Demonic bar stools.

The tide has scoured the sand and left it with a woven harlequin pattern look. We've never seen this before. It stretches all the way down the beach for a good 2 miles. After four years we've discovered that each and every day the beach has a new story to tell. Interpreting what all this ebbing and eddying means can be difficult.

Our daily routine has now recovered from the quick trip to Canada. The hotel in Montreal had great bar staff but the design of the bar itself was a strange mix of the impersonal and the bland. It could have been a 1980's era TWA airport business lounge. In one dark corner of the bar a small forest of rubber plants struggled to find light. The bar stools were lower than you'd think bar stools might possibly be. A picture or two might have cheered the place up. 'The Font' points out that the bar might look better in the wee hours when it's full of party animals. 

By contrast the globally iconic hotel in Quebec could not be mistaken for an airport departure lounge. The bedroom had an electric fire with a faux log feature that couldn't be turned off. When was the last time you saw one of those ? Despite repeated attempts at modernisation the room had an inexpungable air of the 1950's about it. And no, that isn't a can of lager on the floor, it's a can of shaving foam.

The Canadians make maple syrup flavoured crisps. Based on this alone Angus could quite easily live in Canada. There is a book to be written about the contents of hotel mini-bars. This one was unmistakably Quebecois.

In a downtown shop window an expensive Louis Vuitton window display. I rarely look at window displays but this one is where commerce meets art with a bit of whimsy thrown into the mix. It must have cost a small fortune.

There is a non-French element to Quebec culture...

... and it ain't English.

Fun football :https://x.com/all_nations2/status/2070396020509561328

Why would anyone want to be a politician ?:https://petebuttigieg.substack.com/p/a-terrible-thing-happened-to-my-family

The mechanical watch :https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

Gen Z jobs :https://www.robingreenfield.org/findaforager/

Is this a surprise ? :https://gothamist.com/news/chinese-immigrants-overtake-dominicans-as-nycs-largest-foreign-born-group

It came from England :https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-smashing-the-nimbys-created-modern

A kilt will have this effect.

While we've been away the potatoes have shot up and the poppies are flowering everywhere. Europe is facing a record breaking heatwave but here the temperatures struggle to reach the high teens in the afternoon and fall down to the low teens at night. 

The farmers sons are finishing off their journey with a trip to Disney World. Space Mountain is a teenage favourite and has been visited several times . The diner at the Howard Johnsons they've booked into makes ' great burgers ' which is high praise indeed. They are now about to head back to Boston by Greyhound bus to catch the flight home. Their mother  plans to pick them up on Monday morning. The lads have had a great time and avoided ( or at least not mentioned ) all the dangers that had so worried their mother. Even the immigration officials seem to have been welcoming or at least less hostile than imagined.  Visiting 'Mia' in Daytona has appeared in one of the younger lads infrequent texts but this, like many teenage comments, is as unexpected as it is imprecise. For a kilt wearing Scottish farm boy football, beer and Space Mountain might not have been the only highlights of his trip. 

Scottish fans are now supporting Norway. The lads would willingly stay on for the rest of the World Cup but there's a harvest to bring in and credit card bills to be paid. For the youngest son the small matter of choosing a university must be addressed. 

Down on the beach a man is getting ready to launch himself, and his paraglider, into the air. He politely waits until the lady with the Pomeranian has passed before turning on his engine.

He waves at us as he skims low overhead.

A large flock of Spanish tourists are already lined up outside the castle. I'd reckon that we're having more visitors than ever although this is based on nothing more than random observation. Perhaps cool weather tourism really is a thing ?

We stop to watch the eider ducks in the water below the cliffs. You know you've reached a 'certain' age when you do things like this. There must be a couple of hundred of the wee things bobbing up and down on the swell.

The mothers form a protective circle and carefully corral the ducklings away from the sharp rocks. This is no easy thing when there's a strong onshore wind driving them on. The life of an eider duck mother has parallels with that of the farmers wife. You can only do your best.

In town large shiny rental cars are arriving. Graduation week is almost upon us and proud parents are assembling from every corner of the globe. There's  a tangible sense of joy in the air and the town is never happier or more beautiful . Pride is supposedly a sin but parents - and their offspring -  can surely be allowed a little of it at this time of the year ? The municipal workmen have repainted the double yellow lines and refreshed the white paint on the roundabout by the cathedral. Traffic management suddenly becomes a municipal priority with so many visitors heading our way.

