Holy whisky.

The warmest day of the year. 24 degrees yesterday and almost the same forecast for today. The towns beaches solid with families enjoying the sunshine.

We head off to Lindores Abbey. Another of those gently crumbling ruins found on the banks of the Tay. In the parking lot we meet a lady from Manchester who has had a heart transplant. " Coming here has added ten years to my life " she informs us. We wish her well. She has two Belgian Sheepdogs which are 14 years old . This, it seems, is a miraculously good age for the breed.

By the main gateway a Jack Russell rushes out to warn us off but soon decides we're 'dog people'. He gets a tickle under his chin which is enough reassurance for him to disappear back into the farmers caravan which doubles up as an office. We are left alone to explore crumbling nooks and crannies. The iconoclasts did a good job here and there's not much left of what must have been a huge building.

Two tiny graves of young Princes. Nothing to tell us who they were. From the size of the tombs I'm guessing 13th century royal still births. 

On the other side of the road from the old medieval gateway  the farmer has upgraded the old barns and repurposed them as a state of the art distillery.

This is a bright and stylishly modern affair. A lucid young man who has recently graduated in engineering from Strathclyde tells us that the earliest record of whisky being made or  sold in Scotland can be found in the abbey archives. He also informs us the water for the monks whisky came from the 'Holy Burn'. Today it comes from their own bore hole. 

It's a beautiful location but possibly just a wee bit too far from St Andrews to attract tourists? Barring the lady with a new heart and a couple of staff from the bottling plant the place is deserted.  If the distillery was on the other side of the road it would make Highland Malt but on this side of the road it's Lowland. Another of those peculiarities of Scottish life.

We buy  a couple of bottles . We're asked if we want to taste some before buying but 'The Font' informs me we don't.  

On the radio Scottish music played in Los Angeles :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Om2GoiUYfw

The stylish Chinese golfer.

 

Monday early evening. It's dry and sunny. We opt for a half an hour walk along the shore to the large Canadian golf hotel for a pre-dinner drink. This hotel claims to be a 5 star but the dried Seagull guano on the outside tables hints at a less stellar rating. A gaggle of disinterested staff standing by the waste bins for a cigarette break reinforces this impression. The post-Brexit absence of Europeans makes running any Scottish hotel or restaurant a difficult task. The really good Michelin restaurant in Anstruther - which was a gem -  has recently given up the fight and closed for good.

While we wait for our drinks to arrive 'The Font' informs Angus that Murdo the boilerman has called and arranged to do a full service of the central heating system a week on Monday. We both agree that Scotland is a country where winter preparations are best done early and thoroughly.

The '5' star hotel is quiet between 5:30 and 6:00. Golfers are only then returning from town . We're alone with the exception of a Chinese gentlemen in a white track suit covered with a surprising amount of gold braid trimming. He's smoking an enormous cigar. His baseball cap matches his track suit but with the addition of a 'Golfy Buddy' logo in red letters. The Chinese gentlemen is stretched flat out on a long bamboo bench and is almost invisible to passers by. Every so often a puff of cigar smoke and a snatch of music from his i-Phone signal that he's still awake.

A helicopter brings in some Gleneagles folks for dinner. It lands rather closer to the hotel than we'd imagined would be possible under Health and Safety regulations. The noise, and the ensuing down wash, causes the  Chinese gentlemen to sit up and see what's going on. The sight of a helicopter moving across the grass causes him , sensibly, to head inside.

This book has now been finished. Angus now knows all he needs to know about Byzantium between the 4th and 11th centuries. A good , if weighty, read.

The cashier in the bookstore recommended this. It's rather fun .

A climate emergency in LATVIA :https://x.com/WxNB_/status/1817665362185318508

Camouflaged Hippo :https://x.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1818059184094470288

Drawing in.

August approaching and the days gently drawing in. In the morning it's still light by five but last night  darkness had fallen just after ten. This was enough of a surprise for us to comment on it.

