A bridge and what could have been a travel agent.

The slow motion political assassination of Britains Prime Minister dominates the news here.  So far it's all been a bit et tu Brute but without a dagger. Perhaps that will change today. To jolly things up the BBC plays a sound clip of the American President emerging from a two hour session with President Xi . He informs us that this is ' the biggest and most fantastic summit the worlds ever seen . It's so big I can tell you that in the States no one is talking about anything else '.

This estate agents talk causes us to  wonder if we should keep a small pied a terre in Edinburgh. We used to have a rambling old flat at the top of the Mound . You can see it just to the immediate left of the castle in this photo. It was unusual for having a Georgian wig cupboard. We rarely used it. In August the Edinburgh Tattoo was held on the castle esplanade and the noise and crowds used to drive us crazy. The military police would diligently search the take away pizza boxes or delivery vans for explosives. This consigned us to cooking at home for the duration. 

There's a little known entrance to Waverley station that leads out towards a side road onto Calton Hill. This is a part of town tourists seldom see. Facing anyone who walks this way is the Regent Bridge. It was  built as a memorial for those who fell in the Napoleonic wars and spans a large deep volcanic gully. It was , in its day, prohibitively expensive to build and subject to huge cost over runs. I'd bet not one in a thousand folk who walk along the road above know that they're crossing a bridge.

The Starbucks on George Street has an interesting 1970's era frontage with five brass sculptures mounted on triangular granite pillars. The brass figures seem to be a strange combination of Jacobite Highlanders and native American Indians. This modernity is out of place in the New Town but is, in its own way, a quite wonderful piece of architecture. It's certainly too good to be a coffee shop. It has the look of an upmarket travel agency but try as I might there's nothing to be found about its original use or who the architect was. It's the sort of architecture you can walk by a hundred times without noticing it. That in a sense is a measure of its success.

The beaches on the train ride home are the preserve of solitary dog walkers. Five miles outside Edinburgh and the population soon peters out as the big city retreats into the distance.

Far away from big city life mother duck continues to monitor control the footfall on the pavement outside the Shawarma House.

Something bright and exotic in bloom on the banks of the heron pond.

Just another quiet day in a small corner of Scotland. St Andrews is in full on exam mode and the streets are quiet. Two more Gulfstreams and a half dozen smaller business jets fly over The last Wee House before starting their final approach into Dundee. A reminder that the high rolling golf crowd are starting to arrive from Florida.

The artist on display at the Scottish Royal Academy is Irish :https://www.artandhorseracing.com/kayla-martell#&gid=1726120867&pid=9

The Sahara reveals some surprises :https://theconversation.com/we-found-hundreds-of-huge-ancient-mass-graves-hidden-in-the-sahara-desert-281978

Tectonic movement :https://gizmodo.com/scientists-think-africa-may-be-cracking-along-a-new-tectonic-plate-boundary-2000757562