That started quickly

The New Year has got off to quite a start . The BBC news broadcast leading with events in New Orleans and Las Vegas with a story about Elon Musks dislike of  the UK government thrown in for good measure. A serious man tells us that the 119th Congress is sworn in today - if they can elect a Speaker.

Here on the coast the weather is cold but bright. Perfect weather after yesterdays rain sodden greyness. Ten minutes in the fresh air and sunshine and the gloom of the breakfast news bulletin is forgotten. Heading down the track to the shore we pass two bird watchers up and about early in the hope of catching some good photos of the Cormorants. This is proving to be a bumper year for Cormorants who  seem to have recovered from avian flu and the fall in numbers two years ago. Twenty or so sit out on the rocks and pointedly ignore us.  We leave the twitchers taking photos of the Dunnocks flitting in and out of the wild roses that line the stone walls of the potato field. Dunnocks are supposed to be solitary birds but this message doesn't seem to have got through to the large flock noisily welcoming in the new day. In the distance the towers of the old town are just catching the sunrise.

Down by the pier the sea is working itself into quite a state. The waves are strong enough to break over the end of the pier. Work on repairing the last bout of storm damage seems to have come to a halt.

In town things are quiet. The holiday makers are drifting away after their Hogmanay breaks and the first of the students won't make an appearance until the middle part of next week. The large 5 star hotels will soon be 'consolidating' their operations after the New Year boom time. 

Some of the Christmas decorations are coming down but ...

..... many of the houses still have garlands on their front doors.

So starts a quiet Friday morning in a small Scottish town waiting for 10,000 youngsters and a large proportion of the university staff  to reappear.

Roman pets :https://theconversation.com/like-your-pet-more-than-people-so-did-some-of-the-greco-romans-236592

Broken wings :https://birdhistory.substack.com/p/who-takes-care-of-birds-with-broken

Chicken free States :https://www.thetakeout.com/1745215/states-without-chick-fil-a-location/

The Loony Dook

The morning of  New Years Day saw three or four hundred townsfolk plunging into the North Sea. This annual rite is known as the Loony Dook.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZOWvPk3bRo By the time we got to the harbour, found parking and made it from the car onto the beach the partying was over. The popularity of the event suggests that Loony Dooking is a good way of sobering up after the excesses of the night before.  

Until now we've always lived in large houses. The Rickety Old Farmhouse in France was seven times the size of The last wee house before Denmark. The family  house in Scotland was bigger even than that. The logic to aggressively downsizing was that rather than have half a dozen bedrooms that were empty 99% of the year we'd put up friends and family in one of the local hotels or in the house in town. In return we'd have a relatively maintenance free house you could just lock up and leave. This strategy works relatively well although this year the hotel of choice modelled its decorative style on that of a provincial airport lounge in Maine. Anonymity rules.

There again airport lounges aren't decorated with the same golfing theme ... or pedigree.

Good news. Ondine, one of our favourite fish restaurants in Edinburgh, is opening up in St Andrews. How they will manage to find staff when their competitors struggle has yet to be seen. Around here sky high prices for rental accommodation, the post-Brexit inability to get visas for European staff and low unemployment levels have made finding qualified staff more of a lottery that it should be .

Another substack gem. This time the subject is late bloomers :https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/fifty-late-bloomers

This is what our neolithic neighbours ate :https://nat.au.dk/en/about-the-faculty/news/show/artikel/stenalderbonden-var-paa-vand-og-groed

Chinese robots :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2UxtKLZnNo

Shiny and new. January 1st 2025

From the warmth and comfort of 'The Fonts' cabin we watch the New Year deliver a spectacular start to the day. What colours! It was calm and dry for the midnight fireworks display then shortly after they finished the northerly gales started up again. We only had to walk back a half mile from the village hall but the time we got home we were soaked.

From the lack of people around I'm guessing there are a few sore  heads this morning. With the exception of the lady with the Pomeranian and a hotel porter walking two labradors even the dog owners are taking it easy. We wonder how much you have to tip a hotel porter to have him take your dogs for a walk.

In these winds even the seagulls are keeping close to terra firma.

The laughter levels are the same but here's a  rather more sophisticated version of a party than we experienced last night :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUG9kIla5iA

Lessons for a New Year. Some sensible, some less so :https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/how-to-like-everything-more

Storing data. Not as easy as you think :https://lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scale-storage/