Out with the old in with the New

For most of December the weather has been mild. That has changed. A strong 60 mph snow bearing wind from the North is whipping the sea into a fury and surprising the holiday makers brave enough to venture out of their hotels. Hats are blown off and fly down the pavements followed, in hot pursuit, by their owners. This is the sort of wind that doesn't so much gust as pummel. They've cancelled tonights firework display in Edinburgh due to health and safety fears but here things are to go ahead as scheduled. It will take more than  a gale to dent this wee towns Hogmanay festivities.

The bakers shelves are almost cleaned out although, surprisingly, three or four trays of cream cakes remain . All the whole meal loaves have gone. We leave empty handed.

The store windows now unmistakably Scottish. The tailors shops busy until the last moment altering kilts to adjust for the pounds that have been added since they were last worn.

Back out here on the coast the wine has been dropped off at the village hall and the ladies of the catering committee all greeted and praised for their hard work. When it comes to the ladies of the catering committee flattery cannot be applied too frequently or too thickly. Malteser cake has appeared on the menu as an alternative to Cranachan. It may be sleeting outside but the village hall kitchen, with its boiling pans, is as warm and muggy as the Amazon rain forest. 

The kilt has managed to survive another year .The 'fancy' sporran looks a little tired but nothing that 20 seconds with a brush won't cure. The silver on the clasp is a wee bit tarnished but that too will be easily dealt with.

And now, from us here at The last wee house before Denmark, hearty best wishes for a wonderful New Year. May choice and chance be your friends and your troubles be as short lived as your New Years resolutions. For those folks who are fortunate enough to live in dull, well ordered countries may this be a year accompanied by health, wealth and happiness. For those in places not so blessed may 2025 reward you with peace and the promise of a life free of fear.

And here's the song that will be sung in the village hall at midnight and usher in the magic of a New Year : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74KLtoXy0ig

This explained some of the things that happened in 2024 :https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/political-investments

As did this :https://nit.com.au/27-12-2024/15567/kanaks-buoyed-to-negotiate-eventual-independence-from-their-french-rulers-from-the-son-of-the-melanesian-indigenous-movement

December 30th already ?

So Jimmy Carter has died. He had the no-nonsense focus of a submariner coupled to the good aw shucks kindness and honesty of a country farm boy.  Logic and probity made for an unusual - and not always easy - political mix. Who today remembers Brezhnev and the Russian Politburos fury when Carter met the humans right activist Vladimir Bukovsky in the White House ? He initiated great changes that his successors built on and benefited from. The world - and the US -  were very different places when Carter was President. What must he have made of recent events ? With Clinton ill we wonder which former Presidents will attend the funeral. 

More life in town. The hotel car parks filling up rapidly with folks here for the Hogmanay celebrations. Large London registered Range Rovers ten a penny. No wonder they're called Chelsea tractors. Reservations in the restaurants are absolutely impossible until the 5th. On Sunday afternoon as we drove home there was a solid stream of large cars streaming  into town from the South. It seems the golf courses and spas are going to be busy.

This morning we stop and listen to a chatty raven. It's sitting in the branches of the larger of the two fir trees at the estuary end of the golf course. Ravens can make the most unusual noises: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Raven/sounds Few trees manage to survive the windy conditions but these two are resolute but scrawny things. For trees, when everything else fails, just holding on is all that matters.

In the farm shop they have lots of iron rich vegetables.  We still have enough of the farmers cauliflowers and Brussels Sprouts to last a month.

We do however buy a Clootie Dumpling.

The sound of 'Caledonia' being played on the organ has us detour, briefly, into the old chapel. I'm guessing the organist has a Hogmanay 'gig'. A sudden squall has blown in from the North and brought with it the sort of schizoid rain that really wants to be sleet. We rush back to the car as fast as our legs will carry us. 

A bowl of hyacinths in the window of the 'vase' house. The hyacinths look set to be in full bloom for New Year. This is more than can be said for ours which are lagging and seem unlikely to do much before Valentines Day, if at all.

Some more pre-Hogmanay music :https://youtu.be/78f6o77_OKE?t=166

Pets in Ukraine :https://hachikofoundation.org/

Figure 8 intriguing. Apart from guns America isn't so different :https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-did-u-s-homicides-spike-in-2020-and-then-decline-rapidly-in-2023-and-2024/?

Hogmanay music #3.

