Lots of work to be done

The cooler weather brings out the bats. The garden alive with dozens of them as the sunsets. We open a bottle of Pommard and watch them from the kitchen window as they do improbable right angled turns over the lawn. We've always thought the strange noises that sometimes emanate from the loft are caused by nesting sparrows but we may have to revisit that assumption. Further out there's a large flock of geese resting among the hay bales on the ridge above the shoreline. We've seen large flocks of geese flying over but this is the first time they've stayed  here overnight. Taken together sure signs that the Scottish summer is fast turning into autumn.

The plumbers have installed the new loo and basin in the downstairs cloakroom . Six large floor tiles and a portion of the ceramic wall tiles have been broken displaced. The job of finding a tiler now begins. " It was a wee bit more complicated than I'd allowed for in my estimate " is the departing comment by Murdo the plumber.

At the house in town the painter is planning to work on Sunday in order to get the windows finished. He too has a large backlog of work that needs to be completed before the students return. The painter worked until eight last night which is a good indication of the time pressures the local tradesmen are operating under. 

It's a Bank Holiday south of the border. The streets busy with English families enjoying a last weekend together before the schools start again. Down by the golf course the accents and the dress styles abruptly change - you could always believe you were in the US midwest.

The weather remains bright but we're well into the take along some 'extra layers' time of the year.

We park the car by the shoe shop under the unyielding gaze of a Jack Russell who silently makes it clear we are not going to steal any van he's guarding.

One week before the first years arrive. Young couples flat sharing for the first time are drifting into town. So too are students from far away time zones wanting to acclimatize before lectures begin. In Starbucks we see a table of three stylish Valley girls coming to terms with jet lag . An uber cool Patagonia and Ray Ban wearing guy joins them and observes that ' the first couple of years are the worst '. I'm not sure this is what they wanted to hear and they laugh just a little too heartily. He's 'doing' quantum computing and after his final year is set to head back to San Jose. The girls seem impressed but when he goes ( after , perhaps euphemistically, promising to 'show them the ropes ' and arranging to meet them in Nandos for dinner ) their conversation turns to the lack of familiar brands of almond milk in the supermarkets. How will they survive the hardship ?

'The Font' gets this mornings Wordle in two. This success follows a recent Wordle 'dry spell'.

London music :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxz-vJ8vHfY

Chinese humour:https://www.ramble.media/p/is-xi-jinping-funny

What a woman :https://engelsbergideas.com/portraits/agent-zo-the-spy-who-saved-poland/

A Nobel prize winner talks to one of our local professors. What will happen and what should happen are, of course, two different things. Acceptance rates for the local profs courses are 4% this year :https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-with-phillips-obrien

Mind stretching tetration :https://www.quantamagazine.org/busy-beaver-hunters-reach-numbers-that-overwhelm-ordinary-math-20250822/