You take your excitement where you can find it.

Eight o'clock on Tuesday night and a large cruise liner appears out at sea. Seen from the garden it seems to be oddly tall but not very long :https://www.oceaniacruises.com/ships/marina. Until recently cruise ships rarely if ever ventured this far North but last year we noticed a marked uptick in the number of liners en route to Dublin and the Orkneys. This year there  seems to be even more of them. Guess the cruise lines are rescheduling away from the Eastern Mediterranean. We, and a group of villagers, stand on the farm track and watch the ship sail twinkling majestically by. You take your excitement where you can find it.

Wednesday morning. I find a parking space for the little BMW by the bookstore. Within 30 seconds a ferocious looking gull lands on the wee cars roof . I think of shooing it away but it gives me a look that says it's not to be toyed with.

Student bikes still chained to the railings of the house by the cinema.  The bike that had been left outside the wee house in town has finally been collected by a bored looking man in blue overalls who hoists into the back of his van.

A German couple forget which side of the road to drive on. They find themselves  heading towards the oncoming traffic. The driver swerves and hits a  bollard. The rental car company has a tow truck there in half an hour. A group of American golfers at the cafe where Prince William met Kate ( allegedly ) find this to be the 'darndest' thing they ever did see. Neither of us has ever heard anyone use the word 'darndest' before. It is presumably archaic. Since Monday the number of American visitors in town has grown. In fact it's not so much grown as exploded. June must mark the start of vacation season.

At last David Mellor has got its espresso cups back in stock. The brightly coloured coffee cups came with us from France but the espresso cups went AWOL during the move. Replacements arrive ( four years late ) in the morning post.

A gull creates an artistic shadow as it lands on the pavement outside the expensive lobster roll restaurant.

Life in the absence of the students, as you might be able to tell,  is so, so quiet.

Singing whales :https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-cold-wars-accidental-whale-observatory/

A craving for company :https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2026/why-we-crave-social-interaction

Not all book festivals are created equal :https://snyder.substack.com/p/waiting-for-the-missiles-to-pass

This lady doesn't seem to have enjoyed Scotland :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQlgN9w0BsU