Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Twas ever thus.

The weather is being well behaved. It pours at night but is bright and sunny in the morning. Today is particularly lovely with clouds on the far side of the bay and skies of the purest cerulean blue above us. The radio informs us that some airbase in England ( I forget which one but think it might have been Coningsby ) has had its first rainfall in 62 days.

This perfect beach weather  is not what the village youngsters want to see as they head off  to school for the first day of term. The sunshine makes the indignity of getting the eight am school bus all the worse. They have an unhappy 'Weather like this should be outlawed' look on their faces.  Twas ever thus.


In the field down by the old bronze age graves a remarkable looking plant.


This morning we go to a bakers in the village along the coast for a baguette. Someone has told us they're the best outside Edinburgh or Glasgow. We're too early. The woman behind the counter shrugs her shoulders and says ' The delivery mans running a wee bit late '. She then goes on to tell us it's his twin girls first day at primary school. He's dropping them off at the front gate before he starts the days deliveries. For us it's a day when nothing happens. For him ( and the girls ) it's a day to remember.


It's the prefect morning to stop and have a coffee at a cafe overlooking the harbour. The coffee is good which is unsual in a part of the world where the standard is set by Starbucks.  The boat that takes visitors out to the Isle of May to view the puffins is full. In fact every seat is taken. The boat trip has been discovered by 'influencers' and to the delight of the crew has become mega popular. Todays passengers are a mix of English, Spanish, Italian and American in equal measure. Just wait until they get out of the harbour and discover the sea breezes. Then they'll really understand what cold weather tourism is all about.


The faces are v. French :https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1q3g6iFluvM

'Hipster' fine dining in SF is now $600 per person :https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/where-to-eat-in-san-francisco

Another of those things I'd never heard about - acoustic ecology :https://aeon.co/essays/worm-munch-matters-the-new-acoustic-ecology-of-the-soil

Are we all sounding the same ? :https://eriksinger.substack.com/p/are-media-and-the-internet-homogenizing



2 comments:

Linda said...

Your "remarkable plant" is Phacelia. It's used as a green manure by organic gardeners and now increasingly by farmers. When we were passing your village last summer there were several fields of it along the main road. It's very quick growing and tolerates cold temperatures. It's used to hold nitrogen. Apart from that, it's adored by bees and hoverflies. I have a large patch in my garden this year because I'm conditioning the soil there after a nasty cotoneaster hedge was taken out. It's always full of bees - you can hear the humming as you approach. One year when I grew a very large amount the bees had blue pollen sacs from the blue flowers.

Virginia said...

How mad! Almost NZ$1100 per person! That would feed a family for a week here, with good quality meat, fish and vegetables! My husband and I are very comfortably off, but there is no way I’d want to eat at that price. I think I’m turning into a Puritan! 😳