Grumpy rams.

The six am BBC news bulletin leads with comments by the American VP who thinks the Brits are ' in civilizational decline '. He goes on to say we have a ' politics of self hatred '. Quite why the UKs domestic political scene should be of such obsessive  interest to a foreign politician is something of a mystery. Perhaps things are going so swimmingly at home he has a lot of spare time on his hands ? The Prime Minister has replied along the lines of  ' Thank you for your comments. They will receive the attention they deserve'.

All the female sheep have been moved back to the farm on the hill leaving fourteen grumpy males in the field by the shore. The rams do not look happy with this change in their domestic arrangements.

The sun highlights some of the gargoyles on the old science building. The one in the middle is enough to give you nightmares. Minimalist modern buildings lack these architectural 'flummeries' which, nightmares aside, is probably a loss.

The colour in this photo don't do justice to the cornflowers that have started to bloom at the edge of the sheep field. The blue is quite remarkable.

I'm not sure whether these purple poppies are natural or have escaped from someones garden. They're in the golf course wild flower meadow so the green keepers must think they're kosher. The place is alive with butterflies. It seems to be a bumper year for Red Admirals. 

'Flourish and Joy' on the uninspiring  fresh flower stand at the local garage. This may be some sort of wry humour. I'm still unsure what's going on with Iran so every week I drive to the garage and top up the tank. Prices have now nudged up to  £1.61 a litre.  Overnight , as a backup, the little BMW's hybrid engine is recharged. This gives us 30+ miles of range. For some technical reason to do with being so remote we can't get the cheap overnight electricity tariff . This would reduce the charging costs by 80%. There seems to be little difference between the cost of plugging into the grid and using petrol.

Baskets for the garden :https://studioamos.co.uk/baskets

Norwegian advice on storing olive oil :https://www.sciencenorway.no/food-food-and-health/why-you-should-store-olive-oil-in-the-fridge/2672135

Englands oldest ally:https://bowofodysseus.substack.com/p/the-original-special-relationship

'That' development in Albania :https://tomselliott.substack.com/p/what-is-jared-kushner-actually-building

Some Saturday morning music :https://youtu.be/0u0M4CMq7uI?list=PLcSkPXginhQfNhQa4hYJKiYn7hQMZ66q8&t=47

It pours

The farmers two sons head off to the World Cup in Boston on Monday. The eldest is starting to grow a moustache. This may be part of a plan to make him look old enough to buy alcohol. If so it's unlikely to succeed. Not all moustaches are born equal. The farmers daughter has returned from Oxford but there's no sign of the 6' 8" tall boyfriend from Jackson Hole. Perhaps one bout of exposure to a Scottish farming family has made him think twice about 'foreign' girls ?

Any doubts about the existence of climate change are dispelled by the arrival of a tropical thunderstorm. Hail mixed in with heavy rain and lighting turn Thursday afternoon into a replay of the Monsoon season in Chennai. The hail beats down with a ferocity that causes it to bounce back a good six inches from the pavement. You expect Scotland to be rainy. You don't expect the weather to be 'exciting'. Within seconds of the first thunder clap the streets and golf courses have cleared . 

Half an hour later the storm has passed. All agree that it has been 'remarkable'.  The bar by the fountain has filled with a mix of German tourists and American golfers seeking shelter. Not  all of them are keen to leave. Some have discovered the restorative cumulative effect of a whisky chaser with a pint of beer.  I note that the old golf shoes on the window ledge have been 'refreshed' for the summer season with new plastic flowers.

With the storm gone a workman starts work on a memorial plaque to some little known local signatory of the American Declaration of Independence. The memorial to Benjamin Franklin ( boy did he get around ) has been re-painted and this one is about to enjoy the same treatment. Someone is clearly expecting there to be an influx of visitors here for July 4th.

Wedding season kicking in. A young couple standing holding hands while studying a poem that's displayed on the front of the library. The young man reads out the first 'What's my future ?' verse aloud to the young lady . This is a rather charmingly romantic gesture. They then kiss in that oblivious to the world way only early twenty somethings can.  The world might be a better place if more public buildings displayed poetry on their walls. 

For a few unlucky souls 'resits' have begun. They can be seen standing forlornly outside the small exam hall.

The lupins in front of chapel have survived the hail rather better than I'd imagined possible.

