'The Font' heads back to Scotland. Lots of little last minute preparations before the Texan tenants arrive on Friday. This time 'The Font' tries the connecting flight through Belgium with Brussels Air. Supposedly 4 hours and 50 minutes from Toulouse to Edinburgh inclusive of the plane change at Zaventem. An hour quicker than the best connection with BA. Both flights are late - something to do with the French Air Traffic Controllers being on strike. The second flight lands just in time to catch the Edinburgh evening rush hour.
The cleaning company who employ wives from the local army base have been in. The place is spotless and 'regimented'. Everything is exceedingly right angular , magazines carefully stacked, books aligned as if on parade.
There is a moment of horror when 'The Font' finds and reads a letter sent by the university. The second night the Texans will be in the house is the night of the Graduation Ball. In our day you graduated, partied until midnight and then went home. These days the Graduation Ball is major part of the social calendar with a bevy of bands starting at midnight and going on until the sun rises ( and then some ). The tone of the letter - 'I would like to give you our assurances that we have taken all measures possible to ensure that noise levels ... are kept within reason ' suggests that the sound levels will be memorable. Hopefully, the Texans and their wee ones will be so jet lagged they won't notice the bedlam going on outside.
The laburnum trees coming into full bloom.
There is a 'wee house' by the town gate. This used to be the public lavatory but has been bought, converted and named by someone with a sense of humour. We shall have to rename the wee house the sma' house.
In San Francisco this is apparently unusual. Elsewhere it would be called a gastropub : https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/dining/san-francisco-restaurants-service.html
This has gone largely unnoticed but shows that things do get better. To appoint an Ulster policeman is a sign of just how mature and world class Irish politics has become. It's also one of those quiet events that we may look back on later and say ' that's when it started ':
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0626/973313-drew-harris-garda-commissioner/
8 comments:
We on this side of the Irish Sea need a dose of whatever the Irish have been taking over the past decade.
Hari om
Police Scotland havexbeen struggling with similar...maybe watching closely! As for the "wee" house, :-)
I'd leave that letter out for the tenants so they can prepare themselves.At least the weather ought to lull them. It has been astounding! YAM xx
The tenants will be left the letter and a bottle of wine.Who would have thought , even a year ago, that the Garda would have as their head an Ulster policeman and the son of an RUC officer ?
Does being in the EU have anything to do with it ?
Maybe a bottle of the local alcoholic speciality would be in order, as a noise-cancelling measure.
Re Brussels Air, isn't that just Sabena, renamed? You know what they said Sabena stood for--such a bad experience, never again.
Dear old Sabena. It's been taken over by Lufthansa so in its new guise is a marriage of German flair and Belgian punctuality.
...agreed...meanwhile, PS has seemed 'allergic' to having a chief from South of the border. Current candidates include an RUC man...
LOL, that reminds me of Jack Kennedy's comment about Washington, as a city of southern efficiency and northern charm. Still true for the most part, it seems.
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