Parking purgatory.

 

We've given up on the idea of going shopping in town for the next three or four days. Throngs of lady golfers mixed with tourists exploring Scotland in their rental Volvos mean that parking spots are rarer than hens teeth. Traffic calming measures have been introduced to channel the golf traffic towards the overflow car parks. It goes without saying the overflow car parks aren't nearly big enough for the volume of visitors. As a result there's an endless steam of vehicles going round and round looking for somewhere to stop. Parking purgatory.

The last of our summer guests have left the Wee House in town so later today we'll have to go down to let the cleaning ladies in. Our usual cleaner is on holiday and has taken the keys with her.  I'll double park on the street outside with the engine running and hope the traffic wardens are busy elsewhere.

More and more geese heading south. They're not migrating (yet) in large numbers but  on our morning walk we see fifty or so of them flying low down the coast. They're low enough to hear the swoosh of their wings as they fly by. Yesterday, the farmer harvested the wheat field down by the rock spindle. The geese love a recently harvested wheat field. We'll be seeing  a lot more of them in the next few weeks.

A dozen or so cormorants are swimming lagubriously in the rocky water . There must be a shoal of herring close inshore. When it comes to fishing the cormorants  are natures undisputed champions. The gannets who forever dive and plunge into the water aren't far behind. Natures gold and silver medalists.

Down by the harbour the foreign motor home owners are up and about. The first of them - probably German - have already set off for the long journey up to the far North. It's not that the distances are great but Scottish roads are not designed for large numbers of motor homes. They'll average 35 mph - if they're lucky. A heron is patiently waiting for worms in the harbour mud to make an appearance.

I've just finished reading this book - a  recommendation from a neighbouring professor. It was brilliant. Well written, concise and thought provoking.  A surprisingly fresh take on a subject that I thought had been done to death. The author ( Regius Professor of History at Cambridge ) puts paid to the modern idea that evil is banal. It's often plausible, hard working and polished. I'm left with the unsettling feeling that the rhetoric and ideas my parents generation fought so hard to finish are making a reappearance. I'm also left with the alarming feeling that much of the populist rhetoric from the period can be heard - literally word for word - in the pronouncements of some modern politicians. One of those books you should read rather than want to read.