Late night studying

This morning the bay is full of offshore support vessels sheltering from the strong northerly winds. At some point in the night the wind started to play with two empty plastic watering cans. The sound of them scrapping across the flagstones in the back garden became so irritating it finally spurred me into getting up and carrying them inside.

There has never been a chocolate bar that Angus wouldn't happily devour. However, the options on the shelf in the farm shop leave me cold. Absolutely cold. 'The Font' worries I might be sickening for something but I explain that caramelised apple milk chocolate is  too sophisticated for this 'mature' palate.

The picture in the coffee shop tells you all you need to know about priorities in this wee town. We find there are more couples from Colorado ( accompanied by teenage offspring ) in the cafe. Oddly, there seems to be a very high density of folk from the state here for the open days. 'The Font' wonders what the statistical probabilities of this are. We've seen a grand total of six Coloradoan (?) families over the course of the last week so we may not have much of a workable data set to work with. It's difficult to discern whether the couples are a) peeved to find other folk from Phoenix here or b) reassured that they're not alone in wanting to send their offspring off to this distant wilderness.

A giant chocolate Santa with a surprised look on its face appears in the bakers window. This is much more to my taste than the sophisticated Gen Z chocolate options available in the farm shop. It will probably stay in the window until Christmas Eve and then be bought by a guilty/inebriated father doing some last minute shopping.

We go a screening of ' The Holdovers '. A feel good(ish) Christmas tale all the more remarkable for its way of capturing the greyness of the 1970's. It was made a couple of years ago but we both thought it was made at least 50 years ago. On our way home we stop off at the Indian restaurant for a takeaway. The restaurant is packed to the gunnels with students.

The cherry trees that line the streets have been festooned with white lights . Every so often the lights burst into activity and cascade in a restrained and very Presbyterian manner.

The Shawarma house remains busy with student devotees until late in the night. Exams start in just over a week so there is a lot of late night studying going on and a lot of Shawarma being consumed.

Music from  'The Holdovers' . When was the last time you heard this golden oldie ? The student audience sang along to it :https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cat+stevens+the+wind

This is strangely compelling. I had assumed Wayne would leave Dallas and go to Edinburgh. Turns out he's a low energy kind of guy and is happy just watching a video :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaeHdQbSAjI

The first of the ' 2025 -Year in Review ' opinion pieces to drop into the inbox :https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/noahpinions-2025-year-in-review

Rewards :https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/jana-gallus-economist-incentive-design