Christmas song #5

Reality dawned sooner than I thought. Much sooner. The Sunday papers lead with the discovery that the cost of hotels and airfares are soaring ahead of the World Cup. A flight plus ten days in a La Quinta Inn near Atlanta airport will cost a Tartan Army follower more than £10k. If you want to see all three of Scotlands qualifying matches it will be a multiple of that. I'll wager that all our soccer mad local workmen will be keen to do a lot of cash raising overtime the closer we get to the big event. Those floor tiles in the downstairs shower room that have been waiting for the last six months may finally get laid.

It poured torrentially overnight. Out here at  'The last wee house before Denmark' the crow population are enjoying the wind free morning. They're sitting in a line drying their wings on the stone field wall. This morning we also see six cormorants flying in formation and two swans heading to somewhere only they know.

To say town in term time is quiet would be an understatement. In the evening the pubs are empty, the streets deserted. This will of course not be the case on Friday night when exam week ends. The close of semester 'blow out' beckons.

At the other, golf course, end of town there is much activity.  Men in orange overalls are hard at work. An irrigation system with sprinklers is being installed on the sacred turf. Divots of grass are scattered everywhere.  I'm surprised some bright spark hasn't driven down in the night and liberated a few. On line ' Genuine St Andrews Old Course grass '  would fetch a tidy sum.

You know climate change is really a thing when irrigation systems are installed on what used to be ( and for all I know may still be ) one of the wettest and windiest golf courses on the planet.

A rather formal Christmas song #5 from Berlin Beautiful sound but I can't claim the choir look as if they're enjoying themselves :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuqYxPD4ZWI&list=RDHuqYxPD4ZWI&start_radio=1

A Canadians view on what's going on :https://substack.com/home/post/p-180946797

A Finnish Independence Day music snippet :https://x.com/TallbarFIN/status/1997592651827380643

Sobering but well written and right :https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europe-is-under-siege