The souped up Nissan Juke belonging to the farmers youngest son is parked outside the village hall. The car has recently been resprayed in matt black and is his singular pride and joy. He's delivering rolls of bunting and a pile of plates to the kitchen entrance. On Tuesday he'll bring down the wide screen television so the party goers can follow the countdown to midnight on the live broadcast from Edinburgh. I will drop off the case of Fiano di Avellino at lunch time . Tickets for the village Hogmanay Hoolie cost £23 and include prawn cocktail ( with sauce Marie Rose as an indicator of the catering committees cordon bleu intent ), Haggis and Neeps or, for the non-Scots, Turkey and ' all the trimmings' . There will be Cranachan to finish. This will be the first Hogmanay for the young American couple and their children. The New Zealanders and Australians are now in their third year here and seem to have taken to village life like ducks to water. They of course are deemed to be Scots with accents. On New Years day there will be a silent disco in the walled garden of the Manse. We have no idea what a silent disco might entail but it sounds a good way of keeping the village sub-teens occupied .

Down on the quayside the lobster creels have been repaired, stacked and are ready for what the fishermen hope will be a bumper 2025.

We get to the fishmongers late. The lemon sole and halibut have gone.

'The Font' buys some salmon tails . We also order two more lobsters to be cooked, prepared and ready for collection on Monday morning.

On the clifftop path railings we notice a line of padlocks. We've seen this in Paris and at the Milvian Bridge in Rome but are surprised to find the tradition has taken root here. Young lovers in these parts must be hardy souls.

The uber trendy cafe looks as though it won't open until the start of the new semester. They are too hip to appeal to anyone other than a student clientele so this is a sensible commercial decision.

Hogmanay music #3. Another staple of New Year revelry in these parts :https://youtu.be/qwun83po2u4?t=30

The Economist has an obituary page that's exceptionally well ( and thoughtfully ) written. It's often always full of kindness. This latest edition has an other worldly entry that made us smile . When if ever have you read an obituary that mentions otters warming the frozen feet of a saint ? Who would have thought an unexpected and unexplained parcel could spur on so much activity ?  ( PS apologies to The Economist if they object to me poaching one of their pages )

Picking up the pace

This is peak off-season - if such a thing can be said to exist. The dark, wind swept  tourism void between Christmas and New Year. Canny foreign golfers know this is the one time they can be sure of getting on the Old Course but apart from that the place is deserted.

In the absence of students - or indeed of anyone else -  the trendy cocktail bar is trying to tempt in passers by with 15% discounts. Last night the place was completely empty which suggests 50% might have been a more market savvy proposal. The fact the cocktail bar now occupies what used to be the Salvation Army hall makes us chuckle. Their 'Blood and Fire' logo is still on the wall  above a sign offering 'bottled beer'. How the world has changed in 50 years.

Rain showers this morning. They start the second we head out of the front door and continue until the very moment  we return. Then they stop. What are the chances of that ?

The chapel is open and the lights are on.

We pop in to get out of the drizzle and sit in one of the pews by the entrance. We're immersed in the smell of freshly applied Pledge furniture polish. The two cleaning ladies greet us with a slightly irritated 'Good morning' then studiedly get on with their work. They bustle around us. Someone, presumably one of the music  scholars, is playing Auld Lang Syne on the organ. There is nothing like Auld Lang Syne being played to tell you the old year is picking up its pace and the new one is already fidgeting impatiently  in the shadows.

At the crossroads by the fountain the super minimalist Christmas lights form  a  Saltire. How ( unintentionally ) cool is that ?

Hogmanay music #2. The time of the year when Celtic sentiments are dusted down . This New Year staple was getting an early airing in the trendy cocktail bar yesterday. 'There must be a place where hearts of olden glory grow young' will soon be belted out in village halls  throughout the land :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGNviQP7qjs

Squirrels :https://www.popsci.com/science/hibernation-science-squirrels/

This is positive ? :https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/economic-statecraft-in-the-age-of

Year end musings from Texas: https://tnsr.org/2024/12/remembrance-of-things-past/

Run up to Hogmanay

In the village hall preparations have begun for the Hogmanay celebrations. The young American teacher is taking a group of six year olds through their musical contribution to the event. The six year olds are playing ' This little light of mine, I want to make it shine' on their recorders. What this has to do with Hogmanay is a mystery although the piece may have been chosen because it is mercifully brief. The recorder, it must be said, is a shrilly unforgiving instrument in the hands of massed and enthusiastic six year olds. 

