Back home.

We're back in Scotland. Public transport worked well. The tram from Edinburgh  airport to the station ran on time. We had ten minutes to buy some fresh fruit from the supermarket in the concourse before the connecting train arrived.  London hotel to home in five and a half hours.

We've found a new London watering hole - The Italian Greyhound - on Seymour Place. Ideal for a pre-dinner glass of wine and a bottle of San Pellegrino. The wine list was good (and reasonably priced) and the service friendly. Three members of staff said 'Hello' as we arrived and four thanked us as we left. This is a big difference from Scotland where the art of cheerful repartee is less developed.

There, are of course, those who prefer drinking outside pubs to the comfort of sitting in a wine bar. To an outside observer the number of pubs seems to be falling.

Near the hotel a vast Victorian church. We must have passed it by a hundred times without registering its scale.  It towers over everything else around. It's as if the architect was oblivious to its surroundings. There again it may have been designed to overawe. Think Notre Dame dropped down into a side street to get a sense of what it's like.

I'm not sure we could afford to live in London any more. Cherries on Blandford Street are £35 a kilo. I'm not sure Snake Fruit makes its way north of the border. Demand must be limited at £44.75 for a kilo.  How do families with three kids manage ?

Florists displays are also very un-Scottish in their style.

To the Occitane shop for some after shave.

The lady behind the counter tries to get me to change from Verveine to Cedre Gingembre. After forty years of using the same product I'm not for experimenting. She offers me 15% off if I buy a second bottle, which I do.

Now we're back St Andrews looks as if it is also going to be hot . 23 degrees forecast for today. With the students and many of the staff gone for the summer it is not so much quiet as deserted. In the space of a week the population has gone from 25,000 to half that number. During term time I happily complain about the students walking along the pavements fixated on their i-phones. Now they're gone I miss them. Soon the foreign golfers will arrive. With their disdain for looking before crossing the road they will happily provide me with a new source of irritation.

Photos from Houston :https://danielkalder.substack.com/p/tsdk-no-87-the-wire-temple

India :https://x.com/JesusFerna7026/status/2057926155588571435

A history lesson :https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/if-it-wasnt-for-us-youd-be-speaking

Intelligence :https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202605/2-commonly-overlooked-signs-of-intelligence

250 years on :https://www.coolidgereview.com/articles/john-adams-declaration-independence