Christmas song #16

The Christmas pudding arrives from Bettys. It was supposed to get here on Tuesday of next week but the courier proved to be 'hyper-efficient'. DPD , who were uniformly atrocious last year ( and the year before ) seem to have got their act together. FedEx by contrast seem to have lost the plot. They text to say they're on the way then simply don't show up. There again we're always grateful for any driver who makes it to the end of our increasingly pot holed farm track.

This morning hundreds, maybe thousands , of geese heading south. Most birds migrate by following the contours of the coast. The geese seem to follow an internal compass and head in a straight line inland towards Edinburgh. They come over in four huge, sky filling, flocks. I don't think we've seen them do this before. Perhaps it's because the winter ( so far ) has been mild and frost free and they're only now heading somewhere warmer ?

It's the time of the year when the deer form family groups. There's a small group of four in the field outside the courtyard and eleven grazing amongst the straw bales in the field behind. Out here the deer have no natural predators apart from the cars speeding , well above the 50 mph limit , along the main road down towards Anstruther. There's something about having deer as neighbours that says the world remains on an even keel.

On the beach a crow picks up a whelk, flies vertically up to thirty or  so feet then drops it. The bird repeats this over and over until the shell cracks and it can get to the juicy mollusc inside. 

The bird repeats this trick over and over.

High cholesterol seasonal delights now filling the supermarket shelves.

Christmas song #16 from Goteborg. You couldn't get any more Scandinavian if you tried, The girls all seem happy but the boys look as if they're only doing this because it makes their grandmother happy :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uih9HRW_NT8

More Irish humour:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JHpwbVBeG0

Keeping your brain functioning :https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-invincible-brain/202512/5-powerful-ways-to-strengthen-your-brain-for-life

My grandmother lived to 104. Cold was something she ignored. She also refused to buy loo paper and instead cut up the previous days newspaper into small squares. This article explains a lot :https://phys.org/news/2025-12-ancient-hunter-dna-people-years.html

A story from my childhood :https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20251211-the-heist-to-reclaim-the-ancient-stone-of-destiny

A freebie Christmas tune from that busker guy in London  :https://youtu.be/bYJ6QCqq25M?list=RDFydDhuAYcOI&t=70

Some strategic thinking :https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/in-the-world-of-the-strategic-blind