A long journey

A middle aged man darted across the road in Stirling city centre this afternoon and I had to break hard to avoid hitting him. Then I noticed them, groups of men everywhere.  And there was a queue of at least 100 yards or more three deep outside the Stirling Highland hotel,
Yes they were some of the delegates to Glasgow COP26.
 
Then I become aware of something odd: they were all male, and all white. 
 
As for Edinburgh and the trains- forget it. Reports are coming in that the place is heaving with delegates and the trains are jammed with people, not surprising since 30,000 people have descended on Glasgow for this climate conference.
 I hope they achieve something and it’s not just a junket for people from rich countries.
 
With regret we decided against taking two  French speaking African  delegates from Burkina Faso. We are too far from the railway station plus our school French, long forgotten, would be sorely tested.
 

Good news.
My tax penalty of £1, 300 got written off yesterday and I just had to pay £1.40 for tax owing. 

Here is a helpful tip. If you have a tax query the best time to ring is 8 am, yes they say they don’t open until 8.30am but you get first in the queue and I only had to wait ten minutes. What’s more the man the other end (I checked he was real and not a robot) was very helpful. The problem was I had no filed a tax return for year 2019/20. Hence the fine.