Edinburgh with Evee

18 January 2012 00:51

As Evee said, the first thing we did when we got to Edinburgh was to pay a visit to the old cemetery across from Calton Hill in Waterloo Place. I wanted to take a photo of the names on the Martyrs’ Monument as I only took a photo of William Skirving’s name the last time I was there. You can see my previous post here.

Martyrs' Monument, Edinburgh

We huffed and puffed up to Calton Hill which isn’t far and is well worth doing because on a clear day the views across to Fife and of the city of Edinburgh are great. In this one you can see one of the islands in the Firth of Forth. I can’t remember what it’s called but it’s the one which is shaped like a battleship and the Germans apparently tried to sink it on numerous bombing raids during World War II

Edinburgh skyline

This is the unfinished monument nicknamed Edinburgh’s Disgrace, there was actually a lot going on behind this edifice, you can just see a white van on the right hand side peeking out but there was also a digger and several men hacking away at the ground behind the base of the pillars – who knows what was going on?!

Edinburgh's Disgrace

There are a lot of buildings scattered around Calton Hill and the right hand one is obviously the observatory but I can’t remember what the wee sort of mausoleum type building is commemorating.

The Observatory on Calton Hill

This one is the Nelson Monument which was built to commemorate Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. You get a lovely view from the top of it and it’s worth trudging up the 100 and odd steps to get there. John, the custodian goes up them every day about 12.50 so that he has time to wind the huge copper ball up in time for it to be dropped at 1 o’clock. In the days when very few people had a watch it was useful for the folks on ships out in the Forth, not that there are many ships today, just a few oil/gas tankers usually.

THe monument used to be inhabited by its custodian but isn’t nowadays, shame because it would make a lovely wee home, I quite fancied the idea of living there but I’m keen on lighthouses too, don’t ask me why because I’m not crazy about the sea, unless there is plenty of greenery in the view too.

Nelson's Monument

So that’s a wee bit more of our trip round Edinburgh. Evee did a much more in depth one which you can see here if you’re interested. Her photos are much artier than my snaps!

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Categories: Architecture, Coast, Museums, Towns

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Aberdour, Fife

24 September 2011 00:28

I’ve been neglecting ‘Pining’ the past couple of days because yet again I’m up to my elbows in wallpaper paste – doing Gordon’s old bedroom now. No don’t say that I should get professionals in to do it because in my experience they are just expensive bodgers so I would rather do it myself, I can bodge just as well for free!

Anyway, a couple of weekends ago we decided to go for a walk around Aberdour (again), just about six miles along the coast going towards Edinburgh. It’s too long to walk there so we took the car and by the time we got there it was chucking it down with rain. But you wouldn’t think it from the photos, it was one of those ‘April shower’ days in September.

Firth of Forth

The Firth of Forth

We went to Aberdour so that my husband could take a photo of the war memorial there, he’s sort of ‘collecting’ them, which is a Sisyphean task if ever there was one as they’re all over the place and sometimes in the most unexpected locations, but I leave them to him. I was more interested in this ancient doorway leading into the grounds of Aberdour Castle. It dates from 1632.

Aberdour Castle Garden

And this is what you can see when you get through the doorway.

Aberdour Castle Garden

Aberdour Castle Garden

It’s still pretty and colourful even in September. Aberdour Castle is one of the few castles which I think would have been quite comfy and pleasant to live in in its heyday and it’s worth a visit if you’re ever in that vicinity.

By the time we walked around Aberdour my feet were absolutely squelching wet, completely drookit. What is it about modern footwear manufacturers? They seem to have lost the ability to make shoes and boots waterproof. I had on my fairly expensive hiking boots and after about a year they started to leak. Am I expecting too much? Is it just me or do other people have the same problem with footwear nowadays?!

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Categories: Coast, Personal, Scenery

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Seals and Swans in the Firth of Forth and River Leven.