In Arkansas of all places :https://crystalbridges.org/

For the 'in' crowd. The trendiest of candies :https://crystalicioussnacks.com/

Post Covid some fresh thinking :https://blog.interceptfund.com/p/ending-respiratory-infections

Boston :https://unherd.com/newsroom/america-is-falling-in-love-with-scotlands-football-fans/

Can't you read ?

I'm up early this morning. There is the mother of all thunderstorms banging away just off the coast. The sound is remarkable but the sight of the lightning dancing around the offshore wind farms even more so. London may be suffering from a heatwave but up here 18C is the forecast high for the day. It will seem like 14C adds the forecaster on the pre-dawn bulletin. From my window I can see that there's a group of young rabbits sitting in a flower bed. Are they too young to be afraid or are they just not worried about the lightning ? Perhaps the foxgloves are such  tempting breakfast fare they don't notice the banshee wailing.

We liked Quebec City. It was easy to get around and had a lively ( but not too lively ) nightlife. 

The tee shirts for sale in the souvenir shops tell you events south of the border have not gone unrecognized.

At times you could almost believe you were in some small French town in Brittany. The weather was changeable in that sunny one minute rainy the next sort of way that you also find in that part of France. The old stone houses were well restored and very attractive.

Our hotel was large and iconic. In places it was also like a zoo. Noisy ( and exceptionally colourful ) Indian weddings battled with visiting coach tours in the lobby. We spent three nights there but after facing the crowds we could have happily left after one.

The purpose of the trip was  a birthday dinner in a restaurant down on the river side. Angus had some doubts as to whether flying to Canada for 'The Fonts' birthday celebration could have been justified but it was. We were the only non-local group in the dining room as it seems reservations are hard to come by. Someone in the family scored a lot of brownie points in finding and arranging it :https://www.restaurantlegende.com/

I'd have to say the meal was exceptional and my qualms misplaced. The service was warm and professional. Clavalier d'amerique was an ingredient I'd never heard of either in French or English. The meal was unusual in being both light and exquisitely prepared. We drank Canadian wine with dinner which also ( pleasantly ) surprised us. Angus would willingly return to try some of the Pomerols on the list.

The view from the hotel window , once we were back, was attractive rather than stunning. In the lift down to the lobby we meet an American man who tells us that as recently as 1945 more than 98% of Australians could trace their  lineage back to Britain or Ireland. He also tells us there are more Catholics in Scotland than there are Presbyterians for the first time since 1560. Wherever you go in the world there's a chance you'll meet someone like this in an elevator.

Our only mishap on the trip was finding ourselves in the middle of the changing of the guard at the Citadel. The young soldier who wondered what we were doing and whether we could read the 'No entry'  signs might have more politely restricted himself to describing Angus as a moron. The addition of a somewhat forceful qualification was - I thought - unnecessary. He was surprised to be replied to in French.  'The Font' was of the opinion that communications with a soldier armed with a rifle and bayonet should be conducted in a less 'direct' manner.

A part of London the tourists never see :https://www.fashionablylatetakes.com/p/architectural-studies-02

Talking of tee shirts :https://yashenghuang.substack.com/p/china-as-an-absolute-advantage-economy

Mozart discovered :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faygkp0ssck

The worlds longest flight. Sydney to London over the North Pole :https://x.com/_ZachGriff/status/2068662944301195662

1776 links :https://www.coolidgereview.com/articles/forgotten-scot-declaration-independence

I am due my booster next week. Had a bad reaction to the first dose but this makes me determined to have the second :https://erictopol.substack.com/p/spotlight-on-the-shingles-vaccineagain

The signature staircase.

We're safely back from a fun trip to Canada.

The jet stream was in playful mood and got us home in super quick time. Our flight back from Montreal took just over five hours. Many years ago I flew from Boston to London in four and three quarters but that was in the days when the L-1011 was still a thing and there were many fewer planes in the sky. Aircraft make a strange creaking noise not unlike a wooden sailing ship in a gale when being hurtled through the fast moving air but the noise wasn't enough to stop us sleeping solidly for the first four hours of the flight.

