Fylfot.

We're on the beach early. It was cold last night which caused our central heating boiler to kick into noisy super boost mode at 5:30. The weather around here has settled down into a warm and bright one minute, cloudy and cold the next routine.  In the dry patch between squalls we head out for our morning walk. Heavy rain is forecast for later in the day.

Town is chaos. In fact its as close to Biblically proportioned chaos as a small Scottish town can be. The last of  the students have finally arrived. Yesterday I'd reckon four thousand of them decamped into town between breakfast and the late afternoon. Today, despite the early hour, there are queues everywhere. Double parked fathers, keen to get on the motorway to Gloucestershire before it gets busy,  give their sons embarrassed hugs while mothers dab their eyes with hankies carried for just such a farewell moment. " You will make sure to call at least once a week  ?" said to nineteen year old daughters who most certainly won't. There's at least a dozen youngsters standing on the pavement outside the kitchen store waiting to squeeze in to buy those essential little things that have been forgotten. A Dutch girls asks for a 'turner' . This causes some confusion among the sales staff  but turns out to be the modern term for a spatula.

At the supermarket check out we observe a group of fresh faced males being told in no uncertain terms that alcohol cannot be sold in Scotland before ten am. They shrug their shoulders and return their bottles of Prosecco to the wine sections shelves. Two American lads inform the lady at check out that in the US they can buy alcohol any time of the day or night. Perhaps they think this somewhat inaccurate statement will shame her into making an exception to the law for them.  " Well you're not in America now " she says with a snappy directness that temporarily silences them. They leave unhappy at the injustice of being denied access to a cheeky £13.99 Romanian Malbec to go with their corn flakes. I'm guessing the check out lady has heard this start of term nonsense many times before.

With St Andrews mobbed  we head off to the neighbouring village to complete our shopping.

Here life is calmer. Much calmer. The mobile bank has parked on the market place but trade on this breezy Saturday morning is on the non-existent side of slow. We have a chat with the lady in the greengrocers who tell us the Spanish plums on sale by the front door are the biggest she's ever seen.

One man who is busy is the chimney sweep now that the colder weather has arrived and people are turning their attention to lighting fires. He's booked out for the next six weeks. We prudently had him show up at the last wee house before Denmark before the end of August which is an indication of how age and experience work silently together.

We pop into the local museum. This is a higgledy-piggledy place. On the first floor we find a cabinet devoted to Cubs and Brownies. This has a small swastika badge on display. Small local museums all over the world are home to things that surprise. Neither of us had ever seen the word Fylfot before.

Seems some Americans think we live in a very dark place :https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2025/09/12/how-the-uk-became-american-conservatives-worst-nightmare-00562338

After the Romans left :https://gizmodo.com/new-study-questions-a-major-assumption-about-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire-2000657691

Indigestion :https://theconversation.com/indigestion-is-commonplace-but-sometimes-concerning-heres-what-you-need-to-know-262982