Scran

At six thirty the sun is just beginning to come up. The old farm house on top of the hill standing out proud against the horizon.

Ten minutes later we're greeted by a northern skyscape full of egg yolk yellows and salmon pinks. The days may be getting rapidly shorter but they're also getting more theatrical.

Down on the Old Course a Canadian gentleman is filming a travelogue. He chats away, unselfconsciously, to his camera. We can guess the dialogue without hearing it. " Here I am by the eighteenth tee of the iconic St Andrews Old Course. Home of golf ". The Canadian picks up his camera and tripod and moves off to film another scene by the Swilcan Bridge. There must be thousands of these amateur ' I came to St Andrews ' golf videos on YouTube. Being locals we don't notice it but the place really is a secular Lourdes. 

A couple of day trippers walk their dog diagonally across the fairway between the first and second tees. Slightly irritated  foursomes have to stop to let them dawdle by. The dog and its owners seem to be unaware that this is sacrilege on so many levels.

At the cafe on the beach two American third year girls are discovering the word 'Scran'. Bacon rolls count as 'Scran'.  This is a word that is very Scottish.  From the snippets of conversation we catch it seems the American girls spent their 'revision' week travelling. They went to Paris on Ryanair. " The flights were so cheap ". They then flew onto Athens where they 'partied'. Their original plan was to be away for a week but this - in no small part thanks to a chance meeting with two  Norwegian boys - somehow became eleven days. They chose not to share their extended travel plans with their parents. This was probably wise.

Now we and a group of dog owners are off to this :https://events.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/bird-walk-3/

Things I didn't know. Lighting up North Dakota :https://youtu.be/pj4iTInk6A8

The drone photography at the start of this Kirst Wark video is wonderful :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwYvjUxuF98

Entertainment.

Yesterday, it was my turn to have the seasonal flu and Covid injections. I arrived at the health centre at 8:40 and was back in the car by 8:50. The National Health Service was extremely efficient. The four nurses on duty cumulatively do 400 patients a day, every day. In a couple of weeks they'll have done all the towns over 60's. The Covid shot has had no after effects but the flu shot has left me feeling tired and grumpy. The young nurse tells me this isn't unusual and the flu like symptoms usually appear, and disappear, within 48 hours. 'The Font' is scheduled to go in next week.

Budget Day in the UK. The radio this morning full of serious folk spouting dire warnings about tax rises. We change channel, quickly, to something more uplifting.

This small coastal town always has something going on. On our morning walk we observe that Elvis  will be appearing at the 'hip' cocktail bar.

Tomorrow there are global climate awards. We may pass on Elvis but will go to these.

The theatre can always be counted on to offer something 'traditional'. You know it's Christmas when pantomime season rolls around again.

High - or at least 'highish' - culture has its place.

For the rugby playing student there are quiz nights. The pub by the Old Course offers a  £60 bar tab prize. That seems a reasonable inducement. 

A new hotel in Rome :https://www.casamontiroma.com/

Calm and timeless

Near seven am on a bright Tuesday morning. We have the town to ourselves bar a few dog walkers and the Sainsbury's staff unloading the morning deliveries. It goes without saying no self respecting student would be up and about this early.

We say hello to the cleaning ladies getting off the bus from Dundee. They are the same ones who used to chat away to Sophie in Polish. " When you get more Owczareks ? " they ask. There is something calm and timeless about the cathedral as the sun rises behind it. Post graduate students live in the medieval building facing it. Do they know they have one of the most iconic views in Europe ? Do they even notice it ? An American hedge fund manager has just bought a house that he plans to move into later this year. The house may be small but it looks over the castle on one side and the cathedral on the other. This is the sort of view money can't buy - although in this case it has.  From the scaffolding I'd guess no expense is being spared. The road and pavement outside has been dug up so that new fibre optic cables can be installed. Traffic cones have been laid out so the workmen can park their vehicles. This suspension of their parking bays annoys the local residents no end. I'm not convinced the work will be finished by year end. The hedge fund manager may find seasonal good will is in short supply.

