Wind power Trumps golf....

Gosh we had a super-exciting trip down to the the beach at Balmedie at the weekend.

Can you see something new on the horizon?

Perhaps you can see better in the picture below. Especially if you biggify it. 

A cluster of huge wind turbines are being installed in Aberdeen Bay, a mile and a half out into the North Sea. Apparently they are among most powerful in the world, and this site is a test bed for new technology for offshore wind generation.

A good idea, don't you think? It is mighty windy in these parts, and surely the future lies in renewable energy. The world needs to learn to reduce its use of fossils fuels! And in Aberdeen in particular, the so-called Oil Capital of Europe, a new and more sustainable source of prosperity is sorely needed (or so the humans tell me).

Well you'll never believe this, but a certain very prominent person was totally opposed to the wind farm project. In fact he even tried to bully the authorities into refusing it permission. He said it would ruin the view from his golf course. (The one he bulldozed a protected conservation site to build).

But these golf links seem empty anyway, even on a nice spring Saturday afternoon.

And really, the the view from the dunes behind the course is not, in my opinion, in any way spoiled.

Long time readers of this blog will already have guessed that the owner of the (loss making) golf course is none other than a certain Donald J Trump. Perhaps some of you might even be interested in a few statistics, now that the Trump International course has been in operation for nearly six years.

Promised (2008): 6000 jobs, 2 golf courses, a new 450 room hotel, sports complex, timeshare flats, housing estate with several hundred new homes.

Delivered (2018): Less than 100 (full time equivalent) jobs, 1 golf course (closed for 5 months of the year), a 19 room hotel in an existing building, a small clubhouse with restaurant and shop, no houses. Plus devastation of an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) by ploughing up the ecologically precious and unique sand dune habitat and drenching the land with chemicals...

FFF: Magical Realism?

Gail, it's YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction time again. I trust you have your story ready!

Oh dear Bertie, I have been struggling terribly this month. I selected a book about Scotland that I greatly enjoyed reading recently, 'Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey' by Madeleine Bunting, but the phrases on page 87 have proved terribly difficult, and as you know I am not a natural at this story telling business anyway.

Let me have a look. What do we have here?

Line 8: The pictures of animals are a form...

Line 12: Common abstract elements in the lozenge representing Logos...

Line 16: earth, air, water, fire, the four properties heat, cold, moisture...


Well Gail, this reminds me of something quite remarkable that happened a while back when you were out at work. Perhaps we could weave a story around that?

Oh, did I never mention about how all your pictures of animals came alive one day? I mean, to be precise, the animals in the various paintings decorating our living room, study, and bedroom walls - they all of a sudden, quite unexpectedly, sprang to life. Yes really!

Gosh it was so exciting. First the jolly band of penguins marched off down the hallway to rendezvous with the geese from the farmyard picture in the study. There was a terrible commotion when my brethren, the pack of fox terriers, set upon them. The air was filled with fur and feathers and there was earth and water all over the carpet... As it was daytime the wise owls slept through it all, but our Highland 'coo', accustomed to the tranquil moorland environment, did not appreciate being disturbed one bit and stampeded up the stairs, whereupon the hoppity mountain hare in the top bedroom jumped out of his picture frame and nearly out of his skin.

Fortunately, it all happened on the same day our cleaner comes, and as we know, her powers of transforming chaos and mess into a spick and span household are beyond magical, which is why you never detected that anything unusual had occurred.

Gail you are looking quite perturbed! Well I'm sorry I never told you about this before. Why, I knew you'd only worry.

Perhaps in future you should just buy paintings comprising abstract elements? That might be safer don't you think?

THE END

Click here for YAM-Aunty's blog, where you'll also find links to the other FFF pieces.

Watch out Andy Murray!

While Gail has been away in Amsterdam on business this week our nice friend Yvonne has been teaching me tennis.

Although I confess to some disappointment that the concept of 'serving' apparently does not involve food...

How long to Wimbledon?

Older and wiser?

We are all growing older, I fear.

Yesterday afternoon Gail took me for a walk round Durris Forest. It's been a long time since we were last there - over four years, I'd say.

Apparently on that previous occasion I chased a deer into the dark depths of the conifer plantation. Gail claims I "shot off like a bullet"  and did not come back when called. She says she spent ages looking for me, and was really worried 'cos it was winter and it would soon be dark and ours was the only vehicle in the car park.  

[I have to say, this is not how I remember it at all. Not for the first time, I find myself wondering if my owner suffers from false memory syndrome.] 

What is true, I admit, is that when I was a young pup I was firmly convinced I could chase down even the biggest of stags, if only given the chance.

These days I am older and wiser, and am aware that my dreams of deer-hunting were a tad unrealistic given the discrepancy in leg length. In retrospect, it was all a bit of a waste of time and energy, wasn't it?  

So anyway, Gail has decided to reinstate Durris Forest on our list of nice places for a weekend walk, hence the outing yesterday. 

Our favoured route is circuit of just over seven miles. 

It seemed shorter four years ago. And it was easier in those days to bounce into the car at the end of the walk too...