Life is quiet

A sunny Monday morning. The news leads with the Hungarian elections where the pro-Russian government has been voted out by a landslide. Seems J D Vances campaign stop last week to bolster the old government didn't work as planned. We also learn that overnight the American President has had a go at the 'weak and terrible' Pope. " If I wasn't in the White House Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican ". Even to a Presbyterian mindset this sounds rather insulting. Keir Starmer who has been criticized yet again in one of these diatribes must feel as if he's in good company. Angus wonders if it's good politics to get into a shouting match with the Pope. Presumably some advisers must think MAGA supporters are Southern Baptists not Catholics.

Three Scotties are heading towards us as we head down the street towards the Old Course. We step aside to let them - and their owners - go by. Scotties have a strangely imperial air for such wee dogs. They exude a ' This is my town and you're in my way ' disdain. The matriarch , on the right, has a particularly no nonsense air about her.

The wee town has been busy over the weekend with the once a year open day for those youngsters lucky enough to have been offered a place here next semester. Proud parents and uncertain teenagers throng the place. Lots of kids from Melbourne wanting to do pre-Med this year. The big question facing them - would you prefer to study in a large city with nightlife or a small town without diversions ? Today the parents and holidaymakers have gone and the students are focusing on exams. As a result  parking is easy. 

In Starbucks this morning four retired gentlemen from Poughkeepsie inform us they're here to play a round on the Old Course in memory of their old friend Jim. Seems he retired in December but then went on all too quickly to play the sun drenched course in the sky . Rather sweetly they ask me which whisky they should use to toast his memory. " Money's no object " they add. Tonight as the sun sets over the 17th they will stand by the old stone wall in the garden of The Jigger Inn and toast absent friends. For some folks the Old Course really is sacred ground where dreams are played out. They'll start with a 30 year old Macallan and move onto a glass of Laphroaig followed by a dram of Caol Ila to ward off the post sunset cold. The old line attributed to Bobby Jones ( that greatest and most gentlemanly of all golfers ) will be repeated " If I had been set down, in any one place, and told I was to play there and nowhere else for the rest of my life, I should have chosen the Old Course at St Andrews ". It will be, I think, an emotional evening. Their honesty and kindness reminds me of the Arizonans on our Northern Lights trip.

A hint of sea mist as we arrive on the beach.

A few students out on the sand .Nothing like a walk on the beach to clear the mind before a day in the library. 

Locals sit on the club house steps and soak up the sunshine. They ignore the biting wind.

Life is sunny and quiet.

Spotted in the next McTears auction in Glasgow :

Last day in London

We go to a friends 70th birthday dinner. At the trendy Chelsea restaurant the young doorman looks us up and down and says ' You must be here for the oldies party '. We confirm that's the case and are escorted to the private room. All the women with the exception of one in a leopard skin cat suit are wearing cocktail dresses and sporting a solitary string of pearls. The men wear the international uniform of blue suits and open necked shirts. The exception ( there is always an exception )  is a duke wearing a dinner jacket, jeans, a tee shirt and Crocs . This is the sort of sartorial insouciance that comes from having a family that arrived with William the Conqueror. A simple Scot from the Isles can only marvel at the self confidence.  In the background this piece of music is playing :https://youtu.be/BfdkQGQ5xpA?list=RDBfdkQGQ5xpA&t=17 Those of a certain age will remember it as the sound of European beach clubs in the 1970's. I always thought the singer sounded as if he was drowning . Conversation is about down sizing, travel, grandchildren and ( among the men ) the number of pills that are taken to dissipate the aches from those decades old rugby injuries.  Krug and a delightful Condrieu soon have the laughter flowing.

Town remains quiet. This mornings news about the breakdown of talks, although expected, doesn't help the vibe. The next 48 hours provide space to course correct.   A friend in Rome is surprised that he was able to wander in and get a table at the roof top bar in the Hotel Raphael in Rome. This is unusual enough for him to call us.  'We watched the sunset in peace'. The quiet it seems  isn't just a London thing. 

The area around Chiltern Street has become the uber trendy part of town. It used to be rather wind swept and dowdy. It has also become home to an ever expanding expatriate community of Swedes who cluster outside the local watering holes. A man is employed to make sure they remain behind the swagger ropes and don't block the pavement. People do what they're told without complaining which is nothing short of miraculous.

