The first snow arrives in the North.

Starbucks is busy. 'Revision' week is over and the students are back in town. A stream of library bound young women in sensible clothing stop to pick up their orders. Interestingly, male students are conspicuous by their total absence - perhaps their circadian rhythms are still adjusting to the weekends time change ?  The local dog owners start showing up around seven.

A Westie looks remarkably unhappy about its role in a local banks advertising campaign. ' The indignity of it all ! '

Having seen a documentary on the BBC about what prawn farming is doing to the estuarine eco systems of Bangladesh and Ecuador we opt to drive to the fishmongers for some of the ( much more expensive ) local variety.

Bright sunshine, scudding clouds and a chill wind as we wander down to the shore. The gulls are sensibly sheltering in the rock pool next to where the archaeologists have been digging. A dozen surprised pheasants scurry along the track ahead of us. In France or Italy they  would have to contend with local hunters but here the farmers are too busy to bother them. The radio informs us that there's been the first snowfall of the season on the Cairngorms.  

So far the hills to the North of the bay remain snow free. It can only be a matter of time before the winter frosts blanket them. This morning the car lets out an annoying bleep to let us know that it's 4 degrees and 'roads could be slippery '. It's coming up to a year since we bought the little BMW and we've run up 15,000 miles. This is exactly the same mileage we did on each of the cars in France so I guess you could say we've managed a 50% reduction in our road use. We now recognize that the little car is ideal for parking but we could have happily gone for the next size up. The rear seats in this are very small which on anything but the briefest of journeys effectively makes it a two seater.

Monday morning Rachmaninov on the car radio :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhBXx-2PadM

A new vision for California :https://x.com/jansramek/status/1978161081928572975?s=46

The worlds last nomads :https://www.thedial.world/articles/news/issue-28/georgia-adjara-highlands-nomads

China's leading artist writes on Germany and then ( perhaps not surprisingly ) has the article refused :https://hyperallergic.com/1050197/what-i-wish-i-had-known-about-germany-earlier

Few countries have changed as much as Ireland in the last 25 years :https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2025/10/25/john-collison-of-stripe-ireland-is-going-backwards-heres-how-to-get-it-moving/

THE exhibition of the year in Paris :https://www.louvre.fr/en/exhibitions-and-events/exhibitions/jacques-louis-david