How's that going to pan out ?

The sun is up over the horizon by four in the morning and sets a little before midnight. Sophie, finally, seems to have come to terms with living in a land of permanent light. Today, she sleeps in until five twenty at which point she emits a single, concrete shredding, yelp. This is my cue to get up and enjoy the glorious morning with her.

Flocks of Jackdaws and Magpies greet us as we head along the track down to the sea. Three sparrows stop on the stone wall and chat away as if we're long lost friends. On the rocks the eiders are too busy hunting for barnacles to pay any attention to Sophie or her companion. Overnight the badger has returned to munch on the alpine plants.

After breakfast we head into town. The beach by the golf course deserted apart from a lady who ( bizarrely )  has a pocket full of carrot slivers. Sophie isn't overly keen on slices of carrot but accepts them with an attitude that a girl can't look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Give it a couple of weeks and the profile of the visitors to the town will change. At the moment the bulk of them come up from Edinburgh on the shuttle or by train. By the end of the month the seasoned visitors will arrive. They tend to fly in, collect their golf clubs at the carrousel and then head to the car rental desk so that they can get up to their hotels in the fastest time possible. Parking then reverts to being impossible.

The lady in the bacon roll cafe tells me that the junior lecturers are on strike over pay. The junior lecturers mark the exam papers. With graduation a month away this is not a good development. More senior staff are being asked to help out. I wonder how that's going to pan out ? Outside the administration building two young women are setting up a large signs that says ' Strength in Unity '. I'm guessing that the strikers will soon be demonstrating.