Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Christmas song #13

Last nights high tide has deposited mounds of seaweed on the dunes. It can safely be said that the local dog population love the scent of freshly deposited seaweed. We meet a woman out walking a dog that acts like a PON, looks like a PON but is actually a Borderdoodle. She says looking after him ( he's two years old ) is a full time job. Thankfully they live on a farm and have a brood of teenagers to keep him company busy. We leave as the Borderdoodle starts to roll on his back in a large pile of 'pungent' kelp.


The last week of exams. By Wednesday the exodus of students will be in full spate. Serious teenagers who've finished their last papers sit outside the bars discussing the questions they dealt with earlier in the day. Despite the cold some stay like this until final orders are called.


The Indian restaurant has installed three bright neon strip lights on their first floor window sills.  We're unsure whether the neon lights add to - or distract from - the red, blue and green floodlights at ground level. The small forest of olive trees seem to have survived last weeks cold winds.


Soon the days will start getting longer. In this final pre solstice stretch of the year it gets dark by four. On a particularly stormy, cloudy night the light has all gone by two thirty. There's a carol service in chapel and another ( candle light one ) at the old lepers school. Elsewhere our local Episcopalians have an 'Orthodox' evening in their barn of a church while the Baptists have an altogether less formal Christmas 'sing along '. This is very popular with American students. The theatre continues to be packed solid for the pantomime. Last night we see our postman and his girlfriend who were waiting outside to pick up their children from the early evening performance. They let us know that they're going to Benidorm for a week. " We've got a flight frae Manchester next Tuesday at a price ye cannae believe " says the girlfriend. 


Christmas song #13 from Stockholm :https://youtu.be/-IEuxKCB6o8?t=660


4 comments:

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
I don't now - perhaps all that extra light in a dark street is to be welcomed, if a tad cold-looking. The town is certainly not short of places for festive cheer! Ta for the Britten...YAM xx

Lisa in France said...

The doodle thing continues to perplex me, but it's interesting that a borderdoodle would look just like a PON. This reminds me that we have not see a single PON since moving to France - even in Tokyo we would see one occasionally. The changing daylight at this time of year makes setting the timers on the Christmas lights a challenge. Whatever I decide now, in a couple of weeks, I'll be thinking "now why did I do that?"

Travel said...

I can vaguely remember those late nights, when talking was needed to decompress from weeks of intense study, the unexpected questions, and all of the expected questions that didn't appear.

Stephanie said...

Your glorious sunrise is a welcome sight on this very grey morning on the coast of Northern California. I would find the neon strip lights disturbing.