After a long, 6,000 step, walk on the beach we wander towards Starbucks and then to the book store to pick up a copy of Patriot. What sort of bravery does it take to walk back into the Lions den ?

Heading out on the road that leads to The last wee house before Denmark we pass a cottage that is well prepared for Halloween. The figures have lights inside them that will provide a truly spectral presence for the apple dookin.

Yesterday afternoon  our progress home was delayed by a dozen young quail. They had never seen a car before and are happy to walk slowly along the track ahead of us. It requires 'The Font' to get out before they take the hint and fly off.

This Springstein  song was on the car radio this morning. Neither of us can remeber hearing it before :https://youtu.be/rF9jQHwRbDk?t=88

Swans, statues and spooky cakes.

The young Whooper Swan is alone and swimming along the shoreline again this morning. News travels quickly and dog walkers keep their companions on the lead while they pass by.

A section of the new path that leads across the grass to the recently installed statue statue has been roped off. Presumably they've had to reIay some of the paving slabs. I still think the statues too small and could do with a taller pedestal but it seems to fit into the landscape between the grandstand and the Martyrs Monument.

The baker has gone into a Halloween frenzy. Chocolate tombstone cakes catch my eye.

As do 'ghoul' sponges.

The three ladies and the tall lad behind the counter agree that the white chocolate spider cake is the thing to go for. " We're all chocolate lovers " says the older of the ladies. That is good enough reason for Angus to seal the deal.

The cannabis resin store in town is closing down. Angus thinks that it would do well in a student town but 'The Font' thinks  the students are unlikely buy their cannabis in resin form.

How about this as a place to get away to ? :https://kyle.scot/

Or this latest offering by the wonderful Landmark Trust ? :https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/calverley-old-hall-5219/#Overview   This however has to be the place in the Lowlands :https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/rosslyn-castle-13940/#Overview

Was there ever a time when people weren't afraid ? Not sure what this tells us :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-are-americans-biggest-fears-in-2024-as-the-country-is-becoming-more-afraid-180985339/

A world apart

The flight back from Gatwick was dire . EasyJet was an hour and a half late in boarding, the terminal was bursting at the seams and the crew were (unsuccessfully)  doing their  best to hide how tired and irritated they were. The tug that was supposed to tow us away from the gate got 'lost' so that added yet another hour to the journey.

We finally get into Leuchars at four and stop off for a leg stretching walk down by the sea. On the Old Course a foursome reach the eighteenth hole as the afternoon sun is  casting long shadows on the fairways. One Californian gentleman is overcome by emotion. He sits on the steps of the club house and dabs his eyes with his handkerchief. ' I never thought I'd get to do this ' he says to his slightly bemused and possibly embarrassed companions. All of them share the opinion that their round of golf was 'awesome'.

Back at The last wee house before Denmark  the gulls are startled by our return . They take off with a great squawking. We stand and watch five or six hundred of them circle around the house before returning to the spot they took off from.

This morning the clocks have changed and there's a stunning sunrise ready to greet the local dog walkers. A young Hooper Swan is swimming alone on the shore. It seems to have got separated from its parents and is uncertain what to do. The farmers wife says she saw three swans down by the heron pond. We all hope they get reunited soon. The farmers wife returns with a plastic crate full of freshly harvested broccoli. Sometime in the coming week the cabbage harvest will start and then, before Christmas, they'll get to work on the cauliflowers.

The calm of the village is a world apart from the bright lights and energy of London.

Talking to animals ? :https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-decodes-oinks-grunts-keep-pigs-happy-2024-10-24/

Scotlands national airline. Tunnocks are a key element on the inflight service  :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhNbbsgHNV8

Home today.

