Anstruther, Fife, Scotland

1 December 2011 23:14

Small boats

As I was saying earlier: It was a dark and stormy night – in St Andrews, and the streets emptied fairly quickly when it got dark. So when it was time for us to make for home we decided to go via Anstruther. It always seems quite dangerous to me that the sea is right by the main street. Especially when there are pubs there and inebriated people are likely to be wandering around in the dark. But it’s the same in all of these coastal places.

Small boats

The sea was quite wild but the wee boats were safe in the harbour. The noise was incredible though what with the wind itself and then the hissing noises it made in all the boats’ lanyards and ropes. Lots of clankings too, there must be metal things hanging from the boats.

Here I am having a hard time staying on my feet, what a grimace! The red light behind me is the harbour entrance and beyond that there was just complete darkness which I find very weird looking. I’m used to seeing huge tankers and naval ships out in the River Forth, just before it runs in to the North Sea. The ships are always lit up like Christmas trees but at Anstruther there seemed to be nothing between us and Denmark!

Katrina in a gale

This is what we were in Anstruther for – fish and chips. It may not look the most appetising thing to eat but believe me, they were really tasty. The only thing which isn’t so good is that nowadays they don’t come wrapped in greaseproof paper with two or three pages of a tabloid newspaper over it. So there is nothing crazy to read whilst you’re eating. Shame – it was the only time I ever saw what nonsense the tabloids were printing!

fish supper

This is the chippy which we got them from. It isn’t the one which everyone raves about and Prince Charles and Camilla have even used. We tried that one once and weren’t too impressed by it and we had to stand in a queue – I’m not kidding you – for about an hour! The Wee Chippy is on the left hand side of the main street facing the sea and it has been endorsed by the Guardian amongst others. The queue wasn’t too bad either.

The Wee Chippy

The only downside is that the car still smells of fish and chips – five days later!

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Categories: Towns

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Scottish Business Sense

29 November 2011 23:32

We had intended going to Edinburgh on Saturday to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia but the weather has been terrible for about a week now with howling gales and I didn’t fancy going over the road bridge. It was closed to high sided vehicles which means that our wee car would be buffeted about on the bridge – scary!

So eventually we ended up in St Andrews, just to get out of the house really. I have a horrible feeling that we’ll be battening down the hatches soon when the ice and snow get here so we might as well go out while we still can.

This window sign amused me. Surely only in Scotland would a barber try to get your custom by offering you free whisky. Mind you, I think it’s a brilliant idea because not only will they probably get more customers – they’ll also be less likely to complain if they don’t like the haircut – because of course they’ll be ‘half-cut’ or semi drunk!

Whisky Enticement

The long things in the window are golf clubs – well it is St Andrews!

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The Old Kirk (again)

14 September 2011 00:02

Despite the fact that we were being blasted to bits on the tower parapet we both managed to take quite a few photos. I like old graveyards and it was interesting to see this one from above. You can see that there is quite a lot of space given to each lair. I think some of the gravestones have disappeared over the years but even so when you compare it with the graveyard at the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth which is absolutely crammed with graves it’s easy to see how they got into trouble there.

You can just see what was the original manse at the top left of the photo. They have a huge garden and typically it’s all just grass. Why is it that non-gardeners always get the biggest gardens? It’s one of those ‘sod’s law’ things!

The graveyard from the tower

This cute wee turrety building is in the grounds of the church. I don’t know what it’s used for now – if anything, but I think originally it must have been inhabited by whoever looked after the church and graveyard or maybe the session clerk. As you can see, it’s quite a long way down from that tower.

Across from the house you can see a hideous cream coloured building which was built some time in the 20th century. It replaced the school and house where Thomas Carlyle lived and taught for a couple of years.

Turrety house

And this is another one of the memorial stained glass windows. Photos don’t really show up how beautiful they are.

Stained glass window (east)

This is the Old Kirk from the bottom of Kirk Wynd and the turrety building, you can see the parapet which I took the photos from.

Kirk Wynd

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Categories: Architecture, Scottish History, Towns

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The Old Kirk, Kirkcaldy, Fife.

13 September 2011 00:11

It was Doors Open day in Kirkcaldy last week-end and at last we managed to visit the Old Kirk which is quite well known for its stained glass windows. Two of them were designed by Edward Burne-Jones, who is sometimes known as the last Pre-Raphaelite. There are some lovely images of his work here.

We were told that the conditions weren’t doing them a lot of justice. Obviously they look a lot better if it’s a very bright day outside, but they’re still not at all bad I think.

Burne-Jones
Burne-Jones

I suppose they’re a bit plain when compared with some stained glass but they are in a Scottish Presbyterian church and some of them have no stained glass at all. I suppose it was looked on as being a bit too fancy and frivolous.