And so it begins :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4prMqzE9U2A

Travelling in Syria :https://sophisms.substack.com/p/the-road-to-and-from-damascus

The cousins go to Windsor :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdMOmd5_tKU

Istanbul is much bigger than you'd think :https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/istanbul/istanbuls-population-drops-for-1st-time-turkey-sees-growth

Summer is officially here.

Look carefully just above the garden wall and you can see yet another cruise liner heading North towards Orkney. Four of them have sailed by this morning -  one large gin palace sized ship from Carnival, one equally large one from Princess and two smaller Dutch boats from companies we've never heard of. The sea is calm but it's cloudy and there's a bit of a wind blowing from the West. Rain is forecast. The ships linger in the bay. Seems that the large wind farm off the coast has become a cruise destination in its own right.

The Life Guards cabin has been rebuilt. It goes up at the start of June and comes down at the end of September. The cabins arrival tells us summer is officially here. The weather doesn't seem to have go the memo.

Lots of affable golfers out this morning. The first day we've seen the first tee really busy. This lucky group are accompanied by four of the most senior Caddies. They are all getting along splendidly.

The Caddies advise on which clubs to use and how to adjust play for the wind and the state of the grass. The golfers seem overjoyed. One player manages a hole in three which is cause for much back slapping. Men with cameras sporting zoom lenses have reappeared. We saw them for the first time last year. Having a professional photographer record your round on the sacred turf has become de rigeur for corporate types.  We pass a gentleman from New York pacing backwards and forwards. He's on his i-Phone and having a loud animated conversation with someone about fiduciary duty. It must be just gone two in the morning in Manhattan so I'm guessing this is one of those ' I don't care what time it is just get it sorted ' type conversations.

The university gardeners have been busy replanting all the flower beds in time for the graduation ceremonies that kick off in three weeks time. Begonias feature heavily in the planting mix. This is fine if you like Begonias.

Name the instrument :https://youtu.be/XncSYIc0HtY?list=RDXncSYIc0HtY&t=1

How lucky we are to live in an unexciting corner of the world. I'd been told about this but didn't understand how widely it's observed :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9RqpvRZ4ag

5,000 years later and there's still signs of life :https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-signs-of-active-life-in-tzi-the-iceman

Puffin counting :https://www.welshwildlife.org/news/another-record-breaking-year-skomer-what-it-takes-count-52019-puffins

Could this be Americas Eiffel Tower ? :https://x.com/ABC/status/2062226870737772602

You take your excitement where you can find it.

Eight o'clock on Tuesday night and a large cruise liner appears out at sea. Seen from the garden it seems to be oddly tall but not very long :https://www.oceaniacruises.com/ships/marina. Until recently cruise ships rarely if ever ventured this far North but last year we noticed a marked uptick in the number of liners en route to Dublin and the Orkneys. This year there  seems to be even more of them. Guess the cruise lines are rescheduling away from the Eastern Mediterranean. We, and a group of villagers, stand on the farm track and watch the ship sail twinkling majestically by. You take your excitement where you can find it.

Wednesday morning. I find a parking space for the little BMW by the bookstore. Within 30 seconds a ferocious looking gull lands on the wee cars roof . I think of shooing it away but it gives me a look that says it's not to be toyed with.

Student bikes still chained to the railings of the house by the cinema.  The bike that had been left outside the wee house in town has finally been collected by a bored looking man in blue overalls who hoists into the back of his van.

A German couple forget which side of the road to drive on. They find themselves  heading towards the oncoming traffic. The driver swerves and hits a  bollard. The rental car company has a tow truck there in half an hour. A group of American golfers at the cafe where Prince William met Kate ( allegedly ) find this to be the 'darndest' thing they ever did see. Neither of us has ever heard anyone use the word 'darndest' before. It is presumably archaic. Since Monday the number of American visitors in town has grown. In fact it's not so much grown as exploded. June must mark the start of vacation season.

At last David Mellor has got its espresso cups back in stock. The brightly coloured coffee cups came with us from France but the espresso cups went AWOL during the move. Replacements arrive ( four years late ) in the morning post.

A gull creates an artistic shadow as it lands on the pavement outside the expensive lobster roll restaurant.

Life in the absence of the students, as you might be able to tell,  is so, so quiet.