We've never seen the centre of town this quiet. The waves of holiday makers that had been expected haven't materialised. To the delight of the local gull population the streets are deserted. Many of the shops are closed and those that are open have only a trickle of customers. All the hotels claim to be busy but judging by the darkened room lights the large 5 star seems to have one wing that's completely closed. This may say something about the outlook for the economy. In a months time the first semester of 2025 gets underway and we will all start complaining about parking - or the lack of it - again. 

Here, at the last wee house before Denmark, the Christmas tree continues to shed its needles at an ever accelerating rate. By New Year it will be looking very threadbare. The branches have also begun to sag in a way that suggests the baubles will soon be on the floor. Rather than take it out of the front door ( and suffer needlegeddon )  I think I'll drag it out into the back garden and chop it up into smaller sections that can then be taken off to be recycled at the biomass centre.

Puppy has raced ahead of her sister and is sitting on the track leading to the courtyard. She is torn between following us and annoying her sister. A difficult choice. Annoying her sister is deemed to be more satisfying. The farmers wife informs us that Puppy has  been nursing part of a much decayed hip joint. Her archaeological skills are still being put to good use. The bones are being discovered because the tractor driver usually only ploughs the top six inches of the soil but this time he's ploughed to a depth of a foot and thrown up all sorts of surprises in the process.

So starts a quiet Friday morning in a quiet village near a small quiet town in  North East Scotland.

Hogmanay music #1. What better way to start a Hoolie :https://youtu.be/2MbL5pMe6fg

The piano :https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/measuring-up

Scarcity. There is something vaguely reassuring in this substack piece : https://edconway.substack.com/p/hang-on-are-there-any-lost-minerals

Coming to a canine near you in the New Year :https://loyal.com/  And then there's this :https://dogagingproject.org/

Boxing Day

 

The weather remains unseasonably mild. Most days in December we need to be bulked up with five or six layers to keep warm but this morning is a three layer day. Will these spring like temperatures last into Hogmanay ?

Half a dozen ladies are enjoying themselves in the salt water pool beneath the castle. They are in no hurry to leave. After drying themselves off the women  sit swaddled in padded coats on the rocks. Blankets are spread out on the sand and a wicker basket containing a thermos flask ,sandwiches and a bottle of Prosecco appears. It's a Boxing Day picnic. They cheer and laugh as the cork shoots out of the bottle with a loud festive 'pop'. We can hear it, and them, from the top of the cliff.  If you're looking for evidence of climate change look no further.

Horses on the beach. They race along the sand from the golf course to the estuary and then dawdle in the surf before doing the same route in reverse. With the beach to themselves they can run to their hearts delight.

Back along the coast we're greeted by Puppy. Puppy is delighted to see us. A stick is dropped at our feet. Why buy expensive dog toys when a piece of driftwood is as exciting as it gets ? I throw  the stick half a dozen times. Puppy, of course, would like to spend all day playing this game.

Yesterday the Jack Russells got a taste of turkey and roast potatoes. They also  got Chipolatas.  These were much admired. The farmers wife tells us Puppy returned home last night with part of  a human leg bone. She'd been exploring down in the field where the 4th century pre-Christian cemetery has been found. This , for the sake of clarity, is not the same field as the one in which the Bronze Age tombs have been unearthed. Puppy is developing a skill set as an excellent archaeologist. The Police are supposed to be called whenever bones are found but in this instance the farmer decided our local policeman wouldn't appreciate coming out on Christmas Day to look at a bit of 1500 year old shin.

What fun ! : https://x.com/i/status/1871939471480168522

A seasonal substack on life in London. The Smithfield meat market auction ( annoyingly you have to scroll down to find the article ) is interesting :https://www.londoncentric.media/p/last-of-the-christmas-meat-auctions  The Ocado breakdown must have prompted a last minute rush to the local branch of Waitrose.

Christmas day music

Christmas Eve. We've been to the carol service in the small medieval chapel ( the place full to bursting with parents in their late twenties , excited wild haired four year olds and bemused in-laws ) and visited our late 80 something neighbour who is spending her first Christmas alone. We take and open a bottle of wine but after half an hour and a few sips she's dozing off. As we head back to the car the late working council refuse men are doing their final rounds.

One is dressed as a snow man. His white head, carrot nose , day-glo jacket and combat boots give him a Freddy Krueger vibe. Toddlers expecting to see Father Christmas might be taken aback. We thank the refuse men for working so late. They wish us a Happy Christmas. 

On our way to the carol service we've passed the bakers. They had a queue right until the doors were closed. A £99 'artisinal'  chocolate Santa remained unsold. It weighs a daunting 3.7 kilos. What will happen to it now ? Will it be discounted or melted down ?

