Youthful inhibitions

The gannets are out in force. They follow each other along the coast in ruler straight lines - a dozen or so birds at a time. These flocks keep on coming one after the other from their nest 20 miles away on a small barren volcanic outcrop in the middle of the Forth. The gannets have had a rough year with avian flu so it's good to see so many of them together. The village twitchers think the birds numbers are down 30% due to the disease. As the gannets pass the old life boat station they suddenly rear up to a height of thirty or so feet , turn and then plummet, wings sharply folded, down into the sea. There must be a huge shoal of fish here to attract so many of them. How do they pass the news on ? How do they avoid each other ? The sight of so many birds doing these impossible synchronized manoeuvres holds us spell bound. Heads lowered to dive they send plumes of water flying in every direction.  Watching them we're almost happy enough to clap but don't , settling instead for a low murmur of appreciation.

'God bless the just'. A suitably Presbyterian door lintel on the cottage that used to be the weigh house.

£19 for a bunch of local wildflowers tells me that the Edinburgh folk have arrived to spend the whole of August in their summer homes. True enough the farm shops car park is full of little Porsche SUV's and those Range Rover Velars that are so popular in the Georgian terraces of Stockbridge.

The sheep in the field down by the sea are living their best life. They're hunkered down in the shelter of the long grass. A heron is standing to one side of the field watching them. Why it's doing this is a mystery. It ignores us as we wander by. In fact it has an almost imperious arrogance although being a heron this can be forgiven.

The bakers still promoting a strawberry 'fayre'.

The strawberries from the automatic farm dispenser are already selling out fast. Another sign the summer home folk are here. The incomers descend on the shops and cafes like a swarm of super energized locusts. Hermes headscarves and town shoes are much in evidence.  Early rising to beat the rush is a necessity.

The news this morning again dominated by the failed plans to sell off the World Cup to private investors. This has generated the closest thing to towering rage you could get across the European media. Part of this anger may be due to the involvement of the Kushner family, part to the money grabbing vulgarity of Infantino himself. Other, perhaps more pressing,  global injustices generate less rage.

Simple drawings can be good :https://substack.com/@cleoidus

This is how English is used by a younger generation. The line ' terminally-online geeks who need to touch grass ' is a construct I could never have dreamt of :https://substack.com/home/post/p-209281038

The trials of a gardener :https://robdoingrob.substack.com/p/chaos-in-the-garden-the-battle-between

The BBC on communicating in 12026 :https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20200731-how-to-build-a-nuclear-warning-for-10000-years-time

Cheap food was never normal :https://lenispooner.substack.com/p/cheap-food-era-ending-canada

Figure 3 is worth looking at :https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2025/trumps-tariff-revenue-tracker-how-much-us-collecting-which-imports-are