Brief, occasional and non-informative.

A group of village ladies, including the farmers wife, can be found heading down to the shore for their early morning swim. They're wearing bathing caps and are wrapped up against the morning breeze in long puffa jackets.  Four Jack Russells, a Patterdale , the athletic black spaniel and a super friendly golden accompany them.  The mothers of the six village lads staying in the Hyatt continue to text their offspring reminding them to use sun screen, eat healthily and get plenty of sleep. They receive brief, occasional and studiedly non-informative texts in reply. This is, perhaps, just as well.

The village hall is again busy for the screening of World Cup matches. Yesterday saw the local 30 something fathers congregating to watch Germany v Curacao and Sweden v Tunisia. By the porch two black plastic bin bags full to the brim of empty beer cans suggest it was another good night. Who would have thought Curacao had a soccer team ?

On the beach the waves have sculpted strange shapes onto the sand. The landward side is ridged, the seaward smooth and easy to walk on. We've never seen this pattern on the sand before. Must be something to do with the abnormally low tide.

The Mediterranean gardens that have been planted outside the Royal and Ancient clubhouse have some rather fine deep purple lupins.

The local gulls have discovered that tourists fresh off the bus from Edinburgh sneak into the garden behind the chapel to eat their sandwiches or bacon rolls. This mornings breakfasters are monitored closely. Give it a month until the chicks are hungry and the gulls will be much ( as in MUCH ) more aggressive. The days of smash and grab are coming. We've seen someone have their fish and chip supper stolen from their hands by a hungry gull.

It's not long before the skies cloud over and we head off to Starbucks. Progress on the fountain continues. It is a mixture of sandstone, granite and marble and is awaiting the last granite quadrant on the base to be fitted.

A letter is delivered to the wee house in town alerting us to the July graduation festivities. Every year we get an identical letter reassuring us that every effort will be made to keep noise levels under control. The end of semester student ball is a wild affair that makes a UFC fight on the White House lawn seem positively quiet in comparison. However, the student gathering in infinitely less vulgar.  'Bands' come from far and wide to provide full volume entertainment.  The annual 'letting off steam' marks a huge rite of passage for the assembled 21 year olds and enables older residents to grumble about wayward youngsters. Everyone is happy.

Talking about the UFC fight the radio comes out with the a quote from the movie Gladiator " The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it's the sand of the Colosseum ". This may be too delphic a comment for all but the most alert of listeners.

It's The Fonts birthday on Saturday. We are off to Montreal tomorrow and then onto Quebec and will be back early next week. A report on Canadian cuisine will follow . 

Egypts new ( and empty ) capital city :https://www.chinatalk.media/p/notes-on-egypt

This is the sort of video the farmers wife wants to see :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCEkyyYY1zw  by contrast this is definitely not a video to be shared with her but is probably closer to the experience her sons are getting  :https://youtu.be/XvcAEaczh6I?t=311

Texas ( and next generation jobs ). Happy if anyone can explain this to me :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN48vEqaQs8&t=133s

A speech at the Oxford Union :https://paulgraham.com/earn.html