We see an immigration enforcement van . The UK's version of ICE. Neither of us has ever seen a van like this before. We're also intrigued by the Waymo self driving Jaguars that are appearing everywhere. From our interest in such things it can be taken for granted that we have segued quietly into country bumpkins. Maybe New Yorkers who move to Connecticut also feel like this. 

Soon we shall be on the train for the five hour journey back to Fife.

So quiet

 A fashion store on the Kings Road sells Jackson Hole clothing. Maybe , before we go, we'll buy something for the farmers wife...or her daughter.

London is quiet. Unnaturally so. In fact its so quiet it's positively spooky. Something seems profoundly off. Cab drivers all ( without exception ) comment on how few visitors and locals there are. The Kings Road is as deserted as we've ever seen it. Perhaps things will pick up next week when the kids go back to school after the Easter break ?

We take a brief detour into a side street. Forty plus years ago we used to live here. The small road suffered then and suffers now from being a cul de sac. Driving in to park was easy but to get out again you had to reverse all the way back down and onto the busy main road. In those days people would happily stop to let you out. I'm not sure that would happen today. The house was memorable for once being owned by a Swedish actress who glazed over the garden and installed an enormous round jacuzzi in the basement complete with a gold swans head water spout. To this day the life sized swans head remains the louchest thing either of us have ever seen.

We stop to admire a gentlemans dressing gown which has pride of place in a shop window. What an Edwardian look !

A Japanese restaurant with a nondescript exterior is home to a good and very stylish basement bar :https://www.archdaily.com/999379/mayha-restaurant-mariagroup  The chef tells us they used to be in Beirut before moving to London. That turned out to be a wise choice. Sadly, they have a party from the Japanese embassy coming in later so there's no room for two walk ins.

We opt to have dinner in a new Italian. We'd heard positive things about it but the place proves to be merely 'goodish' . When the bill comes  'The Font' delphically wonders if a combination of eye wateringly expensive and cooking that's merely good is a recipe for commercial success . The staff tell us that bookings have fallen off by 40% since the start of the Gulf war. With the exception of an American couple who order one starter and main course that they then share between them ( is this a health or cost thing ? ) we have the place to ourselves.

Thoughts on the Gulf. Here's a pretty grounded take from a sensible guy in the region. As he rightly points out a lot can happen in six months :https://x.com/taufiqzrahim/status/2042747281678402043

Birds in Chicago :https://birdhistory.substack.com/p/the-ornithologist-in-the-white-city

Impacted travel.

The i-Pad refuses to talk to Blogger. Then, after a couple of days, it changes its mind and chats away happily. Go figure.

We're in London which has been a decidedly summery 26 degrees. Today it's colder.

The journey down passes fields full of new born lambs and hawthorn in full bloom. The train runs to the minute. From Edinburgh it takes a bearable four hours. From up here it takes an hour longer.  For some inexplicable reason that extra hour makes  a difference. Flying from Dundee is probably just as quick but the timetable is 'impractical'.

We act like country cousins and comment on the price of tomatoes in the greengrocers.

The hotel is quiet and the restaurants have been half empty. Is this because it's still the school holidays and parents are off with their youngsters ? Or, is it a sign that the war in the Gulf is already having an impact on travel ?

Cheery

I get up in the small hours to check the computer and find out what's going on in the world. Common sense seems to have won out.

With winter gone and the sun out the wee town is looking particularly cheerful. 

This is in some large part due to the university gardeners and their zest for vibrant colour. The flower beds outside the dorms are particularly memorable.

This is the first day that its comfortable being out without a coat. Most of the dog owners are enjoying this change in the weather. 

From its position on top of a strand of marram grass a reed bunting observes the golfers on the 4th tee. All four of the players have managed to avoid the fairways and play into the rough. The reed bunting watches them scramble around in the gorse.

Next to the 5th tee something blue is coming into bloom.

Summer, or a Scottish approximation of it, is on the way. Life away from the internet is grand.