I thought Edinburgh airport had the title for the worlds most crowded airport. It's now clear that this title belongs to Montreal. A special hats off to whoever it was in the airport administration who thought it was a good idea to board three wide body flights in quick succession to Casablanca, Mexico City and London from Gate 53. The scene can best be described as straight out of Dante. Rather than gates to board the plane Montreal has those people carriers that they have at Dulles. Shepherding three hundred Moroccan football fans in 'party mood' onto a fleet of these is a sight that will long linger in the memory.

We also discover that Canadian weather can easily match Scotland in the rain stakes. On 'The Fonts'  birthday we had 100mm of rain. I would have thought a downpour of this intensity was physically impossible. The water on the train window didn't so much trickle down as sweep over the glass in a solid sheet. This is something we'd never seen before.  

Back in the UK there's a heatwave.  We can vouch for the fact that Heathrow with its glass walls and steel structure is not designed for heatwaves. Here in Scotland it's in the mid-20's and very pleasant. Our connecting flight left on time and arrived thirty minutes early. The flight was full of nice quiet American families heading to the Highlands with well behaved offspring soaking up the new culture. In fact I'd reckon that fully three quarters of those on board had come in this morning from the East Coast. Every single person onboard seemed to be enjoying themselves which is something you can't say about your fellow passengers on most flights.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal had an exhibition of Roman sculptures which we really enjoyed :https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/13205/

Like all museums it has a 'signature' staircase. To get up a couple of levels you have to walk up a long and gently inclined slope. It's one of those cost beats practicality features that all museum directors love. No museum worth its salt can be called a museum without an architectural flight of stairs.

The exhibition was exceptionally good.

It was also strangely quiet although the young woman at the entrance told us we had to wait ten minutes to avoid the crowds. Guess the word crowd means different things to different people.

The layout was intelligent and almost as outstanding as the Picasso exhibition we saw in Shanghai a couple of months ago. This is high praise. The visitors were of the stand in silence variety.

The lighting was particularly good.

In fact the lighting was very good.

Here the news is that Scotland lost 3-0 to Brazil in last nights World Cup match. This, presumably, means that the village teenagers will be heading back home soon. An update tomorrow after we catch up with the farmers wife and we've unpacked and settled back in.

The calm before the broad brimmed hats arrive.

The young woman who's just moved into the house by the crossroads has installed a wildlife camera in the garden for her four year olds. She delightedly takes out her i-Phone and shows us grainy footage of an owl snatching a fish from her garden pond. We all agree that this is an unusual thing for an owl to do.

Outside the village hall there's a smaller than usual pile of beer cans. New Zealand playing Iran had a good turnout but Belgium v Egypt seems to have been less popular. 

There's a chance for us to squeeze in a quick walk before driving down to the airport.

By chapel there's a few tourists listening to a guide in an orange jacket. Considering that it's not yet seven they seem remarkably chipper.

Apart from that there's not a soul to be seen. We're enjoying the calm before the storm. Next week the first of the graduating youngsters will start arriving for a solid week of party going. They will be followed by adoring parents. Mothers will discover that broad brimmed hats bought for the great day are impractical in the bracing wind that whips around the door of the graduation hall. Fathers, who have driven up from London in their over sized Range Rovers, find that Scottish parking spaces are 'tight'. For local residents the return of the crowds means that finding a parking space after nine thirty in the morning will once again become 'challenging'. 

Then it's in the car and we're on our way to Montreal. I've booked with BA with a connecting flight from Heathrow . With hindsight this was a daft choice.  Air Canada has a summer direct flight from Edinburgh that takes six hours.

We'll see you next week. The weather forecast in Quebec is very Scottish with rain ( sometimes heavy ) expected.

Brief, occasional and non-informative.

A group of village ladies, including the farmers wife, can be found heading down to the shore for their early morning swim. They're wearing bathing caps and are wrapped up against the morning breeze in long puffa jackets.  Four Jack Russells, a Patterdale , the athletic black spaniel and a super friendly golden accompany them.  The mothers of the six village lads staying in the Hyatt continue to text their offspring reminding them to use sun screen, eat healthily and get plenty of sleep. They receive brief, occasional and studiedly non-informative texts in reply. This is, perhaps, just as well.

The village hall is again busy for the screening of World Cup matches. Yesterday saw the local 30 something fathers congregating to watch Germany v Curacao and Sweden v Tunisia. By the porch two black plastic bin bags full to the brim of empty beer cans suggest it was another good night. Who would have thought Curacao had a soccer team ?

