A glorious winter /late Autumnal day-Merse at its best. Mr Fish just a painful memory. So frustrating to be still Lurgified (Not the Flu) and confined to admiring the sunshine from the kitchen. And I can't escape the phone-I am not capable of letting it ring in case I am missing a new kitchen offer or a reduced double glazed garden. Or something. So I was trapped into a very long conversation with one of Huttonian's deep throats-and a well placed DT as well. He was cautiously optimistic that Hutton school would win its appeal with the Scottish Executive against its closure. One idea which is resurfacing, rather like a drowning man, for the nth time is making the School into a community centre, including a post office and the village hall. This would of course involve a an enlarged school to include facilities usuable by the Hall (which has just submitted another bid for funding). DT feels that with Chirmside School (where Hutton school's children are due to be sent) at 98% capacity that this might be a face saving formula for the Borders Educational Czars to accept to head off any more popular resentment.
I fear that nice 'tho' it would be if Hutton was'saved' this is a very long shot. From the lofty heights of the Scottish Executive Hutton will appear a tiny speck. And I am afraid that such a complicated scheme will not appear attractive to the Hieheidians in Ould Reekie if it is just to save, for the moment, a tiny school with a roll of 12. If Chirnside flatly refused to take the Hutton children, on top of some new pupils expected from a low cost housing scheme that might make it urgent to try a new approach but I don't think that is going to happen
