Independence?

The haircut was fine, conversation flowed, Mr Flum collected me afterwards we headed for Dobbies for coffee as usual.

Dobbies cafe was busy, with a looong queue so we wandered round the food department, bought a couple of things then returned to the cafe. Still a long queue, the staff seemed harassed so thought we'd grab a scone and use the self-service coffee machine but it was chaotic, there were no trays, no plates and no cups - in fact the coffee machine was 'out of milk' and wasn't working at all.

We gave up, left and used the small cafe in the Almondell Garden Centre (between East Calder and Camps) instead; it was quiet, friendly and served delicious homemade soup (we could tell it was homemade because the cook was busy chopping vegetables as we ate). There is a pond there of sorts, which might have provided a blip had we not encountered what appeared to be a murmuration on our way back. Of course, it was actually a large flock of geese flying low.

Traffic being favourable, we were able to pause and watch as they flew across to our right, swirled round clockwise as they descended and, with great noise and whiffling, landed in a field of corn stubble. That last activity I videoed but my blip comes from their turning right-to-left to land left-to-right. I wish I had more extras available to show a sequence but this will have to do, it was a joy to witness.

The thumbnail group of five appears to have mis-heard the command and continued on their own, perhaps joining with stragglers that were slow to follow the crowd, trickling along some way behind.

Thanks to Dobbies being so busy, instead of returning on the A71 as usual we were on the quieter B7015, only joining the A71 further east. And for another change, came past the Heriot-Watt into Currie and home through Colinton.