Pirouetting birds

 

I'd thought the swallows had all gone but in the late afternoon a dozen or so show up in the garden. We stand and watch them roll, whirl and gyrate above us. After ten minutes they wheel and head south flying low above the wheat fields. We're now, just, into our third year here and these regular village visitors are almost family. Both of us quietly thank them for this private - and spectacular -  end of season show. 

Outside the kitchen window the sparrow flock are busy pecking at the bird seed 'The Font' has sprinkled on the grass. I thought there were 30 chicks in the latest brood but it's probably closer to 50.

In town a young gull has figured out that there's food inside Tescos.

Every so often it darts towards the sliding exit doors. It gets a little closer each time before prudence kicks in. I'd reckon that by tomorrow it will have summoned up the courage to venture inside.

The souvenir shop ( it claims to be a Craft Shop but 'Craft' is clearly an extremely elastic term ) has some skull goblets in the window. Who ( eight year old males excepted ) would buy them ? Why would anyone think they're even vaguely Scottish ?  As we ponder these questions our attention turns to an ever so slightly unnerving owl that has taken pride of place in the middle of the window display.

The range of plastic Loch Ness monsters on offer seems to be ever widening. It is unlikely that the stern lady golfers are going to be the target audience for these. They may, however, be taken with a  sweat shirt with the words  'Ambitious and Cunning' emblazoned across it.

This weekend is a nationwide bank holiday. That ,added to the crowds already here for the last two days of the golf tournament , means that the town is bursting at the seams. After eight in the morning parking becomes impossible. Tonight there is a 'concert' :https://www.randa.tv/home  Goldman Sachs baseball caps are much in evidence.

How we store memories - in triplicate :https://www.livescience.com/health/memory/the-brain-stores-at-least-3-copies-of-every-memory

Mandatory retirement ? :https://theconversation.com/why-dont-more-politicians-retire-a-medical-anthropologist-explains-how-the-us-could-benefit-from-a-mandatory-retirement-age-234989