Pernickety guardians.

Good morning to the passengers on the Norwegian Star cruise liner who at this very moment are sailing very slowly past the village. We know it's the Norwegian Star because the ship is in close enough for us to read the name on her side. However, the ship is just too far away for us to tell whether people are out on their balconies waving. They will find this mornings weather 'bracing'. Further out there are two more ships  - one owned by Viking and the other by Ambassador Lines. People really will pay for cooler weather.

The second episode of David Olusogas latest series of  ' A house through time ' is broadcast on the BBC. He presents so compellingly that watching it is a joy. This is the first house to feature north of the border and we've already been served up rich dishes of treason and immorality. The programme is a jaunty insight into an Edinburgh that is ' all lace and nae knickers '. I notice he pronounces both 'Wynd' and 'Calton' in an English way . 

12 degrees this morning. We're refusing to turn on the heating until the new month starts. This self denial is becoming more difficult with every passing day. There's no hiding the fact that autumn is now approaching not so much at an amble but at a sprint. Later this morning we'll dig out the winter duvets and take the light silk summer ones to the dry cleaners.

The gutter men show up early at 7:00. I only called them yesterday. They look after the house in town that we let to the Texans which means we are considered 'regulars' and are treated accordingly. You see many houses where the majority of the roof is made of pantiles but the first couple of feet next to the gutters are laid with grey slate. I'd always assumed this was because the pantiles had eroded away after centuries of heavy rain and been replaced with something harder wearing. The gutter man tells me that the real reason slates were laid was because the rats found them too slippery to clamber up. 

At the start of the week there were hundreds of bees covering the lavender beds. The stems were literally weighed down with them. The bees are still there but their numbers have fallen. They work frenetically as if charged by a sense of what's to come. I count a dozen resting on the garden furniture and on the grass around the lavender bushes four or five that have died. Something in the first of the cold nights seems to tell them their time here is done. One minute they're hard at work, then they tire, find a sunny spot where they spend half an hour in a trance and then it's over. The regularity and gentleness of this drawing down of the curtain is remarkable. I'll plant more of the late flowering lavender for them next year. Bees are natures Friar Tuck - always jovial, always busy.

Oddly, the Cabbage Whites remain - and in huge numbers. It has been a bumper year for Cabbage Whites. They seem oblivious to the turn in the seasons.

English villages :https://www.architectureandtradition.com/p/how-did-the-english-build-such-beautiful

Some Irish comedians  thoughts on seagulls :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04HSlQs6Ihs

Small farmers can't compete. A Canadian view :https://lenispooner.substack.com/p/why-local-food-costs-more-canada-small-farms

How many dimensions do we live in ? :https://medium.com/@abdplaysofficial/how-many-dimensions-do-we-actually-live-in-06f19711f0a0

The importance of balance :https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2026-08-18/why-balance-predicts-lifespan-longevity