The last leg of our trip sees us in Brighton for dinner with old friends . We think it's two years since we last saw them but it turns out it was pre-Covid. Our hotel room is unusual for having two baths positioned in the middle of the floor. Closer examination of the layout suggests that the architect originally intended to have two rooms fill this space but belatedly discovered that the ceiling beams prevented it from being partitioned. Behind a frosted glass wall a shower fills up one entire end of the room. It is huge. Between the twin baths and the rugby club sized shower the furniture looks like an after thought.

A lady has taken her two greyhounds down to the pub for a post lunch 'snifter'. This is a very 'Brighton' sight. In the local Waterstones Boris Johnson's memoirs ( which were £5 off in the St Andrews bookstore ) are now piled up and are being offered with a 50% discount.

From the hotel balcony we can observe the derelict state of many of the buildings that line the lanes that run in from the sea.  Ferns sprout from gutters.  The presence of a new office block suggests that the whole area is about to be redeveloped. This is long overdue. Brighton - or parts of it - still has the feel of the 1940's to it.

A modern apartment block has appeared among the Georgian era fishing cottages. It's not a thing of great beauty but it's better than it could have been. The outside is finished in black painted wood to match one of the old stores for fishing nets.

Two things we've never seen in a hotel before.

1) A small herd of cow themed milk jugs grace the tables in the breakfast room. Neither of us has ever given much thought to hotel milk jugs. They are usually either white and invisible or simply non-existent. In America the milk jug has largely been replaced by the plastic 'capsule'. Swedes - who are big on milk - tend towards the small stainless steel milk jug with a flip up lid.  Perhaps there is a coffee table book on milk jugs waiting to be written ?

2) Umbrellas are hired out from a rental machine. £2 gets you use of an umbrella for 48 hours. If it's not returned your card is debited £20. The lady behind the desk says the umbrellas are always returned.

We are now heading off to Gatwick to take the flight back to Edinburgh. Gatwick during the English schools half term can be like one of Dante's circles of hell. 

Kate Bush was on the radio talking about her new childrens song and video :https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=gXUkSiV4Jzs

Language and the mind:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/small-things-big-questions/202410/what-goes-on-in-the-minds-of-babies

Good question :https://www.livescience.com/health/alcohol/why-do-hangovers-get-worse-with-age

London calm

London is quiet. London is never quiet.  It's that brief spell of calm before Christmas attracts a frenzied mass of shoppers, party goers and tourists into town. Even the super trendy steak restaurant that usually has  a queue of sixty or seventy expectant diners only has a dozen or so lined up outside.  We always used to stay at a large hotel on Portman Square but now we're trying an Irish owned and managed hotel on Welbeck Street. This is slap bang in the middle of where we want to be.  It also has a great bar as you might expect in an Irish establishment. 'The Font' observes that a high proportion of the extremely cheerful front desk staff are extravagantly ginger.

The urban fox is clearly a thing in Marylebone. Who would have thought that fox repellent was something that the local hardware store would sell ?

London has a huge American expatriate population. This is perhaps why Halloween pumpkins are such  a thing. I wonder if the number of Brits in New York is anything like the number of Americans in London ?

We continue to find the weather balmy - which it is by Scottish or Swedish standards. We have a post concert dinner at an outside table followed by coffee at the cafe on the other side of the road.  Our choice of wine with dinner was much better. A Ferret Pouilly-Fuisse at a price that was more than reasonable. Once again we are the only people sitting outside apart from a solitary gentleman vaping  ( surreptitiously ) at the cafe.

In the window of an upmarket florist an entire limb of a tree covered in blossom. It's very beautiful but neither of us is sure that such aggressive  'lopping' is a good thing. It must surely kill or at least damage the tree. I vaguely remember a story about the late Duke of Windsor ordering all the blossom heavy peach trees in the Buckingham Palace greenhouses be cut down and the branches sent to Mrs.Simpsons bedroom. The gardener pointed out this would kill the century old trees and  cried when he was ordered to do so. 