13 August 2011 00:16

For the past few days it has been absolutely chucking it down over the whole of Scotland and Glasgow has had the most amount of rainfall there since records began – and if you know Glasgow at all you’ll realise how bad it has been! Lots of flooding all over the country but we’re fine here. I just wish someone up there would turn off the taps! To cheer myself up I’ve been having a look at some photos which I took a couple of weeks ago in the time of blue skies. This one is of the old bridge at Dumbarton on the River Leven and there is a swan with cygnets just going under the bridge. These swans went at quite a lick and I had to run to get this photo, not something I do often, I’m more a dignified walk sort of a person. The River Leven often has well over 100 swans floating around this area but most of them seemed to be elsewhere.

Swans in River Leven, Dumbarton

The Leven is just a wee river which flows into the River Clyde at Dumbarton Rock which you can see in this photo, but it’s still very dangerous and it seems that just about every summer some lads drown in it. They just want to have a lark but don’t realise how cold it is and it’s full of weeds which can fankle (entangle) you too.

Dumbarton Rock

I took this photo last week from the Fife coastal path at Kirkcaldy, just beyond Seafield Tower, walking towards Kinghorn. The rocks there are favourites with the seals and they were making themselves heard that day. Unearthly noises come from them at times, well they would be unearthly I suppose as they’re in the sea, but you know what I mean, positively eerie sounds.

Seals 3

I can quite see how the ancient sailors used to think that the seals were mermaids singing, especially when they hadn’t seen women for years!

Seals 1

I suppose it helped if they were in the water too rather than basking and looking enormously fat. It’s possible that some of these seals were about to give birth, maybe that’s what all the racket was about.

Seals 4

I can hardly believe that we had such lovely weather just last week. We seemed to be in a pattern of one lovely day followed by a wet one for a while but now it looks and feels like November and the schools are going back next week. That could be the cue for the sun to be splitting the pavements and a return of summer. Well maybe.

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Categories: Coast, Scenery, Weather

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Dysart, Fife, Scotland

28 July 2011 20:30

Last Saturday was a beautiful day here in Fife so we decided to take a look around Dysart which is just a couple of miles along the coast from Kirkcaldy. It’s an ancient burgh and there are still quite a few really old houses standing, and indeed still inhabited. The houses in the photo below are fairly typical of old houses on the east coast of Scotland. The design of the gables and roof is known as crows steps.

Pan Ha' Dysart

The view below is what the people living in those houses see from their front windows and it’s a view of the Bass Rock, it’s the rock on the left hand side, you’ll probably have to click to enlarge it. In reality it’s quite visible especially if the sun is shining on it because it’s now inhabited by thousands of seabirds, mainly puffins I think and their you know what makes the rock white. They used to put prisoners on the island which was probably worse than a death sentence as the North Sea is wild there most of the time.

Bass Rock and North Berwick Law

This photo is of the harbour master’s house which is now a bistro. It was lying quite derelict for years but at least now it’s being used for something. Quite a lot of money had to be spent on it, you know what old buildings are like when they aren’t used. They seem to lose the will to exist very quickly.

Dysart Harbour Master's House

Now, I must admit that I’d never even heard of John Pitcairn before last Saturday. But he seems to be quite famous in Boston, Massachusetts – historically anyway! I’m not at all sure if information on this plaque is correct. He seems to have died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. His death was painted by John Trumbull in his painting The Death of General Warren.

Plaque to John Pitcairn, St Serf's Tower, Dysart

It has taken us about 25 years to get around to visiting this place, we always seem to ignore what’s on our doorstep!

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Categories: Architecture, Coast, Scenery

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Trip to Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth

18 July 2011 23:27

You know what it’s like, somehow you just never get around to doing the touristy things which are on your own doorstep. So when we saw that the weather was going rapidly downhill towards the end of the week we thought we would seize the last good day and take that trip to Inchcolm which we’ve been putting off for about 25 years. King David I founded a priory which became an abbey in 1235. Apparently they’re the best preserved monastic buildings in Scotland. This is the boat which we went on, I was surprised at how fast it could go but the captain was really good and slowed the boat down for people to take photos of seals and puffins.

