Environmentally friendly.

 

All quiet this morning ; no jet fighters to disturb our morning reveries. The Russian frigate that had the air force busy has passed south through the Channel and into French waters. Sophie patrols the dunes in search of oyster catchers to chase. They remain safely, and obdurately, out of reach down on the waters edge. University sports teams are running on the beach - term is about to start and the excesses of the holidays have to be burnt off. Sophie is disappointed to discover that the university rugby team don't carry Jaffa Cakes.

The sheep remain munching the rough grass in pens down by the golf course. We think that instead of using petrol powered grass cutters the grounds men have opted for a more environmentally friendly solution. The sheep are happy, the ground gets fertilized and sheepdogs are transfixed. What's not to like ? Sophie ensures that Angus is positioned between her and the flock that is wandering towards her. Even the bravest of girls understands the importance of prudence.

Back at home one of the farmers has started to plough the potato field by the heron pond. He stops his tractor for a chat. He also gives Sophie an ear scrunch. The village Burns supper is set for the end of the month. We discuss the relative merits of The MacAllan over lesser whiskies.  If it wasn't for the fact that it's barely become light I'd think he was angling to be invited in for a wee dram of the 'purely restorative' variety. 

After a walk on the beach and a drink from a large puddle Sophie starts her day sporting what might  best be described as her ' lived in ' look.

10

This morning the conversation with the super smart Los Angeleans is dominated by the words documents, garage and vintage Corvette.  They want to know what it all means for 2024. The Los Angeleans continue to trade their LNG portfolio and expect a late January cold surge on the East Coast that will be of epic proportions. I've noticed that the weather forecast here is now starting to project colder temperatures starting this weekend. A few days ago there was no talk of snow or frost. 

There's a Russian navy frigate somewhere out at sea between us and Norway. Our morning starts early with an anti-submarine warfare aircraft skirting low over the bay followed by the throaty roar of a couple of fighters scrambling into the air.

A few days ago Sophie celebrated her 10th birthday.

This milestone is quite something for a 'shy' girl with two titanium knees. After a 'troubled' start in life she has become quite the PON 'grade dame'.  She truly is the family diva. She has become more 'vocal' in the last year.

We stop off at the good coffee cafe. There are a few students up and about as lectures don't start until next week so there's no queue. Sophie enjoys a bowl of fresh water and a shared pain au raisin.

The playlist at the cinema fails to entice.

A restaurant experience ? :https://www.europapark.de/en/info/new-attractions-news/eatrenalin-restaurant-world-first

Arthritic Archie.

The wind is howling like a banshee this morning. It hits the leeward side of the chimney stack with a sound not unlike someone slapping a large freshly caught salmon against it. Tharump - tharump- tharump. The PONette, who is usually keen to get the day started, doesn't hear me as I come down the stairs. She is enjoying a tail wagging dream in which her derring-do saves the world from tyrant C-A-T-S. 

I open the fridge door . The promise of a yogurt pot  has her bounding into the kitchen.

Dog and master watch the sun rise. Apart from the skittish oyster catchers and a flock of  starlings we are the only living things about. 

Half a mile down the track and imagine our surprise when we discover that the farmer has brought a herd of sheep down to a pen on the foreshore.

Our progress comes to a standstill. Sophie is transfixed. Something deep and elemental within her psyche tells her she and sheep are bound, inextricably, together in some cosmic symbiosis. Sophie ponders this insight but finally decides that  sheep = trouble. We move on. Sophie opts to leave cosmic karma and the mundanity of  herding to any passing Shelties - she has dead fish to find and a pain au raisin to share.

We find a mobile phone and a set of Audi car keys in the sand on the beach. There's a  solitary woman slowly walking a very ancient black labrador a couple of hundred yards away. We chase after her. The black labrador is very arthritic but greets Sophie's arrival with a tail wag. The woman is very grateful. To be locked out of your car with an old dog and no means of communication would not make for a good start to a blustery day.  Sophie now has a new friend - arthritic Archie. 