Armageddon with pepperoni :https://www.pizzint.watch/

Maybe this is part of the reason the Brits are suddenly so unpopular in the US ? :https://goodallandgoodluck.substack.com/p/maga-isnt-splitting-its-turning-on

Playing at the Curzon in London. It is being raved about by fans of Camus but is possibly a little too 'arty'  :https://youtu.be/nLoFzIoLpQA

Easter photo from Texas :https://x.com/TracesofTexas/status/2040785140113174767

Nobody bothers them.

A bright and sunny start to the day. Partridges, pheasants and quail happily grubbing away in the freshly ploughed fields . In most places they'd be hunted but out here nobody , excepting the occasional bird watcher, bothers them.  

The farmers daughter and her boyfriend return to Oxford today. The seventeen year old son has been tasked with driving them down to the airport. He's finally got round to washing the Range Rover which - under the layers of caked on mud - reveals an anthracite grey paint job. There is a large dent in the rear door where the farmer reversed into some potato crates. The trip to the airport presumably gives the lad   more time to pitch for his idea of staying in Jackson Hole while commuting to the Scottish teams matches in Boston and Miami. He told his sister he was thinking of applying to Oxford if his baccalaureate results are good enough but her reaction was of the 'over my dead body' variety.

The ability of one man to command the global news cycle day after day after day is quite remarkable. Has anyone else ever done this with such consistency before ?  A commentator on the radio says we've never seen  a 'global historical figure' like him  since the 1930's. The parallels from that era are left unvoiced.  It seems that overnight the British Prime Minister was compared to Neville Chamberlain so perhaps the 30's analogy isn't far fetched. 

A new shop opens up by the old town gate. It's where a nail bar used to be. The town has recently become home to half a dozen nail bars and the one that was here has moved to larger premises. I'm not sure what this vogue for coffee shops and nail bars tells us about the state of the economy.

The shop owners girl friend has painted the ceiling. He's very proud of this.

The shop seems to sell wooden carvings. This is an unusual business model. We wish him well.

Some post Easter sponges in the bakers . I would buy one but we're off to London tomorrow for an old friends 70th birthday.

The hotels are fast emptying out. Most of the English contingent left yesterday. Todays it's the turn of the Glasgow crowd.

Making instant coffee ain't easy :https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/the-creation-of-instant-coffee

Candy and age :https://www.the-scientist.com/why-candy-can-become-harder-to-swallow-with-age-74317

Petrol price hikes :https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3349010/pakistan-offers-30-days-free-public-transport-following-40-petrol-hike

An unusual juxtaposition.  :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AOaHg3s2Nc

Less and less precise.

Another sign I've turned into my father. I read this Truth Social message and my first reaction is : 1) The King reigns 2) horses have reins and 3) hell rains down. 

The track that leads to the last wee house before Denmark has been churned up by tractors getting out to the fields by the heron pond. The surface is now deeply rutted and getting to be axle breakingly bad. I shall have to ask the farmer if he can do something to smooth it out. We do the last two hundred yards at a spine jarring 4 mph .

A normal workday in Scotland but south of the border it's an English holiday. The beach busy with joggers stretching their legs before getting in their car and heading back down the M6. It's a revision week for the students and many have taken the opportunity to fly out of Edinburgh to somewhere sunny and warm.  For others faced with final exams there is a definite sense of approaching panic. The path  to the library is usually quiet first thing in the morning but is now thronged with ' cramming ' fourth years. Can we really be so close to the end of the semester ?

The cold but sunny weather has brought the first of the wild flowers into sudden and sparkling bloom.

The back of the supermarket receipt asks a question. 'Were we remarkable today ?'  The answer to this is they were more than adequate but not remarkable in the literal sense. A man on the radio says that the British public hate Keir Starmer. This surprises me. Dislike maybe , possibly they're disappointed in him , but hate ? I can't say I hate anyone or certainly not anyone I've met. Language becomes less and less precise and more and more inflated.

Learning Mandarin :https://www.oldnorthwhale.com/p/why-modern-chinese-is-just-english

Philosophical rugby and a fun read. The author could only be French :https://vamoul.substack.com/p/a-pindaric-ode-for-louis-bielle-biarrey

Flamingoes :https://x.com/sanghaviharsh/status/2040640368203669612

You may need to be a Brit to relish this but Canvey Island is a place no one ever admits going to let alone write about :https://benyeoh.substack.com/p/flags-and-flat