This morning we wake and find the garden bathed in bright sunshine. Down at the end of the track that leads to the shore the sky is black. A passing squall. Thankfully, it's heading at 90 degrees away from us and out to sea. The news this morning tells us motorised suitcases have been banned at Japanese airports :https://modobag.com/ . Neither of of us has ever spotted one of these things. Whatever will they think of next ?

To the cheese shop. A quiet time for them. The locals are away on vacation and day trippers tend not to be big buyers of cheese. Europeans staying in Airbnb's take up some of the slack . Oddly, during term time, students tend to be big buyers of cheese.

An early wedding in the chapel. Everything is working smoothly. Men in frock coats guide guests to their places. A smartly turned out piper plays Amazing Grace and Highland Cathedral.  It has the look of a 'planned' event. A small fleet of large and extremely shiny limousines are lined up where we usually park the Volvo. There is more than a hint of Stockbridge to this crowd. The ushers suits are 'sharper' than those usually seen in these parts and definitely more modern than the tweed variety worn by local farmers. The women guests are uniformly big on floral patterns.

Some American golfers have had an early breakfast at the cafe by the Kirk. A brave seagull is devouring a tattie scone having already finished off the remains of a fried egg. Spare a thought for the serving staff.  You'd need to be a brave soul wanting to clear the plates away before the gull has finished.

Two rather fine bearded Collies ignore the wedding, the golfers and the gulls as they head off on their morning walk.

The Olympics throw up a heart warming story :https://x.com/Aaronsmith333/status/1817431315916165475

The pros of Asian food :https://sketchplanations.com/open-air-kitchen

A place to pass a few summer days :https://cavendishhotelbaslow.co.uk/

Gold.

 

Back home after the trip to Glasgow.  The train connection time at the Dundee end perhaps 15 seconds too short to be completely relaxing. A polite guard holds the door open for us as we scurry from platform 2 to platform 4. ' Nae need to hurry' he says in a voice that implies the opposite. 

Angus watches the Olympic Rugby 7's. Fast and furious. Antoine Dupont, the scrum-half,  is electric and France justifiably take the gold.

Beautiful weather here on the coast. Corn Buntings in the fields and a Jack Russell nursing a Jacobs Cream Cracker in her mouth in the back garden.

Puppy has noted the presence of a hare in the courtyard. Is it worth chasing ? Her instincts say yes but experience says it'll be gone by the time she's half way down the steps. This girl is growing up and getting 'canny' very quickly. Her quivering tail hints at the inner turmoil.

We've bought a 1929 motorists guide to Scotland in a second hand bookstore on the Great Western Road. It makes entertaining reading on the train journey home.

The section on St Andrews makes me wonder whether language like this would be allowed today. I'm not sure what ' St Andrews affects the American golfer much as Stratford-on-Avon affects the American college girl' is supposed to mean but it doesn't sound very woke.

The author is on stronger ground when summing up the difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Sunday morning music on the car radio :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUtqN1x4Mbk

This photo of the new Prime Minister sums up the difference between the British and the rest of the world :https://x.com/DeanRed123/status/1817095230044188910

2 pictures

 

Beautiful weather prompts a decision to head off to Glasgow to try a new restaurant and go to a museum. The connection works perfectly. The train from Leuchars glides into Dundee station as the connecting express to Queen Street arrives at the next platform. Front door to hotel room in two and a bit hours .... and the freedom of having no car to park.

The route along the banks of the Tay a peaceful mixture of river and fields dotted with lambs and foals . One of the UK's prettiest - but least appreciated - train journeys. The train almost empty so the lady with the refreshment trolley asks if we'd like two biscuits with our coffees..

We pass acres of reed beds. The reeds are cut and shipped off to English owners of thatched cottages. A profitable if unusual sideline for the farmers. 

In town the Kelvingrove Art Gallery has a wonderful exhibit of works by the Glasgow Boys. There's far too much to take in on one day.  We 've come to see a work by Joseph Crawhall. The solidity of the cows balanced by the balletic litheness of the swallows. The simplicity of style and bright colours must have been revolutionary in their day.