Singing whales :https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-cold-wars-accidental-whale-observatory/

A craving for company :https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2026/why-we-crave-social-interaction

Not all book festivals are created equal :https://snyder.substack.com/p/waiting-for-the-missiles-to-pass

This lady doesn't seem to have enjoyed Scotland :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQlgN9w0BsU

Wrinkled sheets

A braw morning. Blue skies over the village and scattered banks of cloud inland. Concentrate hard , really hard, and you can almost feel the warmth in the sun. The BBC six am news bulletin seems once again unsure as to whether the Iran issue is 'alive' or 'dead'. Last night we go to a small presentation by a senior American politician who is here playing golf. This explains the private jet that flew over yesterday morning and landed at the airbase. He speaks of a high risk 2027-2028 window in international affairs. Post midterms the outlook for the world is slightly unsettling as the mischief makers come out to play. 

There is a gold metallic Peugeot parked in the corner of the potato field. It has French 54 plates. A quick Google search indicates the car is registered in Meurthe-et- Moselle. This is a department we've never been to. The Peugeots owners can be found on the beach skimming stones and laughing like teenagers. They have never seen cormorants and are amazed at their diving skills. They tell us the Scots are 'charmant' which is a surprise.

A solitary poppy appears in the grass verges of the potato field. The farmers irrigation system provides an unattractive backdrop. For some reason I thought the poppies usually bloom in July.

More wonderful and exotic things are  starting to emerge from the grass alongside the track that leads to the shore. We can only assume that wonderful things are brought in by the birds that rest here during the migrating season.

It's not just the village that's waking up to the World Cup.  The newspapers are now shifting their front pages to covering the tournament.

The shopkeepers are also tuning in on football. Two matches are being played in Boston and a third in Miami. I fear that the Scots team - and the fans -  will not cope well with Floridian heat and humidity. The motto ' Good luck Scotland - We can do this ! ' seems ever so slightly forlorn.

Here in the village the New Zealand man who makes  soap out of seaweed had a dry run with the device that projects television pictures onto a screen. A dozen or so 30 something fathers could be found in the village hall drinking beer and making sure everything works as planned. They were joined by a collection of three to five year olds who are given orange squash and Pringles to keep them quiet. It was agreed that the Emperor sized sheet onto which the match will be projected needs to be carefully ironed. Wrinkled sheets substantially degrade the viewing experience. 

Not sure about the architectural design of this. A bit dystopian ? : https://www.obama.org/visit/

An unusual travel destination :https://notcompeting.substack.com/p/have-money-dont-complain-live-better

Woke paint . I've ordered some and will let you know the results :https://www.atelierellis.co.uk/

Eyes:https://www.popsci.com/science/why-humans-have-white-part-eyes/

Unusual story of the day :https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/05/31/built-140-years-ago-and-still-in-use-today-warsaws-sewers-connect-the-city-to-its-brutal-past/

America seems to produce 'interesting' politicians :https://www.mediaite.com/politics/gop-gubernatorial-frontrunner-claims-he-killed-a-man-at-age-7-wont-say-how-many-people-hes-killed-in-bonkers-interview/

A former Portugese Foreign Minister has written a new book :https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/the-age-of-world-order-is-over-the

Climbing the wall.

June 1st. In a week the village lads head off to the World Cup on Jet Blue flight 1080 from Edinburgh.  We meet the farmers wife heading down the farm track to the beach for a morning swim. She's wearing her duck egg blue one piece, a beany hat and wellington boots and is accompanied by the two Jack Russells. A towel is draped practically around her shoulders. Her fears about the boys going to the US are now outweighed by the stress of living with two teenage football fans desperate for their adventure to begin. Time is weighing heavily on them - and her. She, and they, are climbing the wall. The 19 year old, soon to be 20, is under strict orders to make sure the younger one doesn't  ' do anything daft '.  " I'm sure they'll have  the trip of a lifetime " says 'The Font'. ' That's what worries me ' replies the farmers wife without even a moments hesitation. 

The local 30 year old 'young fathers' are making plans for the matches to be shown in the village hall. One of the New Zealanders is the proud owner of a device that projects television programmes onto a screen. This evening a sheet will be hung from the rafters and there will be a test run to see how it works. Angus has been asked if there is any 'spare wine' in the garage.

Monday morning. The Old Course quiet. There's maybe thirty or so golfers waiting to tee off. The flag lanyards clink away in the morning breeze.