Last nights 'bargain' lobster delightful. 'The Font' thinks we should have it with salad. Angus thinks chips would be a better option. He wins. On a cold Christmas Eve lobster and chips are a combination made in heaven. A rather good bottle of Pomerol makes a perfect companion to the food. 

Christmas morning. The weather mild, the sunrise glorious. The old town turns pink then gold in the light. We never tire of this view.

Despite the early hour a group of golfers arrive in the club house car park. They scatter seagulls as they drive up in their large Range Rover .The golfers unload their trolleys and clubs and head off towards the 1st tee. Is the course officially open on Christmas Day or are they using the festive emptiness to do a quick 'unofficial' round ? 

To one and all wishes for a  peace filled Christmas ( and particularly for friends in Kyiv who have had another wearisome night  ) from us here at The last wee house before Denmark . 

Still the yardstick by which all others are measured - Christmas music #23 :https://youtu.be/yR4tO9eeQbo?t=21

These seem like two videos worth watching today. The first a reminder that every night for more than a year the Pope has without fail called the 1,000 Gazan Christians sheltering in the Holy Family church in Gaza :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbikhpdf3ec  And in the second video a visit to the last village on earth where Aramaic ( the language of someone born today )  is still spoken :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyVa1XdSINw

Christmas Eve music

We're out early. The shops open at seven this morning but many will close at lunchtime and not re-open until Friday. We stop off for some extra milk and a pineapple and are surprised how busy the supermarket is. Young mothers roam the aisles with a killer look in their eyes.

The EV charging unit by the club house is not being used. A chance for us to get a partial top-up . I spoke to the BMW garage yesterday and they promise to get ( another ) replacement charging unit here by the weekend. The phrase ' Good luck with that !' springs to mind.

By the time we've followed the path that runs parallel to the fourth hole on the golf course the sun is rising. We watch the quail running in and out of the gorse bushes around the bunkers. There are lots of quail this year. Twenty or so live in the brambles that line the farm track that leads to the wee house. They are not the smartest of birds. They like to congregate in the middle of the track and every morning I have to get out of the car and shoo them away .

The cathedral ruins stand out sharp against the sun rise. In its day the cathedral must have been quite a sight. The trenches that had been dug so the hedge fund manager could have fibre optic cables laid have all ( finally ) been filled in. Our neighbours in town can once again park outside their front doors. 

Starbucks have decorated their Christmas tree with aprons and coffee cup shaped decorations. At least they've made an effort. Do the same decorations appear in all their branches ?

The warship has returned ( look carefully and - despite the camouflage - you can see it ) and is now anchored peacefully in the bay. Looking out to sea I'm more than ever convinced that what our neighbour saw earlier in the week was fishermen retrieving their creels. The likelihood of Marines clambering across these razor sharp rocks must surely be remote.

The ravens and crows are still settled in the fields around and about . They seem to be over wintering here. The garden at the last wee house before Denmark continues to attract scores of sparrows and even more finches. They happily consume grain and fat balls at a feverish pace. The feisty robin which settled on the kitchen windowsill every morning in early December has disappeared. Let's hope he returns soon. On our way back up the track towards the courtyard we see a most wonderful rainbow.

So begins a quiet Christmas Eve in an unseasonably warm Scottish town on the North Sea coast. The weather forecast says this may be the warmest Christmas Eve on record which is not to say it's warm in the accepted sense of the word.

A double dip of music . Some robustly no nonsense singing from the auld kirk in town which will soon host the BBC's watch night service :https://youtu.be/Ex4FCo5KA38?t=5220

And a second clip today from Hamburgs sparkling new - and hugely expensive - concert hall : https://youtu.be/O8btSbfFBXU?t=4998

Unexpected history :https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/bing-crosby-struggled-sing-white-christmas-troops-most-difficult-thing-his-career

Not nearly as much fun as believing its aliens or the Chinese :https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/planes-drones-or-ufos-what-are-people-seeing-in-the-new-jersey-sky

Stumbled across this. A new way of getting to understand things in depth :https://www.syllabi.directory/

A heavenly mince pie and Christmas music #21

Sunday afternoon. The fishmonger phones to say he's got two large lobsters left over. They've just been cooked and they're ours for £24 if we're interested. How's that for a bargain / Only problem is we have to pick them up by 4 pm as he's about to close for the week. We're out and in the car in double quick time. That's our dinner menu taken care of.