Yesterday the family diva had  a beard and jowl trim. This morning either a) the hair has grown again or b) there is so much fur that 'trims' simply don't make any difference.

The joiner has been, the planning people are set to give the green light to the conservatory, the garden room designer has been sent away to think again and the kitchen suppliers have promised a firm price on the kitchen units and the Wolf cooker. The new year brings with it some progress. Now, if only the electrician and the plumber would answer their phones.....

How unusual. Everyone is wearing masks  :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B13h7nRBT0&t=141s

This restaurant is closing. The chef has sensibly decided that he can make more money cooking for private clients once or twice a week rather than slave away until two or three or four every morning. More money, less stress.  :https://noma.dk/

Unusual business models.

The trip to the beach is now an established part of Sophie's routine. This morning it's merely cold, grey and windy. Brief sleet bearing squalls drift by intermittently to add variety. Wonderful PONette weather. After half an hour Sophie's chauffeur is keen to head off for a restorative bacon roll. He has discovered that sleet always manages to find a way of getting inside your rain wear. It goes without saying the family diva is in no hurry to go.

A traffic jam on our way home. Unusual at this time of the morning .. or indeed any morning. The hands on the chapel clock are being cleaned. Some men high up on an extendable platform are already busy. 'Cleaning' means removing the hands and giving them a new coat of gold paint. The works are being done by a firm from Edinburgh with the toe tapping slogan ' Public timekeeping is our passion' on the side of their vans. There are a surprising number of vans for what you might think is an esoteric trade. The road is reduced to a single lane. Temporary traffic lights, bollards, and yellow plastic crowd control fencing have been installed as a precaution against falling clock parts. Presbyterians take health and safety seriously.

At the supermarket the first Easter Eggs have arrived on the shelves. Is this a record ? Usually, they wait until February before making an appearance. The Christmas cakes still aren't selling. I guess they'll go off to a food bank within the next few days.

The shop next door to the book store is closing. 'Retirement Sale' has appeared in large letters on a sign across the window. The shop has an unusual business model that combines 1990's era female fashion with an assortment of ceramic 'knick knacks'. This is ideal for the woman who wants to pop out, try on a dress and buy a porcelain ice cube holder in the shape of a pineapple. The town has many shops with 'unusual' business models. They all seem to have a loyal following.

Finding one of the cats in the four photos was quite difficult :https://twitter.com/asiancha/status/1612760621493194752?cxt=HHwWgMC4_bHP1uEsAAAA

Choices.

Out of the car , over the dunes and onto the sand. Sophie is faced with her first choice of the day. Go left and chase the solitary jogger  or go right and chase the oyster catchers ? After a moments hesitation she opts for the oyster catchers.

Sophie then turns her attention to looking for desiccated herring amid the seaweed. This requires concentration and exemplary olfactory skills. It also means that we proceed at a leisurely pace despite the biting wind. 

The super smart Los Angeleans are on the phone early. Brazil, Jim Jordan, the US debt ceiling and British tanks for Ukraine among this mornings talking points. They tell me that their forecasts call for historic cold temperatures in Scotland and the US East coast starting on January 20th. The weather forecast here doesn't agree with them - it expects the next two weeks to be mild and showery.  The Los Angeleans got it right the last time. I'll order some more heating oil just to be safe.

The family diva will be getting a beard trim this morning. Whiskers and sand do not make ideal bedfellows.

Not sure about this. Who knows what Sophie might say to us ? Bunny doesn't look too happy about it either:https://fluent.pet/

Standing in the bow.

 

A day with absolutely nothing  in the diary. No plumbers, no joiners, no decorators. They are all due to be here later in the week ... or so they said before Christmas. Final planning permission for the new garden room is also expected. We have involved all the neighbouring villagers in the design process so it should - in theory - go through unopposed. We've done this in the belief that many ( most ) planning applications run into trouble because decisions are taken without consulting the other folk involved. This is doubly true in small coastal communities full of retired, but highly opinionated , academics, judges and doctors with time on their hands. We shall soon know whether this 'inclusive'  approach works.

