A heatwave.

Town already filling up with ( soon to be ) Maths graduates. Day trippers wander down the streets convinced , if they ever needed convincing, that Scots really do wear kilts every day. Missing parents are texted ( can you show irritation in a text ? ) to make sure they're not lost on a back street.

A large Singaporean family watch their daughter try on her gown for the very first time. Pride is supposed to be a sin but surely at this time of year an excusable one ? The grandparents are overjoyed and dab their eyes. That moment where words can't express happiness. At a cafe in town an American couple, their very pretty daughter and a big Scots lug of a lad in a kilt are sitting in the sun at a table next to us. The daiquiri sipping  mother looks on in horror as the Scots boy, rushing off to do something important, downs his beer then turns and kisses the girl with a smouldering intensity that suggests they're more than passing acquaintances. ' I don't mind you smooching in front of us' says the mother to her daughter after the lad has gone. She adds, unconvincingly ' I really don't '. That moment when the realisation dawns that her little girl isn't a little girl any more and might not be settling down in Little Rock with the nice boy whose father owns the Buick dealership . How I'd love to eavesdrop on the rest of that conversation. Everywhere you look in a small town like this old chapters are closing and new ones being written.

Traffic is stopped morning and afternoon as the faculty traipse backwards and forwards to the ceremonies. Those in the know find a parking space early on and then stick with it. Three more days of this ahead. 

At the good coffee cafe the routine of filling up the water bowl continues uninterrupted.

Across the road the garden of the dark whinstone built house is suddenly coming alive in the sunshine. 28 degrees forecast for today. For Scotland that's a heatwave. The locals are torn between complaining about the heat and rejoicing in it.