Lobsters collected and paid for we make a detour to the trendy cafe for a coffee. The place is run by uber cool young people wearing beany hats and trousers that stop above the ankle. Some of them have those slightly alarming nose rings. The staff would be right at home in La Jolla or Brooklyn. Usually It's packed to the rafters with hip young faculty types but today the cafe is empty. Presumably the usual crowd are battling with the hordes of last minute shoppers at the supermarket in town.

Politeness dictates I order a frangipane mince pie with my coffee. The expectation is that this is going to be disappointing but it isn't. The pastry crumbly, the filling light and fruity. It might quite possibly be the best mince pie ever but mince pie ranking is something that's never impinged on my consciousness ... until now. The flour the cafe uses is made from 'heritage' grains. We'd never knowingly come across 'heritage' grains before but the enthusiastic cafe owner and his team soon fill us in :https://scotlandthebread.org/flourandgrain/grain-research/ .

Off to the butcher on our way home for some nitrate free bacon. Nitrates in bacon are not at all good for you.

On our way to the car park we pass a new shop that has opened up alongside the organic brewery. It sells ( or seems to sell ) an unusual mix of  kitchen knives, salt, bees wax candles , pre-order dinners and chocolate covered raisins. The raisins are soaked in cognac before being dipped in chocolate. Why has it taken so long to discover anything this subtle and glorious ? We shall be regular customers. This eclectic retail combination may, or may not, support a sustainable business plan but the alcoholic raisins are a sure winner.

The weekend has proven to be an unexpected culinary  adventure. 

Sehr Deutsch. Christmas music #21 :https://youtu.be/fWgkl3EQKN4?t=247

The poet in us all. Christmas writing :https://laelneale.substack.com/p/waitress-at-night

Esoteric activities. Visiting a Parmesan factory :https://mollyyoung.substack.com/p/touch-the-cheese

The use of AI at the 0:34 mark is amazing although the accent is completely wrong and the use of tenses throughout is bizarre :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVhZ97X3OR4 . The Macaroni pie at the 10:07 stage looks like  AI humour but actually happened.

Christmas music #20 :

The electrician returns with the replacement BMW battery charging unit. To his irritation - and ours - the new one doesn't work either. Looks like we will continue to be petrol driven until the New Year.

Sunday morning. The dog walkers are out on the beach by the pier. Dogs and humans seem oblivious to the 60 mph winds. In fact the dogs seem to think a gale is the perfect way to start a day. The gusts reached 80 mph last night and whistled and banged the gutters at the last wee house before Denmark  like a heavy footed dervish.

In weather like this the lobster boats are safely moored in the harbour. Two of the flats that face the water now have Christmas lights decorating their balconies. As the absentee landlords return for the holidays I would expect this number to grow. St Andrews residents tend to be rather coy in their festive decorations. This is not true of the rest of the country which veers to the Blackpool Illuminations school of lighting. The farmer at the crossroads is BIG on turqoise and purple fairy lights - a  colour combination otherwise unknown in nature.

With most visitors gravitating towards the golf course and the 5 star hotels the university end of St Andrews remains surprisingly quiet(ish) until nine o'clock when the shops open. A mini bus is disgorging a group of Spanish tourists outside the small hotel facing the chapel. What they are doing, or planning to do, in the semi dark hours in the off season is beyond comprehension. The hotel doorman greets them with an aloofness that suggests his morning nap has been interrupted.

The shoe repair and key cutting shop has decorated their mechanical cobbler as one of Santas elves. It hammers away endlessly in their window. This seasonal wardrobe change is an incontrovertible indicator that the festive season is now in full swing.

The grumpy gentleman ( I think we can all agree that this notice has all the hallmarks of a gentleman of a certain age ) who usually writes excruciatingly bad poetry has posted up a new missive on the town notice board. His ire is now focused on the powers that be that run the golf course.

Hard to upstage the pageantry of this. The use of mobile phones is notable. Christmas music #20 :https://youtu.be/Hhrjxix3pAE?t=6

The photos don't do it justice but this if the first mosque to be designed by a woman. It is very beautiful and , on the inside, ethereally peaceful ( which is what I guess any religious space should be or at least aim for ) :https://yabangee.com/the-sakirin-mosque/

An interesting piece of writing - included here for its novelty - that looks at how literature, 'halucigenic' AI and a dead Mexican poet describe the moon :https://willdowd.substack.com/p/the-oak-moon-2024

This seemed a sensible Italian take on China :https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/china-2025-peak-or-deal-with-trump-195327