On the beach the waves have sculpted strange shapes onto the sand. The landward side is ridged, the seaward smooth and easy to walk on. We've never seen this pattern on the sand before. Must be something to do with the abnormally low tide.

The Mediterranean gardens that have been planted outside the Royal and Ancient clubhouse have some rather fine deep purple lupins.

The local gulls have discovered that tourists fresh off the bus from Edinburgh sneak into the garden behind the chapel to eat their sandwiches or bacon rolls. This mornings breakfasters are monitored closely. Give it a month until the chicks are hungry and the gulls will be much ( as in MUCH ) more aggressive. The days of smash and grab are coming. We've seen someone have their fish and chip supper stolen from their hands by a hungry gull.

It's not long before the skies cloud over and we head off to Starbucks. Progress on the fountain continues. It is a mixture of sandstone, granite and marble and is awaiting the last granite quadrant on the base to be fitted.

A letter is delivered to the wee house in town alerting us to the July graduation festivities. Every year we get an identical letter reassuring us that every effort will be made to keep noise levels under control. The end of semester student ball is a wild affair that makes a UFC fight on the White House lawn seem positively quiet in comparison. However, the student gathering in infinitely less vulgar.  'Bands' come from far and wide to provide full volume entertainment.  The annual 'letting off steam' marks a huge rite of passage for the assembled 21 year olds and enables older residents to grumble about wayward youngsters. Everyone is happy.

Talking about the UFC fight the radio comes out with the a quote from the movie Gladiator " The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it's the sand of the Colosseum ". This may be too delphic a comment for all but the most alert of listeners.

It's The Fonts birthday on Saturday. We are off to Montreal tomorrow and then onto Quebec and will be back early next week. A report on Canadian cuisine will follow . 

Egypts new ( and empty ) capital city :https://www.chinatalk.media/p/notes-on-egypt

This is the sort of video the farmers wife wants to see :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCEkyyYY1zw  by contrast this is definitely not a video to be shared with her but is probably closer to the experience her sons are getting  :https://youtu.be/XvcAEaczh6I?t=311

Texas ( and next generation jobs ). Happy if anyone can explain this to me :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN48vEqaQs8&t=133s

A speech at the Oxford Union :https://paulgraham.com/earn.html

A victory !

No doubting the top news story here today. Scotland beat Haiti 1-0  in the teams first World Cup match. It was two o'clock in the morning here when the match kicked off. Four when it ended. The small mountain of Tennants beer cans piled up outside the village hall indicate that there was a good turnout. The residents of Foxborough listening to this sung atonally lustily must be wondering if being home to a stadium is a good idea :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW8DQzNRZyQ

This mornings weather is perfect. Warm with a smattering of cloud. Two horses gallop along the sand towards us. They've had the place to themselves but slow down as they draw abreast. The riders wave and cheerfully share the good news of the national teams victory. 

Two miles on firm sand in one direction and two miles in the other. What a way for the horses to start their day.

The circular flower beds have been freshly ( and densely ) planted with pelargoniums. This more than anything else is a sign that tourist season is about to hit us. Scratch the surface and there's still something of the genteel Victorian sea side resort about the place.

A few breakfasters wander onto the balcony of their hotel to watch a group of golfers from Ann Arbor teeing off. This mornings players are regulars who are  delighted to be playing the Old Course under blue(ish) skies. They've brought their wives with them who follow on behind in a golf cart. On the greens the women get out and offer words of encouragement. 'The Font' thinks this behaviour is unusual and wonders if the women wouldn't rather be tucked up in bed rather than be out and about at this hour.

Following on behind is another group of regulars. They offer each other advice on how to play into the wind. This group have opted not to use caddies. Their advice is misplaced and the end result for all members of the foursome are dire shots into the rough.

At this time of the morning not everyone finds the North Sea breezes enjoyable. A bus load of Spaniards are escorted by their guide to the first tee. They are dressed  to the nines and still finding it cold.

Usually played on the bagpipes :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2rrmmdLu-I&list=RDa2rrmmdLu-I&start_radio=1

Tehrans water supply is failing :https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/officials-warned-parts-of-tehran-a-city-of-ten-million-might-need-evacuating-the-iran-war-isnt-the-reason/

A hand written letter is needed if you want to stay here which is a very Spanish touch. Getting there would require some research  :https://elelevador.com/

If you're in London a must. What this artist does with paint is a joy :https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/zurbaran