Sophie is down on the beach as the sun is just drifting above  the horizon. She chases the oyster catchers who squeal and then obligingly  fly 50 yards down the beach. This' sturm und drang'  hunting process is repeated seven times before she tires of it. At no stage were any oystercatchers in the slightest danger. 

Sophie proceeds across the sand with a spring in her step. She has once again started her day proving, to her satisfaction at least, that she is the possessor of finely honed hunting skills. 

Students are returning. The few middle aged joggers that used to pass us now replaced by a younger and more purposeful generation. Sophie disdainfully  ignores them. She has understood that younger and more purposeful joggers never, ever,  carry Jaffa Cakes.

Oddly, with the exception of a cafe under the bridge that we used to go to in the early 80's , we have never been to Brooklyn. This place looks to have a fun bar :https://www.thewilliamvale.com/

We do intend to stay a night here this year :https://www.pelicaninn.com/

Closer to home, this is a journey Sophie will also be taking this year. Her first outing on a ferry. Other PONs have loved standing on the bow with the wind blowing in their faces. Let's hope the diva has a similar response :https://themachrie.com/the-island/the-journey/

A gentle reminder.

A gentle nudge on the back of my leg by a wet nose reminds me to hurry up and get our day  started. Dog owners may see it as just another outing to the beach. For my furry companion it's high adventure. For her there's no such thing as  an 'ordinary' day. There's a whole universe out there to explore, dogs to be greeted , or, depending on their nature - challenged. There are sounds to be listened to, vast mysteries to be studied. Hidden amid the seaweed are taste bombs waiting to be uncovered and tasted . 

Sophie was right to hurry me along. We're on the beach an hour later than usual. What a difference an hour makes. Yesterday it was deserted. This morning it's busy. The tide is also in. Sophie stands at the top of the dunes, surveys the activity, and then she's off. A howl of delight pierces the air as she goes. Some emotions can't be hidden.  A pair of senior labradors are greeted like long lost friends. Then it's the turn of a Sheltie, then a poodle and finally an overly friendly small ginger mutt. Collective canine effervescence. This morning Sophie finds a small mackerel in the marram grass. She carries it with her head held high. The joy when those olfactory discoveries explode on her taste buds !

Back at the last wee house before Denmark all is calm. A ship that services the wind farms has anchored in the bay. Does this herald the arrival of bad weather ? 

Yesterday, half a dozen folk wandered along the track to the shore. Their Polish great grandfather was stationed , in this very spot, after the fall of France in 1940. His unit was tasked with manning the coastal defences against the threat of invasion. The old cow byre down by the water was converted into a gun emplacement. 80 years of wind and waves have swept the surrounding pillboxes away but the byre where the gun was mounted is still there.  It was here in the village that their great grandfather  met and 'courted' his Scottish girl friend. The rest as they say is 'history'. Polish names are common here. Many members of the Polish army opted to stay in Scotland when the war ended in 1945 rather than return to life under the new communist order. The sophistication of passionate, hand kissing Poles won the hearts of many of the local girls. 

The farm shop calmer now after the madness of Christmas. The surplus of  heavily reduced Christmas cakes still aren't selling. We buy some sausages for breakast. Sophie knows here day is going to get even better.

 

It's taken a while but they've finally figured out the reasons for the longevity of Roman concrete. https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106

Tranquilizing.

 

The wind is gusting at ( or near ) 50 mph this morning. Under three inches of fur Sophie is as warm as a bug in a rug. Apart from one hyperactive young Sheltie and its owner we are the only visitors on the beach. The family diva has two miles of empty sand to explore.  Sophie, being an affable soul,  would like to wander over to chat with the Sheltie but 1) he's completely fixated on the ball he's chasing and 2) his youthful turn of speed can't be matched by a titanium kneed lady of 'advancing' years. She watches the Sheltie disappear into the distance.  

We go out along the shoreline and then cut inland to return home on the soft grass path that crosses the golf course. Two of the golf course groundsmen greet Sophie by name. Angus is ignored. At the clubhouse twenty or so bobble hatted Americans are milling about waiting to tee off. This morning its a jovial husbands and wives golfing group from Memphis - guess that makes them Memphians ?  They too greet the family diva.  Sophie is somewhat disappointed that not one of them has a stash of Jaffa Cakes to share with her. 

