It's starting to get dark a little after four. To cheer everyone up the Christmas illuminations have been switched on. The municipal workmen are testing the light display on the town fountain. The wind has blown the projector so that display is missing the fountain and illuminating the block of flats on the other side of the road. For St Andrews Day and Hogmanay the decorative snow flakes will be replaced by thistles. One council workman clambers up a ladder to remove a traffic cone that some enterprising first year has put on the fountains upper tier. He voices a view about the students that definitely isn't politically correct. We spend a few moments taking it all in before heading off to a seminar on the German political crisis. It seems the governing coalition is about to fall apart.
After an hour and a half in an over lit and uncomfortably warm lecture hall we detour into the trendy cocktail bar for a restorative tipple. We had thought of going for a coffee but 'The Font' points out that it's the wrong time of day and that Angus will end up saying the coffee tastes like dishwater and the price is outrageous. Much better to aim for a so-so glass of Argentinian Malbec. We're the first customers. In fact we're the only customers. The young waitress informs us that the cocktail bar doesn't really come alive until ten. Angus discovers the snack on the table are actually a decorations. We chuckle away contentedly.
From the high bar stools by the window its a pleasure watching the world pass by. There's some sort of event going on in chapel . Professors in their gowns and hoods can be seen sprinting across the road so as not to be late.
By the time we leave its pitch black.
It has to be said the Christmas lights are minimalist. They are the same lights recycled from last year and the year before ... and indeed from many years before that. This wee town is Presbyterian and prudent to its core. The circling seagulls glow as they catch the light from the decorations. The birds glimmer like so many circling stars. We stand and watch them. Passing students turn to see what we're looking at. They glance at us with that suppressed ' should we call someone ?' look.
This book is brilliant. My knowledge of Canadian history was limited but the constant fear of invasion by their southern neighbours has been pivotal in shaping national identity. I've yet to get onto the chapters about Mexico.
10 comments:
Hari Om
The last street shot has, despite the presence of vehicles, a Dickensian feel to it. A sure sign the mind is turning towards the 'season'! YAM xx
I rather like the austere and relatively minimalist approach to decorations in St Andrews. They feel appropriate to the place.
Cheers,Gail.
Depending on the outcome of the election, there could be a stream of us crossing the border to the north seeking shelter.
Your first photo gave me a chuckle. Students + traffic cones = mischief!
In Starbucks we met a gentleman from NY who was looking at houses. He thought there was very little 'inventory'. This surprised him but who in their right mind would want to sell or move in the depths of a Scottish winter ?
I had no idea the Canadians had such concerns, although it's not entirely unreasonable if I think about it. Another book for the list. I was thinking about traffic cones and Scotland last evening. In our village, the sidewalks are lined with what look like cannonballs, presumably to stop people from parking there. One of the cannonballs got knocked off (somehow) and there was a traffic cone in its place, just sitting there untroubled by youthful mischief. I imagine it will still be sitting there today.
We still do. Kelly Craft, Trump appointed Ambassador to Canada gave us as warning yesterday to "buckle up and get our house in order." The nerve.
I, too like the minimal decorations. What did students do for a lark before the introduction of traffic cones?
Sharon, it's the same with most governments - when you can't control the mess your own house is in, you always focus on someone else's. Anything to detract from appalling incompetence. The nerve indeed.
Like Lisa. I had no idea that Canadians felt this way about America, though today's election results may send more of us to visit St. Andrews to find our own wee house. Truly frightening times...
Since Taylor is starting at 1850, he's leaving out one of my favorite obscure bits of US history - the Other War of 1812, when planters from AL and GA invaded Spanish FL. The Spanish had slavery, but it had some key differences from American chattel slavery. One of them was that if a slave was freed, they were truly free and Spain would let them join the Army. The idea of armed former slaves at the Castillo de San Marco in St Augustine was more than the slave-holders in the US could bear. They figured they could march in, be greeted as liberators and take Florida. Never dawned on them that the people in FL liked the Spanish system. When the US obtained FL in 1835, about everybody but the Native Americans left.
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