Forth Belle at Inchcolm

It was a good trip and the water was very calm. I particularly enjoyed going underneath the two bridges. We went past Oxcar lighthouse which was built by the ‘Lighthouse Stevensons’, Robert Louis and D.E. were from the same family. You can see Leith (Edinburgh’s port) in the background.

Oxcar Lighthouse 2

And this is our destination Inchcolm Abbey, on one of the five islands in the Forth.

Inchcolm Abbey from Forth

This is the abbey from on the island, as you can see it’s a ruin but there’s still a lot to see and parts of it are quite intact. If you have the notion you can get married in the abbey, I suppose its different and for some reason people are always looking for unusual venues.

Inchcolm Abbey from Island

The island has been used for defensive purposes in the last two wars and at one point there were 500 soldiers garrisoned on it but most of the barracks have been demolished although you can still see the gun emplacements. The Forth Bridge was the target of the very first German bombing raid of World War II but of course they didn’t even manage to damage it, although they kept trying.

We tried to walk around the whole of the island but had to give up because the seagulls are nesting at the moment so the adult birds are particularly aggressive and it was beginning to resemble a scene from The Birds so we had to turn back.

Another great day out but if you are thinking of taking the trip make sure that you check the weather forecast first. We had a beautiful afternoon there but if it had rained it would have been pretty miserable as there isn’t really anywhere to shelter on the island. It must be really wild when the wind is roaring but I quite fancied the idea of staying on the island, there is a wee house there which is inhabited, presumably by a caretaker who must tend the plants and cut the grass, what a great job!

It was great sailing under the two bridges but I’m leaving those photos for another post!

Meanwhile here’s the Abbey tower.

Inchcolm Abbey tower

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Categories: Coast, Scenery

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Aberdour, Fife, Scotland

16 May 2011 10:11

Last Sunday was another beautiful blue sky day and although it was a bit chilly we took ourselves along the coast a wee bit to Aberdour. If we ever win the lottery (I have no hope of it) one of the first things which I would spend some money on is a sailing course. Whenever I see yachts I think how great it would be if we could just hop on a boat and sail down to the Devon/ Cornwall area instead of driving on motorways for about 700 miles. Mind you it would be no easy task because the coast is so dangerous and rocky. Hence the need for a sailing course.

Yachts in the harbour, Aberdour.

This is a photograph of a couple of the islands in the Firth of Forth, just off the village of Aberdour. The right hand one is Inchcolm. You can just see the Abbey.

Islands in the Forth.

This one is of just beyond the harbour, you can see a very remote hotel in the distance.

Promontory Behind Aberdour Harbour

This is the view from Aberdour beach, looking over the Forth towards Edinburgh. We walked a couple of miles along the coastal path and up through the village so we got a bit of exercise before embarking on our Sunday dinner. Not a bad day.

View from Aberdour Beach 2

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Newburgh, Fife, Scotland

5 May 2011 22:49

Last Saturday was a lovely day and as we tend to think that every good day should be treasured and not taken for granted, we decided to visit Newburgh and have a walk around. We had been there before but had really not been further than the main street.

Newburgh panorama

We were kind of thinking that it might be a possibility as a place to retire to but on second thoughts it’s just too remote and far from what I regard as civilization (Glasgow) even further north and no nearer the west. If you take a look here you’ll see that it’s right at the opposite end of the county from Kirkcaldy and is on the River Tay. The riverside is well maintained with a nice picnic area and some lovely trees.

Trees on bank of River Tay at Newburgh

I was quite impressed with the place, they had obviously had a bit of a shindig in the community centre for the Royal Wedding the day before. So I think there must be a good community spirit there. The locals seemed to be friendly which is very unusual in Fife and Fifers are quite happy to admit that themselves. The saying in Scotland is that ‘It takes a lang spoon tae sup with a Fifer’. In other places the word Fifer is replaced by Devil!

