in the new Dakota hotel. This is one of those modern places that equates stylishness with black paint and subdued lighting. Anyone who has stayed at Schragers Royalton hotel in New York will know the style. On a practical note shaving in this twilight world is not easy. In both the restaurant and hotel students are employed to run the 'front of house' which may explain why everything works so well.  We were impressed  by the Dakota but may try the new Arthouse when we next go. One Devonshire Gardens is still my favourite but 'The Font' is a firm believer that we should try new places.

On our way home we change trains in Dundee. The poster with the caption " While living in Dundee, Mary Shelley wrote Frakenstein " may not have the positive vibe the PR agency thinks it to have.

Of great interest :https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2026/how-scientists-are-perfecting-chocolate

Glad to have been ignorant of these critters :https://news.arizona.edu/news/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-brown-recluse

Hope for hay fever sufferers :https://www.sciencealert.com/natural-protection-from-asthma-and-allergies-scientists-isolate-bacteria-behind-the-immune-system-farm-effect

Possibly important in helping understand what's going on:https://freesystems.substack.com/p/mapping-americas-political-conversations

This was interesting :https://www.stimson.org/2026/irans-political-system-after-the-war/