All the Christmas decorations are down and packed. This is a tedious job that's should be done with a tranquilizing glass ( or two ... or three ) of a good Pomerol . Next year Angus will get the tree down earlier before his dry January self denial kicks in.  A call to the council refuse department to find out whether they can collect and recycle the tree. They arrange to be here on Monday morning.  ' You'll need to cut it into two so that it'll go in the back of the truck' says the recycling man.

Is this the answer to solar panels on listed buildings ? : https://techxplore.com/news/2022-12-disguising-solar-panels-ancient-roman.html

The Italian way.

One of the Manhattanites makes the caustic comment that Anglos-Saxons used to sneer at the Italian parliament with its ever changing governments and interminable procedural votes. It now seems that the Brits and Americans have not only adopted the Italian model but are taking it to new levels of unruliness. 

It's one of those windy mornings that shakes the windows and sets the gutters rattling.  Even Sophie, safe and warm behind a three inch thick double layer of fur, is taken aback by the strength of the gusts. Down by the water the gulls, geese and oystercatchers see us, shriek, fly twenty yards out to sea and then return to the shelter of the rocks. Four deer which been grazing on the lush grass between the farmers field and the edge of the cliff eye us warily. I've not seen the deer for some time. The fact that they're coming this close to the front door must be a sign that winter food stocks are running low.

Sophie returns from her morning tour of the village looking like the party girl she is. Wind, sand , seaweed, muddy puddles and an inquisitive nature will do that.

A first edition ( in English ) of Crime and Punishment in the window of the second hand book shop. The book shop window is an eclectic and ever changing attraction. It is next door to the Gospel Hall which has a hand stencilled sign in the window asking ' Are you washed in the blood of the lamb ?'  

We drop off some batteries for the television remote at the wee house in town. Sophie and Angus pop out to the cafe and bring home a bacon sandwich which we eat while doing our best not to make a mess.  On a dark and windy January morning I wonder why we chose a grey colour scheme for the interior. A tartan foot stool has made a surprising appearance.

Train strikes.

Angus is on day three of his alcohol free January. Last night he drank sparkling apple juice with dinner. There must surely be more adult options . The supposed health benefits of this period of self denial have yet to make themselves felt.

A thin layer of ice has formed on the puddles along the farm track. Sophie thinks thin layers of ice are one of lifes underrated pleasures. They  make a more than satisfying cracking noise when walked on. Even better, there is nothing as refreshing as near frozen puddle water.

The hills on the far side of the bay are covered in snow. Down here by the water it's milder. Our water front location means we escape some, if not all, the Scottish winter can throw at us. The super smart Los Angeleans are preparing for a 'Beast from the East'  stretching down into California and North Africa  in two weeks time. One of them observes that Europe has had a really mild winter but this has left many of the regions farmers with no  snow to insulate their crops from this coming blast from the Arctic. 

This morning dog and master head into town. We have work to do.

In the wee rental house Angus hangs some prints on the walls that lead to the top floor bedroom. Every six months the painters have to come in and cover scuff marks. We're hoping that hanging the pictures will make tenants walk in the middle of the staircase rather than rub up against the walls. It's worth a try.

Lots of large cars with London number plates appearing. Parents dropping off children for the start of a new semester. There is a nationwide train strike in the UK so travel plans are being hastily rearranged. 

 

Oyster.

 

Some mornings a girl just knows the world's her oyster.

Accomplishment.

Sophie's out of the back of the car, onto the beach and straight into action. The skittish oyster catchers take one look at this bundle of howling fur hurtling towards them and take wing. Having chased them Sophie wears an air of supreme accomplishment. She has proved, to her satisfaction, that she's a finely honed hunting machine. I say nothing. 

The family diva notes that her paws leave marks in the wet sand. How cool is that ? This is a cause for silent reflection. Everything stops while the paw prints are examined. For a soon to be 10 years old PONette life is full of excitement and surprise.