Yachts on River Tay 2

The town is surrounded by quite nice hills and the River Tay is well used by local yachtsmen, which looked good fun. The Tay is looking manky at the moment or maybe it’s always like that there, in which case the city of Perth must be responsible for the muck because at Dunkeld which is north of Perth the Tay is lovely and clear.

Yachts on River Tay 1

So, the hunt continues!

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Categories: Coast, Scenery, Towns

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The BP Disaster

26 June 2010 00:20

I’ve got no doubt that when they get down to the investigation of the horrendous accident in the Gulf of Mexico, they will discover, as ever that it was caused by the oil companies’ penny-pinching ways.

I’ve lost count of the number of oil rig accidents which have occurred in the North Sea. The companies are completely uncaring of their employees’ welfare and people die because of the sheer greed of the companies.

Even although the profits which the oil industries make are eye wateringly enormous, they can’t bring themselves to spend paltry sums of money on maintenance. I’ve seen photographs of pipelines which look like badly patched quilts and obviously the only safe thing to do is to replace the broken pipe. It must be terrifying to work on an oil rig under such conditions.

The first disaster which I can remember which concerned oil was when the oil tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground on rocks between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in 1967 when I was 8 years old. You can read about it in an article which was published in The Guardian yesterday.

I can’t see how the oil is ever going to be cleaned from the sort of coastal grasslands which I have been seeing on TV.

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Categories: Coast, Rant

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Scottish words: Dreich

9 February 2010 23:40

Dreich (dreech) has been popping up fairly regularly recently on the BBC weather reports and I’m sure by now it must be quite well understood by people in England. It means really grey, dull and dismal weather but I suppose you can use it to describe anything grey and depressing.

I’ve been quite impressed by the pronunciation of the forecasters, they are managing the ‘ch’ sound well, as in loch. It would be terrible if they said dreek.

Here are a couple of dreich photographs of the coast at Kirkcaldy. As it is like this and even worse most of the time, it is a mystery to me why anyone would want a sea view.

Kirkcaldy rollers

More Kirkcaldy dreich

There are always a few ships about but to me the most interesting thing is that this is the exact piece of the coast which the famous economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) looked out on from his home. Then the area was packed with sailing ships and it was the coming and going of the ships which set him thinking about economics, and led him to write The Wealth of Nations.

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Categories: Coast, Local interest, Scottish History, Scottish words

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The River Forth

2 October 2009 23:26

I’ve been up to my ears in gloss paint for quite a while now. Our skirting boards are 12 inches high and it all takes a very long time, but I’d been putting it off for about 5 years and it couldn’t wait any longer.

So I was in desperate need of some fresh air after all that and took myself off for a walk by the River Forth at Dalgety Bay. The water was very placid but it was a wee bit misty, so not the best conditions for a photograph. As usual, parts of the Forth Bridge are swathed in plastic or something similar as the work continues – forever – so it would seem.

Edinburgh from Fife

Edinburgh from Fife

Forth Bridges from Dalgety Bay.

Forth Bridges from Dalgety Bay.

Forth Bridges towards Lothian

Forth Bridges towards Lothian

I’m not really a seaside person. I do like rivers, but the sort that run through the middle of an old town and have a lovely arched stone bridge going over them are more my cup of tea. Hills and lochs are really my thing.

Speaking of which, here is a photograph of the loch from Linlithgow Palace, where Mary Queen of Scots was born. It’s a lovely place to visit if you are into history. Beware of the hissing swans though.

Linthligow Loch

Linthligow Loch

In recent times Linlithgow has become famous as the supposed birthplace of Scottie, the chief engineer on Star Trek’s USS Enterprise. How mad is that?

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Categories: Bridges, Coast

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