We climbed up the tower which was quite a scary hike up the usual kind of stone spiral staircase with narrow steps. This photo is of the lower part of the tower.

Old Kirk Tower bottom

The church is the oldest building in the town and parts of the building date back to 1244. The Church of Scotland decided that they didn’t want to continue to use it as a church and the building has been taken over by a local group who are hoping to keep it alive in some way, so that it can be an asset to the town. You can read about it here.

Internally it’s a great space and I can imagine that it could be useful for all sorts of things. It’s the sort of place which costs a lot to upkeep so I really hope that they can make a go of it.

It was worthwhile climbing up the tower as you get quite a good view of the town and the sea. We didn’t stay up there too long though as the tail end of hurricane Katia was just beginning to pay us a visit and it was quite fierce up there.

Kirkcaldy from the Old Kirk Tower

Since then it has actually got much worse and I was nearly blown off my feet twice today. It feels more like November than September. So much for that season of mists and mellow fruitfullness!

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Categories: Architecture, Scenery

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The West Lomond in Fife

11 April 2011 00:57

This is a the view from the top of the West Lomond looking over to Loch Leven. Confusingly the Lomond hills aren’t anything to do with Loch Lomond which is in the west of Scotland where the scenery is altogether much more spectacular.

Loch Leven from West Lomond

Friday was a lovely blue sky day so we decided to go on our first hill walk of the year and chose the West Lomond hill near the village of Falkland in Fife. Usually both of the Lomonds are incredibly busy, in fact the first time I walked up them there were hoards of people going up and down which was a strange experience for me. I prefer hill walking to be fairly solitary with just a few people visible in the distance. Here is the West Lomond, it’s just as well that you can’t here us peching and panting our way uphill!

West Lomond from the East

I had my wish this time and on the whole walk we only saw four other people. The hills are full of ground nesting birds at this time of the year and the whole place was full of larks singing very high up in the sky.

Maiden Castle from West-ish

If you veer off the track to the right you can see a large green mound which is called Maiden Castle. It’s the remains of an Iron Age settlement and although it’s really just a big mound of grass it’s nice to have a walk to the top of it and imagine what it must have been like all those years ago. The mounds in the next picture are where the entrance is supposed to have been.

Maiden Castle entrance

Just to prove that we did actually make it to the top of West Lomond here is a photo of yours truly standing by the Ordnance Survey marker, the shades were as much about keeping the wind out of my eyes as the sun.

Piningforthewest

So that was the good part of the day. The bad part was being stuck in Edinburgh airport waiting to pick my brother up and his flight being delayed for over four hours. Now I remember why I don’t like travelling!

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Categories: Local interest, Scenery

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Marjory Fleming (Pet Marjory)

20 May 2010 09:45

I had thought that Marjory Fleming was just about forgotten now, plenty of people local to Kirkcaldy have never heard of her. So I was really surprised to discover that she was being discussed on Fleur Fisher Reads confessions of a Cornish bookworm – a lovely blog.I hadn’t heard of the Persephone book by Oriel Malet called Marjory Fleming but people seem to be enjoying reading it.

Fleur did reply to my comment that it sounds like I’m living in a lovely place so I think that Oriel has used her artistic licence as I would say that the Kirkcaldy area is one of the least scenic places in Scotland that I know of. It was probably very dirty and smelly when Marjory was living here too.

Marjory was happiest when she was living with her cousin in Edinburgh. Isabella encouraged Marjory to keep a journal, which she did until she died of meningitis when she was not quite 9 years old. I read it years ago and seem to remember that it was quite a charming but sad read given how quickly her life was over. She is buried in Abbotshall Churchyard, Kirkcaldy.

Probably nothing would ever have been known of her at all if it wasn’t for Sir Walter Scott who was a distant relative by marriage.

Abbotshall Church looks the same from the outside as it did when Marjory died in 1811 but internally it has been gutted and modernised, sometime around 1960 probably. Such a shame.

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Categories: Books, Local interest

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Heatherhall Woods, Fife

14 May 2010 10:31

We had been planning on going on our first hillwalk of the season last Saturday but the bracing breeze from the north made us think again. It was freezing.

So we pointed the car towards Ladybank and ended up taking a walk around Heatherhall Woods which is a managed woodland owned by Fife Council. It’s a very tame walk and so I suppose it is good for people who want to take small children for a walk.

I can’t say that we saw much in the way of wildlife though. There are supposed to be red squirrels around there but the only thing we saw was a crow, and I heard a pigeon. It seemed bereft of wildlife even compared with our teeny wee back garden, which is usually teeming with birds.

But the trees are nice there, mainly pine trees which should suit red squirrels. I think they could maybe be doing with having some smaller trees for wee birds to perch on, although they do have silver birch.