For the next two or three weeks we're in that state of grace where car parking is easy. After that the crowds start to return for graduation and then everything kicks into higher gear with the summer influx of golfers. That's when it gets wild and we retreat into isolation in the wee house on the coast. Once, many years ago, we nearly bought a house in San Gimignano in Tuscany. It was only by chance that we returned, unexpectedly, to do a pre-purchase check that it dawned on us how busy the place gets. Even on a Tuesday morning in May there were a hundred Danes in motor homes waiting to get into the small Coop supermarket.

At the supermarket a patient dog ,and his master, wait for the mistress of the house to return.

Even the fish and chip shop is taking reservations for graduation dinners. 

Down to the cathedral . We are the only folks there.

For lovers of vinyl :https://humminguru.com/products/humminguru-record-washer

Old churches :https://religionnews.com/2026/05/28/these-houses-of-worship-are-older-than-america-how-they-outlasted-wars-schisms-and-lawsuits/

Unusual :https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-sun-just-did-something-nobody-expected-and-it-kept-going-for-19-days

The sun :https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/listening-suns-heart-hints-our-star-could-be-changing

Foreknowledge.

The last day of May. How is it possible five months have passed ? Where has the time gone ? It's rained overnight. The morning air heavy with the scent of wet grass. On our way down the farm track to the shore a large private jet comes over and starts a leisurely descent into the local military  airbase. To be allowed to land there  you must be an exceptionally well connected golfer. Probably a Senator or a trillionaire or 'family' member. Scores of young sparrows are fliting in and out of the wild roses that cover the old stone field walls. The sparrows are too young and too excited to be bothered by us. There's a large group of them singing away in the lupin border. Sparrows  may not be the most beautiful of birds but they know how to celebrate the gift of a new day. Their antics make us smile.

The calves on the village green seem content with life. 

Later on today there will be charity run on the beach. 5,000 participants are expected. There are already half a dozen or so event organizers unloading Portaloos from the back of a truck. The quiet hard work of the volunteer. I'd like to say that the organizers are uncomplaining but unloading Portaloos from a truck generates a few choice shin banging words.

The farmer with the exceptionally pretty daughters has installed a vending machine in the farms strawberry hut. The daughters have returned from university and made it clear that they do not intend to spend their entire summer manning the farms fruit outlet and dispensing soft fruit to passing tourists. The machine takes credit cards and proves to be remarkably easy to use. The daughters are still expected to fill the machine with fresh fruit every couple of hours in return for holiday money. I wonder how this will work out.

Only one house in town has Georgian balustrades. They serve no practical purpose so must have been installed by a stylish fashionista in the late 18th century. How is it we've never noticed them before ?

We go to the bookstore for an evening reading with the author of the new book 'Weimar'. She's been on Radio 4 over the last couple of weeks reading excerpts and her book has had really good reviews. The train is delayed by an hour ( never travel over the weekend )  but she gamely arrives and steps straight onto the podium without so much as a reviving cup of coffee. No complaints about having spent 10 hours on a slow train from London. Inflation, resentment, technological change and a belief that government wasn't working marked the restrictive changes in 1920's and 30's Germany. " The people of Weimar have provided us with foreknowledge of what happens when you elect politicians promising easy solutions " her concluding sentence. A reminder that history may not repeat itself but it does rhyme.  The back rows are taken by dog owners with their pooches. The bookstore has provided water bowls which all the dogs decide to use at the same time mid-talk. A Sheltie with Bells Palsy  is a particularly noisy drinker.

An Icelander who's possibly the worlds greatest pianist. Perfect listening for the last Sunday in May :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-1lBHIAia4&list=RDE-1lBHIAia4&start_radio=1

The architecture of Washington. I found the thing about light penetrating marble  fascinating :https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/americas-national-style-is-hiding

Cuba : https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/we-need-to-talk-about-cuba

The old ways work :https://www.npr.org/2026/05/21/nx-s1-5738979/beavers-britain-climate-change-flooding

Daddy - longlegs :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/daddy-longlegs-seem-to-hunt-frogs-in-south-america-revealing-the-gangly-arachnids-as-long-overlooked-predators-180988810/

Turmeric :https://www.acsh.org/news/2026/05/29/turmeric-supplements-more-risks-benefits-50143