Coos.

An emotional reunion with Sophie in the station car park followed by dinner at home in the garden. The Edinburgh trains run on time, to the second.  In the evening the sunset  turns the waters of the bay red then amber then  gold. The simplest things in life can be glorious. On the horizon a large brightly lit cruise liner drifts slowly by on a round Britain voyage . For once the sea is as smooth as the proverbial mill pond. The family diva, delighted her flock is reunited, sleeps contentedly on her back by the gate. Angus tells 'The Font' about a young reconstructive surgeon he's met in Edinburgh.  In a weeks time the surgeon is moving back to Kharkiv to work in a hospital there. He will fly to Krakow and then go the rest of the way by truck.  'Are you worried ?' I ask him. " Yes, but if not me, then who ? " You wouldn't know it from the newspapers but duty and the pursuit of goodness still drive peoples lives. Self effacingly he tells me the heroes are the Ukrainian front line surgeons who work trauma stemming miracles with little or no equipment.

This Thursday morning dawns warm and calm. We have a long leisurely stroll from one end of the beach to the other . Sophie has a revitalizing bowl of water and digestive biscuit at the Good Coffee Cafe. The students have gone  replaced , this morning, by a line of Canadian gentlemen golfers. 'Is the weather always like this ?' one asks me. 

Sophie is finding that being a family diva is not a bed of roses. The arrival of the young cows has unsettled her routine.

The calves in the field watch her as she walks back into the village.

They rest their chins on the stone wall and watch her as she passes.

And they watch her as she heads home . She deals with this stress by first doubling and then tripling her pace.

In fact everywhere you look there are cows ... or reminders of coos.