Last night a completely cloudless sky, a virtuoso display of shooting stars and the moons reflection in the sea stretching like a broad band of silk all the way to Norway. High in the sky Saturn was out burning as bright as a car headlight. Winter night shows are one of the joys of living in a place where there's no light pollution. Clear skies bring with them arctic temperatures. The Volvo dashboard tells us its minus seven this morning although the Volvos electronics have always been a little suspect.
The local paper informs us that one of the towns fish and chip shops is offering a seasonal menu. Battered turkey with chips followed by battered mince pie. For those who aren't keen on mince pies a battered Mars bar is available. I'll put money on the fact that long queues will form to sample these culinary delights. The village in France is only 1,000 miles away but in culinary terms it's so, so much further.
A solitary heron is standing in the harbour mudflats. It ignores a flotilla of gulls who paddle noisily by.
The gulls seem to be in their element. The young have shed their adolescent plumage and are now strutting around as if they've always owned the place. In this regard human and gull teenagers are similar.
The parking bays still suspended. The work laying the high speed fibre optic cable to the hedge fund managers house seems to be on pause. I stop to admire a rather grown up junction box that has appeared in a trench.
On our way back to the car the sun has risen and the day starts off with eye achingly clear blue skies that , this far North in mid-November , are nothing short of miraculous. Two students are down in the salt water swimming pool. They seem oblivious to the cold. 'The Font' makes some comment about young love. Angus thinks it more likely that the male is waiting for the right moment to come up with a suggestion for how they might fend off hypothermia. There is always a logic to 19 year old thinking.
Before dinner yesterday, with a glass of Margaux in hand, we watch the first episode in the final series of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall on BBC. Mark Rylance is brilliant as Thomas Cromwell. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0k30wk0
5 comments:
Battered mince pies?!
Just when you thought Scottish 'cuisine' couldn't sink any lower...
I hate to admit it, but as a Scot I did feel tempted by some of the chippie offerings!
For many years on our visits to France we have bought a Cru Bourgeois Supérier from a producer just behind the Château Margaux wall, for a tiny fraction of the latter's price. Now sadly the remaining family don't want to run the vineyard, and the vines have been sold to....Château Margaux. Makes our remaining stock all the more precious.
Hari Om
Food sacrilege... As a Scot, I deplore such culinary shenanigans. Total gimmickery. Minus two in Edinburgh first thing, so your car might not be entirely off the market! aYAM xx
Battered mince pie is a step too far! Do the "partakers" have an emergency number keyed into their phones to call an ambulance in the event of a batter overload!
I watched part of "Wolf Hall" last night but had to turn the sound off from time to time,. I found the background music, no doubt authentic, annoying. It's so long since the first series that I had forgotten who was who!
Ye gods! Whatever next?
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