When I go to a multi-storey car park, I don’t try to park in the lower floors. It seems to me that it makes more sense to go up as high as you can, get away from the majority of cars that stop at the low levels and find some space to yourself.

That’s what I did when I was at Livingston today. While I knew that the top storey was open-air, I hadn’t expected to find that it was a haven for local seagulls. I mean, it’s not exactly as if it’s a coastal location. But what a mess they have made – and they certainly do not seem to be afraid of any humans trying to get back to their motor!

The chimney in the distance is that of the incinerator of St John’s hospital. Just beyond the hospital is somewhere that I used to work for a few years. The office shared a car park with a bar called – from memory – “Oscar’s”. Coming in to work to find a burned-out car in the car park was not an uncommon occurrence, and I remember an occasion where we went for lunch only to find that one of the windows had been shot out. Luckily things appear to have improved a lot in the area – the office building is gone and the pub has been replaced with nice-looking new Peri Peri restaurant.