Cheery gardens and our neighbours job offering.

 

The St Patricks Day cupcakes proving slow to shift.

Here in the village the young American family are out walking their children who  have been up since first light. Young children and sleep are mutually exclusive. The little girl is examining the clumps of wild primroses that pepper the waters edge. The little boy claps and laughs when he sees seven deer wander into the barley field. They are going to the beach to build sandcastles and collect shells. Father has been offered a good job at the University of Austin but mother wants him to stay here. Career v children. The chances of them finding another house to rent in the area are minimal so the answer is almost certainly a return home. 

We have a wee blether with the university gardeners. We tell them they're doing a grand job. 'Grand' in this sense means an emphasis on putting in a planting scheme that's heavy on orange and pink. Colour schemes in these parts need to be cheery to cope with the grey skies. They're working on the ground where the graduation tent will soon be put up. Alongside it there's a small garden with trees commemorating former staff members.

A couple of hundred yards further on there are more groundsmen. They're working outside the large hall of residence where there's a glade of twenty or so specimen trees. Students coming and going to lectures walk through here so it's always busy. On weekends football is played here and youngsters sunbathe and read.  These trees are home to small , unobtrusive, memorial stones. We stop to study one that says  'Student at St Salvators Hall for six days' . This surely masks a tragedy beyond words. An icy road and speeding motor bike accident ? Was it all suddenly too much ? Why ? These youngsters  presence here was as light as dust but they're remembered like long term residents - which is perhaps a very Celtic notion.

The sound and the synch on this video are miserable but this is a fun interview with a punchy lady. I'd have to say that 40% of all HMG's ambassadors are women with this number set to rise further in the not too distant future :https://youtu.be/gNrrZ8k4rRQ?t=2161

The Italians would say 'yes' : https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-and-nutrition-history-did-you-know/dipping-science-olive-oil

The tourists are showing up at Rosslyn :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84yLFRi7h-A