The other reason for our journey is a doleful but very Scottish work painted by a 23 year old James Guthrie. It was controversial when first shown but is a masterpiece of understatement and completely devoid of colour. Not something you'd want at home but technically brilliant. You can almost feel the cold and hear the snow crunching underfoot. Every face registering a different emotion.

After studying it in silence  'The Font' observes that one of the mysteries of the piece ( and there are many ) is the singular absence of women . Every character is male. Were women considered  too emotional to attend a funeral - even if it was their own childs?  Angus is at a loss to answer this.

This mornings car radio highlight. Not something you hear often in these parts :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VtlRoH3_rU

More chocolate.

 

We meet the German family. This morning the mother and the youngest are out gathering wildflowers in the hedgerows. They already have a trug full.

The father and the two other youngsters head to the beach. Father spends three hours with the children in the morning before heading into the economics department for meetings. He's back home mid afternoon which enables him to spend more time on the sand with the family. They set off for Heidelberg on August 20th when the Scots family they've done a house swap with return. " We didn't know places like this still existed " he tells me. I take this to be a positive.

The postman delivers another birthday box of chocolates. Angus is rather surprised to be sent rose and violet creams. You'd have thought they went out of fashion at the same time as Barbara Cartland. Still when it comes to chocolates who wants to be too choosy ? 

The old abbey.

 

Out on the farm track we pass a group of enthusiastic bird watchers. They tell us they're looking for Corn Buntings. Right on cue a small flock of them arrive and perch on the wheat stalks in front of us.  Thank God for bird watchers. In a world gone mad their interest in the villages feathered inhabitants puts everything into proportion. After we go the bird watchers settle down on the grass verge and share their breakfast sandwiches. 

High speed broadband being laid . Seven vans parked in a line blocking the road into town. There is a hold up that lasts all of two minutes. A man with one of those rotating ' Stop - Go' signs oversees the traffic flow. He exudes an overarching aura of boredom. In Italy or France delayed drivers would have been hooting like crazy. Here there is a sort of mild irritation. We're held up long enough to wonder why seven vans are needed. There appears to be one van for each workman. 'The Font' observes that three, possibly four,  of the vans would be needed to carry the large number of traffic cones that have been laid out.

On our way back from the supermarket a detour into the country to the site of an old abbey.

Two motor cycle helmets left unattended on the grass tell us we're in the right place. The countryside is glorious and (motorcyclists excepted) deserted. Eerily so. You don't have to get far off the beaten track to discover that once you stray north of the central belt Scotland is remote and empty. 

Some old monastic buildings used as a hay shed and the outlines of altars and chapels all that's left after 500 years of gentle decay.  The two motor cycle helmets are still lying on the grass when we leave. In its heyday the church only had one aisle - which is unusual. There is a tree which is reputed to have been planted by a saintly Queen in the ninth century.  A small plaque informs us that this is a 'legend' and that the tree is probably only four hundred and fifty years old.

Esoterica of the day. The history of colour charts :https://hyperallergic.com/929139/the-delightfully-saturated-history-of-color-charts/

Beauty on the internet :https://x.com/dog_rates/status/1815869962998652986

Cheeky sparrows and a glum pigeon.

A birthday dinner at a restaurant outside town. Pre-Brexit the Scottish hospitality industry was staffed by an annual migration of eager young Europeans wanting to spend their summers learning English. Now, in the absence of work visas,  local restaurants and hotels are desperate to find any staff whatsoever. It shows. Prices remain unchanged but standards slump. Last night it took three and a half hours to be served four tepid and lack lustre courses. The place was full of identikit golfers ( blazers , white Oxfords and chinos ) drinking whisky with dinner . They seemed oblivious to the dire service. Whisky - on an empty stomach - will do that.

I'm not saying that things are quiet out here on the coast but the topic of conversation over breakfast is the second brood of sparrows. They've appeared on the lawn over the last five days. We reckon there were 23 chicks in the first brood at the end of June. The second brood looks as if it's reached 31. The young birds are fed a mix of bird seed and bread crumbs from the Magimix. Sparrow mothers are very diligent.