We leave the beach is as it was when we arrived half an hour earlier -deserted bar one person at the far end. The holiday makers are leaving and the students haven't yet returned en masse. Parking spots and dinner reservations are once again easy to find.

Time for a coffee and a shared pain au raisin. We were going to take a short cut to the cafe through the cathedral grounds but the gates into the precincts are firmly locked. Strange to think that this old ruin was once one of the largest buildings in Europe.  20 metres longer than the other great pilgrimage cathedral site at Santiago. It was the biggest structure ever built in Scotland until Waverley Station in Edinburgh in the mid-19th century. Robert the Bruce, the hero of Bannockburn,  rode his horse down the nave to the altar at its consecration in 1318. What a sight that must have been . If he'd lost that battle history would have been very different. History would also have been very different if Zelensky had left Kyiv when the invasion started as everyone ( Brits and Americans included )  told him to do. Individual choices can, and do, shape history. 

Back at the car there's time for a quick drink from the non-slip water bowl.

Hats everywhere. The way things were :https://twitter.com/janeyellene/status/1584092677028872193

Intriguing.

We meet five dogs and their owners on our start of day tour of the village. All are happy to stop for  a 'wee blether' and to wish us a Happy New Year. Scots are generally a taciturn race but having a canine alongside dispels 'reserve'. Sophie is delighted to meet four of the dogs but draws the line at a female Cocker Spaniel that growls at her. The owner says that the Cocker Spaniel used to be a prize winning show dog but her days in the ring soon came to an end because she simply could not abide other females. 

On the beach an Australian family standing by the waters edge. One by one they take off their shoes and walk barefoot into the sea. Each says something and then throws a yellow rose into the water before a quick return to terra firma. This is repeated until everyone has had their turn.  Usually anyone sticking as much as a toe into the North Sea in January would scream out with shock but here there's an over riding seriousness. We do not wish to intrude. I'm guessing ( and it is only a guess )  that they're scattering someones ashes. From the age distribution I 'd also guess they're saying goodbye to a grandparent.  The roses are washed down the beach by the current. A line of twenty or so blooms already marking the tideline. Fifty yards away Sophie stops and watches these intriguing proceedings. What memories or circumstances could cause a family to fly half way round the globe to enact this strange ritual ?

A national holiday in Scotland today and tomorrow. Hogmanay has always been a bigger thing north of the  border than Christmas. The shopkeepers and market stall holders are already getting ready for the 'day outing' crowds.

The bakers lights are on but there's no one in the shop. The bread is still in the ovens. We'll come back into town before lunch and pick up a loaf then.

A quick detour to the 'wee house'. The painters have finished. They've covered the kitchen floor in a startling white. It seems they couldn't match the off white that was there before. The cleaning lady hasn't been able to get the burn mark out of the kitchen table. The university safety officer has been in and made sure that the fire extinguishers are visible and working. I open a window to let the paint fumes out. We'll go down after we pick up a loaf and close up. The new tenants are due to arrive at the weekend.

 A place I'd never heard of :https://www.dawn.com/news/1728973

2023

I turn on the breakfast radio and hear this line written by the old Pope  " Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary ".  The first words I've heard spoken in 2023. Quite possibly the most uplifting I'll hear on the radio this year ?

The family diva is usually asleep by ten. Staying up until the wee hours welcoming in the New Year takes it out of a girl. It shows.

Hogmanay revelers have written 2022 and 2023 in the sand on the beach. The incoming tide has washed away most of 2023 but left 2022 untouched.

A few joggers attract Sophie's attention but they're too far away to take much interest in.

Town surprisingly busy. A slow, but steady, stream of cars heading past the chapel .  I'm guessing Edinburgh folk are shepherding their families south before the traffic build up on The Queensferry Crossing really starts. Am I alone in thinking that having Christmas and New Year fall on a Sunday seems to have made this holiday season less frenetic ?

Concentration ... or determination etched on these musicians faces ? : https://youtu.be/OdibDKnp7Mc?t=81