Dinna fash!

Canada and the lack of a trade deal the first item on the news morning. This is followed by reports of growing tensions between Israel and Turkey.  A professor at the LSE explains how the term 'Ottoman slap' has been repurposed from the world of wrestling into geopolitics. It is, he says, a term we are likely to hear much more frequently ahead of the Israeli elections.

First light. Two middle aged teachers and a group of twenty or so ruddy cheeked teenagers come down the lane and past the doocot. They're on a school geology trip and are looking for the rock spindles. We're surprised that school field trips still take place. They seem like an echo of a more innocent time. Even more surprisingly all the youngsters are cheerful and well behaved. Perhaps this is because they're still trying to wake up ? What sort of monster would get his pupils up and about by seven am ? How many teenagers know that seven am even exists ? I'm guessing they've been promised bacon rolls in town.

The last wheat field has been harvested and the hay bailed and ready to be collected and stowed in the barn.The end of the summer comes quickly in these northerly parts.

All that the remains are the brassicas. The recent rain has done them a power of good and their growth seems to have been turbocharged. Work on bringing them in will start today.

There are sixty or so swallows sitting in a line on the telephone wires. It's not often you see them do this. Perhaps they're gathering before heading on their long journey down to Africa.

The farmers daughter has returned from Jackson Hole. She plans to head back there for Christmas although her father is less keen ( much less keen ) on this idea. There is vague talk of the American boys parents and siblings coming over to visit. The farmers youngest lad starts at Cambridge on the 1st of October. He would be happy flying from Edinburgh to Stansted and making his own way to Kings from there. His mother has very different ideas and is insisting he will be taken down by his father in the Range Rover. She is currently being driven insane by his ' Dinna fash ! It's still five weeks away ' attitude. When you're 18 it's all an adventure.

Dogs and speech:https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/horizon-magazine/what-dogs-can-teach-us-about-origins-speech

Just re-opened :https://isleofgighahotel.com/

The life of a reporter in a heatwave :https://mattchorley.substack.com/p/are-you-a-hot-farmer?r=42s6f3

A forgotten tragedy :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-american-airplane-crashed-into-school-1944-english-village-lost-almost-all-of-its-youngest-children-why-has-wwii-worst-civilian-aviation-accident-been-forgotten-180989341/