Two pigeons call the garden at 'The last wee house before Denmark' their home. A pile of feathers on the lawn tells me that the sparrow hawk has got one of them. The remaining pigeon sits on a garden chair looking glum.

Spare a thought for the Secret Service which faces new and expansive threats. We went to a lecture at the terrorism school of the IR Department here that pointed out that domestic terrorists tend not to be ideological but driven and united by psychological issues :https://intelnews.org/2024/07/15/01-3355/

Wandering gulls.

 

A group of Japanese standing in a circle in the salt water pool under the castle. What can they be doing at six in the morning ? Two American tourists walk, carefully, around the concrete edge of the pool holding hands. At the far end they realise this may not have been the wisest thing to do. The Japanese and Americans ignore each other.

The lock gates are being repaired but problems have arisen. The supervisor  informs us that everyone thought the pegs slotted into holes drilled into the bed rock. This morning they discover that one of the gates pivots on the bedrock but the other swings on a large metre square lump of Georgian iron. After two hundred years of salt water immersion the iron is 'brittle '. This may cause problems. The 'gaffer' launches into a  lengthy analysis of water based corrosion. Angus wonders when it was he last head the word 'brittle' with regard to ironwork. The bridge across the harbour may have to be closed to pedestrians while they work out what to do.

A blow up plastic dam is being installed to enable the workmen to gain access  to the block of  Georgian iron. In order to do this they plan to drain the inner harbour.

More notices appear on lamp posts. Drivers are being asked to slow down to avoid the baby gulls that wander, innocently but aggressively,  across the streets. Baby gulls do not move as quickly as speeding cars. Come to that drivers tend not to read signs sellotaped to lamp posts.

Outside the Salvation Army charity store a young gull appears. It has very fine plumage but has lost its mother and is terrified. It heads off into the relative safety of the church garden where it sets about trampling on the begonia beds. 

So starts a Tuesday morning in a small quiet North Sea town where the welfare of the local gulls ( and the working of the lock gates ) are the burning issues of the day.

Sea water and cuts :https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-student-contributors-did-you-know/seawater-really-antidote-cuts-and-scrapes

I don't think these ever made it to Europe :https://thehustle.co/originals/the-spectacular-rise-and-surprising-staying-power-of-the-george-foreman-grill  I'd also missed this psychological insight :https://thehustle.co/originals/why-7-eleven-plays-classical-music-outside-its-stores

Cheerful shoes.

The left over sunflowers in the supermarket lobby have a Monday morning look to them. After a hectic Sunday this is how many American political journalists must be feeling today. On the radio a woman from Berkeley says, somewhat prosaically, yesterdays events were ' expected but still a shock'. 

A display of highly polished golf shoes on a window ledge outside the  bar by the town fountain. The plastic heather is a 'cheerful' touch.

The Christmas store is having its window replaced. A sign tells us that it's open for business as usual. Quite what is usual about selling Christmas decorations in July is left unexplained.  Next door one of the redundant mobile phone stores remains unlet. There was a time when finding commercial premises in town was as rare as finding hens teeth.  Now, by my count,  there are seven vacant shops. The switch to online retailing is changing buying patterns and shop leases attract much less interest. 

The demand for injection moulded souvenirs remains robust. Made in Shenzen, shipped to Scotland and then sold and  carried onwards to a permanent home in Madrid or Monterey. Angus can't tell whether the regimental pipers in the window of this shop have different tartans . They're certainly unlike any tartan you'd see  in Scotland.

The young seagulls in their tell tale brown and white feathers can be seen parading around town. They fly down from their nests on the chimney stacks, don't have the strength to fly back up and then get lost. The first signs telling drivers to slowdown to avoid fledgling gulls have started to appear. 

It was Angus' birthday yesterday. This morning a rather grand present arrives. A box of chocolates from the House of Lords. Will they be suitably grand ? We shall soon find out.

Some calmness on the radio this morning :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SeUrjsVHXY

A topic I know nothing about :https://www.design233.com/articles/ghanas-architectural-heritage?