Basking bees

The heather in the garden is covered in bees basking in the sunshine. Winter may not be gone but it's retreating. 

'The Fonts' flight back into Dundee last night coincided with the passage of a weather front. Despite the extremely heavy rain and strong winds the little plane landed exactly on schedule at eight. On the flight Scotlands national airline offered 'The Font' a Tunnocks biscuit and a cup of coffee. We stop off in town and dine fashionably late. To our surprise we find that the restaurant is almost completely full of 30 something male Wall Street golfers. They're all dressed from head to toe in black. A proportion have that carefully couiffed Pete Hegseth perma-tan look. This uniformity gives the place the feel of a morticians convention. We are unsure whether the black is some form of corporate uniform or is the in colour for golf attire. There is much cross table talk of IPO's. 

Down on the shore we pause to watch three dolphins swim by. Shortly afterwards two kayaks appear. We say hello to two super fit Canadian youngsters who are out for a pre-lecture paddle down the coast. They're enjoying their time here and think studying abroad will stand out on their CV's. Both are sensibly taking an AI 'elective' which seems like a sensible thing to do.

Before we went to Portugal we noticed the arrival of a solitary lark in the barley field. This morning the fields around are full of them. The wild roses that line the path to the shore are home to scores and scores of young wrens who flit in and out of the sharp branches. 2026 seems to be a stand out year for wrens. We both find this observation oddly satisfying.

Down to Starbucks for our morning espresso shot. We park opposite a row of small houses. They're exceedingly narrow. Furnishing them must be difficult. In fact living in a house that is narrow and tall must be something of a nightmare.

 

The municipal gardeners have been hard at work.

Pros and cons to those bioplastic supermarket bags :https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2026/03/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-polymer-the-tradeoff-at-the-heart-of-bioplastics/

Medicine ignoring our sense of smell :https://daily.jstor.org/the-missing-sense-in-modern-medicine/

Our local professor is unhappy with the way things are going :https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-rot-is-real-and-there-is-more

Insight into C-A-T behaviour :https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/the-very-adorable-reason-cats-prefer-sleeping-on-one-side

I'd guess our ancestors ate a lot of venison :https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/recreating-the-complex-cuisine-of-prehistoric-europeans/

Morning radio music :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MevYCdn5S8