Blue skies

The students continue to enjoy the good weather. So do we. There is a big golf tournament on at the start of next month. Last year it poured down from start to finish. There can be little as dispiriting as watching a golf match in torrential rain. The organizers will be hoping that this year will be sunny,

Strange signs appearing around town. I'd never thought of gum as being an issue here.  The target audience may not be a local one. ' We bin our gum' doesn't sound like a very Scottish sentence construct. Outside Tesco's there are three young men with Ghost Buster style backpacks blasting away at ingrained Wrigleys.

We see a motor home with Canadian plates down by the harbour. How do you ship a motorhome from Canada to Europe ? There must surely be easier and cheaper ways of seeing Europe.

At 8:40 Starbucks is as busy as Grand Central with students trying to get their morning caffeine shot before the nine am lectures. Prior to 8:00 when we start our 10,000 morning steps the town is completely empty bar the usual dog owners out with their pooches. 

The fountain is working again. It is turned on mid-morning and turned off again at dusk. This seems a suitably Presbyterian solution to the running costs. It looks well restored and brings a touch of grandeur to that end of the shopping street. Civic involvement works. I notice the sponsors of the upcoming golf tournament have been sponsors of the restoration work.

The skies remain blue and parking, for the moment, easy.

We get the first leaflet reminding us that the British Open golf tournament will be held here in July next year. If you think 10,000 students flooding into a town of 15,000 is a big uplift imagine what it's like when 200,000 golfers make this their home for a week.