Holly trees would be good for the birds. Ours is always stuffed full of them. You can’t see any birds as they are all hidden in it but they certainly like to make themselves heard.

I’m hoping that it will be warm enough to go up a hill soon. We’re definitely fair weather walkers.

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The Election

8 May 2010 10:10

I’ve spent my time this week plodding around the place with Liberal Democrat leaflets – a lot of those letterboxes are lethal but amazingly I do still have all of my fingers and thumbs.

I didn’t expect the Lib Dems to win in Kirkcaldy, I doubt if it will ever be anything other than Labour and of course it is Gordon Brown’s constituency, but you’ve got to give it a try.

I’m disappointed beyond belief at the outcome of the Dunfermline and West Fife vote though. Duncan was an intern for the Lib Dem M.P. Willie Rennie there before getting his job at St Andrews. But he continued to help out at the constituency office in his spare time. What with Willie being a really great M.P. plus the surge in Lib Dem support recently, we really thought that Willie would be re-elected. They all worked their socks off too, but to no avail.

Apparently, on the day before the election it was noticeable that people who had been supporters were taking fright, mainly because of the tabloid newspapers reporting that it would be an outright win for the Conservatives.

Why they thought that they then had to ditch the Lib Dems and vote for Labour is a mystery to me. I hope they are all feeling thoroughly ashamed of themselves for voting in a complete stranger to the area, whose only interest is getting into the House of Commons.

So I’m feeling very fed up with the whole thing and the only thing that is cheering me up is that I know that some time in the near future they will regret voting him in. Hell mend them – as we say!

Too late for poor Willie Rennie though, and the workers in his constituency office who are now unemployed.

If I weren’t a bit of a lady – I’d spit.

And another thing. We had helicopters circling around our house for hours during the night, because we live near where the count was taking place. They were tracking Gordon Brown’s car as he left his house for the count. On T.V. all you could see was a black screen and a teeny wee dot of light, it was completely unnecessary, a terrible waste of fuel, and it must have woken people up. Not everyone feels the need to watch the election programmes.

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Falkland, Fife.

26 April 2010 10:24

The village of Falkland in Fife is dominated by the Royal Palace of Falkland.

My photo is a stitch of two because I couldn’t get the whole Palace into the one frame. Shame about the red car.

The village and Palace are well worth a visit if you are in the area. It’s stuffed full of ancient history but it also played a part in more recent times with The Chapel Royal being used by the Polish Airborne Forces during World War 2, when they were stationed nearby. They were allowed to use it as there wasn’t an ordinary Roman Catholic Church in the vicinity.

I really liked the royal (real) tennis court. It’s the oldest one in Britain and was built for James V in 1539. When we were there , a match was actually taking place. It is a sort of cross between tennis and squash.

An ancient street in Falkland

The village itself is very quaint and has a variety of interesting houses. Some of them are absolutely tiny but people are still living in them today. I think they were probably inhabited by weavers originally.

Doorway lintel, Falkland.

It was traditional to carve the initials of the original house owners as well as the date on the door lintel. This is known as a marriage lintel.

Gatehouse, Falkland estate.

Falkland Estate is on the outskirts of the village and has a very pretty gatehouse. As you can see there is a pond by the house. It’s usually full of ducks and moor hens but it was deserted when I took this photograph.

Stone bridge, Falkland estate

The lovely wee stone bridge just leads into a field. It crosses the burn (stream) which fills the pond. The burn continues its way from the pond and under the house. That is the one thing that puts me off the house. I would hate water running underneath my home, especially as it is a rushing torrent and noisy.

You can walk through the estate which has a very smart cricket pitch, which I think is probably a bit of a shock to English tourists, but cricket is actually quite popular in more rural areas. We’re just not very good at it.

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Categories: Bridges, Local interest, Scottish History, Towns

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The Old Course, St Andrews

8 April 2010 16:00

We had a day out in St Andrews yesterday, making the most of a fleeting visit by that big orange thing in the sky.

I decided to take a photograph of the beginning (and end) of the Old Course. It really tickles me that there is a public pathway cutting straight across the fairway and people wander across it all the time. I suppose it must be a right of way otherwise it would have been got rid of long ago.

This place is a Mecca for golfers but it always embarasses me as I think it must be a horrible disappointment for them as the course itself is far from being a thing of beauty. It is really boring looking. I suppose if you are into golf then it is the history of the whole thing that gets to you. There is a museum of golf on the road behind the course.

I don’t play golf as I am strictly in the ‘Why ruin a good walk?’ camp, but local golfers of my acquaintance are equally unimpressed and have assured me that the best courses are around Gleneagles in Perthshire.

If you happen to live in Fife though you have plenty to choose from. Even teeny weeny villages have their own golf course.

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