The television we brought back from France is playing up. We visit John Lewis to order a new one. John Lewis is never empty but on a Thursday afternoon in late October it is. The store gives us £100 off the purchase price, the manufacturer  matches this and by joining the stores membership scheme we get yet another £100 reduction. The salesman reminds us that the new government unveils its first budget next week. 'Inducements' are needed to get the shoppers out. To clinch the deal a sound bar is thrown in. We've never had a sound bar but why look a gift horse in the mouth ? Delivery and installation are scheduled for the day after we get back. Angus wonders if we really need to have the set installed ( how difficult can it be ?)  but the salesman assures us that having a professional do it will save a lot of time and hassle.

More food, less land :https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1061753

This had passed us by :https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/10/mcdonalds-e-coli-outbreak-one-dead-49-sickened-across-10-states-so-far/

Early riser or night owl :https://www.insidehook.com/wellness/men-waking-super-early

The greengrocer.

 

We fly British Airways from Edinburgh to London City. All the flights from Edinburgh to Heathrow are full. There was a time when this small airport was hectic with investment bankers coming into the financial centre for meetings. Now, with many ( most ? ) folks still working from home, passenger numbers are way down and it's trying to find ways to attract new customers.

The weather is grey and cloudy when we leave and its not much better south of the border. The plane is one of those small commuter jobs that becomes uncomfortably hot very quickly. Perhaps most travellers like to fly in super heated cabins ? The good news is the cab to the hotel takes twenty minutes - a third of the time it takes from Heathrow into town. I won't say the airport was quiet but the time it took from the aircraft door to the cab rank was exactly four minutes.

We buy tickets for a concert.

The one thing we miss about France is the lack of good greengrocers. Out of season good quality fruit is hard to find in Fife. Near the hotel we find a new fruit market that is every bit as good as anything you'd find in Paris - or Barcelona - although the prices are eye wateringly London.

We stand gawping like country cousins at the produce on offer. 

They have Victoria pineapples. By comparison the pineapples on sale in Scottish supermarkets are pale imitations. We debate whether the hassle of driving down to fill the car up with fresh fruit is completely daft. After brief reflection we decide it is. Perhaps one day the greengrocer will  start an out of London delivery service ?

We sit at a table outside for dinner. We are the only customers to do so. Londoners clearly think 18 degrees is cold. We think it's rather balmy. We try a rather uninspiring bottle of Provencal rose that seems to have come from an organic producer in an unfashionable corner of the Var. Our curiosity to try a name we'd didn't know got the better of us. London is very quiet. This is the time of year to visit if you want to avoid having to make restaurant  reservations.

Breathing :https://www.popsci.com/health/no-sense-of-smell-breathe-differently/

A rug exhibition :https://mima.art/exhibition/winifred-nicholson-cumbrian-rag-rugs/

Cold but heavenly.

 

Angus is happily grazing on the grass by the car wash. I hope that he'll wander over to see me but instead he makes it clear we may be namesakes but fresh grass is better.... and more rewarding.

We walk out to the golf course. Looking back we can make out the roof of  The last wee house before Denmark. It still amazes us that we can be so remote and yet so close to civilization.

In the other direction the towers of St Andrews- like San Gimignano or Bologna - rise above the horizon. This is still one of Europes least spoilt medieval townscapes.

Later this week we shall take the BA flight to LCY to see this exhibition at the British Museum. The nice American couple from Kennebunkport who spend six months of their year here say it's 'awesome ' :https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/hew-locke-what-have-we-here

Beautiful writing.

We're the first customers in the book store. I note that Boris Johnsons biography is already being discounted.

The book store staff have e-mailed to let us know that Bernhard Schlinks new novel has arrived in. It has had good reviews.

On the shopping street the Christmas decorations have gone up. This comes as something of a shock. The year, having dawdled a bit during the endless days of high summer,  now seems to be sprinting towards the close. 

The Economist magazine has an obituary page that is always worth reading. This weeks is written with a kindness and sensitivity and joy that makes it a delight - a sad delight - but a delight nonetheless.