Kirkcaldy History

Posted on 13 January 2014 by Katrina

The old building in the photo above is situated at the east end of Kirkcaldy High Street. It must be one of the oldest buildings in the town and a few years ago it was buffed up and refurbished, as was the building adjoining it on the left hand side.

Unfortunately as you can just see the guttering on the left hand building is badly in need of repair as it’s obviously leaking into the traditional lime plaster and must be causing damage to the fabric of the building. It looks a lot worse on the far left but I’ve spared you that sight.

The plaque above is also in Kirkcaldy High Street, unfortunately Adam Smith’s family home was demolished many years ago. This is a depressing feature of Kirkcaldy life. Anything which would have been of interest to tourists has been pulled down, and they did have houses which people would have wanted to visit.

Within a stone’s throw of each other there was the Adam Smith house, Thomas Carlyle’s home and the school he taught in and Gladney House, which was the home of the famous Robert Adam and his brother John. Their father was also a famous architect, William Adam.

On a cheerier note the town is refurbishing an old cottage which is situated behind the High Street and I believe that the powers that be intend to turn it into an Adam Smith museum. I just wonder what they will fill it with as I think they only have a copy of his book Wealth of Nations on show at the moment.

A Woodland Walk for Brambles

Posted on 6 October 2013 by Katrina

About a week ago we went for a woodland walk down to the Mill Dam which is on the edge of Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy. I went armed with a plastic box, just in case I found some ripe brambles/blackberries.

It wasn’t long before I found a nice fankled clump of them, I’ve dug up quite a few which have been growing in my garden because if I left them they’d take over in no time, but I’m glad to see them out in the wilds.

As you can see from this photo there were still a lot which weren’t quite ripe enough for the picking, they’re probably just about perfect now if you fancy picking some for yourself.
I heard a racket in the trees above and discovered that it was grey squirrels racing from tree to tree. I had no idea they were so noisy, but maybe they were trying to knock down the acorns to add to their stores, they succeeded anyway as it was raining acorns.

I picked over 2lbs of brambles in no time. When I got back home I had to look up some recipes to see what I could do with them.

In the end I didn’t do anything exciting at all, just added them to apples and boiled them up with sugar to make jam. I do have big pans which are the perfect size for jam making but they’re old aluminium pans and they are now recommending that you don’t use them for acidic fruit as the aluminium is not good for you and possibly contributes to your chances of getting dementia. The acid doesn’t half clean the aluminium well though – I know from past experience! I used my wok as the important thing is to have a pan wide enough to get a good boil going.

I used ordinary eating apples and I don’t know which variety they were but they give the jam a slightly spicy flavour, as if I had added ginger or nutmeg to the mix. Jam should be 60% sugar to make sure that it does preserve the fruit and I used my sugar thermometer to make sure that it would set well, getting it to a temperature of 105 ^oC. I made four jars of jam and as I made some lemon curd a few weeks ago too that’s enough to keep us going for a while as we no longer have ravenous boys at home to feed.

Cygnet update

Posted on 26 July 2013 by Katrina

I took this photo a couple of days ago, it’s of the five surviving cygnets in Beveridge Park. As you can see they’re quite a size now and they’re even beginning to get some white plumage.

The photo below is the very first one which I took of them, around about May 25th.

My how they’ve grown!

Coming for a Walk?

Posted on 15 July 2013 by Katrina

We’ve been having gorgeous weather over the last couple of weeks. It’s about time, I hear you say – okay, that was me. Anyway, on Sunday we decided to go down the path to the left hand side of Beveridge Park, which leads up into the fields above that part of Kirkcaldy. We veered off to the left again onto a path which we hadn’t been along before and it led us to the field below, which as you can see has the remains of what was some sort of house or bothy/shepherd’s shelter.

This is a bit further round, the main road to Edinburgh is up there, just where the electricity pylon is.

And this is from the other side of the road, which is just a farm track really but there are a few houses in the area. Although they are just outside the town of Kirkcaldy it feels incredibly remote. The road bisects part of a golf course, the 17th hole, but I think the area is called the mill dam.

The daisy type flowers in the foreground are there for the wildlife I suppose, I think that nowadays farmers are a lot more likely to have the field margins left to nature rather than cultivating every part of the field. The crop seems to be some sort of beans. I thought when I took this photo that you would be able to see the Firth of Forth between the sky and field but is has all blended in, despite the fact that we could actually see a ship on the horizon.

All of these cows were sitting enjoying the sun until I decided to take a photo of them, then the cream one decided that she really didn’t like what was going on. A discussion ensued as to whether these were cows or bullocks, because she looked quite fierce. We aren’t from farming stock ourselves you know! Anyway we came to the conclusion that they were cows despite not having much in the way of udders. Presumably these ones are not dairy cows but beef ones, well that’s what we think anyway, but we could be completely wrong.

It has been hot here, and our tongues were just about hanging out by the time we got home, so we awarded ourselves the first ice lollies of this summer. Lovely!

Blogging and Cygnets

Posted on 12 June 2013 by Katrina

Well I think that’s the longest blogging hiatus which I’ve ever had, and it was totally unplanned. I actually couldn’t get into ‘pining’ for technical reasons but I’ve changed my server and hope things will be better from now on.

Anyway, I’ve been visiting the park as usual and as promised, here are the photos of the cygnets as they grow up.

As you can see, the cygnets are able to duck down and pull up the pond weed themselves. There are only five now, so two have disappeared, possibly one of the geese pulled them under, it’s nature red in tooth and claw I suppose.

I thought they had given up on the miniature train rides but as you can see, it was up and running last Saturday and apart from these passengers there was a queue of wee enthusiasts waiting patiently for their turn. Great fun for wee ones and it seems like only yesterday that my boys were on this train but it must have been well over 20 years ago.

Mainly Grey

Posted on 21 January 2013 by Katrina

On Saturday we walked along the esplanade, as I said earlier and I took a few photos of the scene, just before the snow came and blasted us, you can see it coming to get us in the clouds. There is actually snow on the hills across on the other side of the Forth but unfortunatley you can’t see them in this photo.

I took the photo below from the same position, just looking in the other direction, it’s at this point that the Firth of Forth flows into the North Sea and the next land which you get to is Denmark, so I’m told.

Our walk today (Sunday) took us to the Beveridge Park – again and if you look closely you’ll see that this part of the boating pond is frozen, about half of it has thin ice on it.

The local family of swans had just been fed by a family of humans and it was obviously time for them to do a bit of preening, stocktaking their feathers.

As you can see, the cygnets are in between their parents and are as big as they are now, just haven’t quite lost all of their brown feathers. In another couple of months daddy swan, the aggressive beastie that he is will force the cygnets to leave for pastures new and so the whole thing will start all over again. I wonder if they’ll manage more offspring this year, this is the first time they’ve ever had two cygnets and they often have none at all. They’re a bit rubbish as parents really, I think because the male swan spends most of his time chasing after geese, ducks and dogs – yes dogs! He apparently drowned a spaniel which was swimming in the pond, he just grabbed it by the back of its neck and held it under – that’s nature red in tooth and claw!

Anyway, as you can see, this is truly ‘shades of grey’ as Scotland often is whatever the season. It really makes you crave warm, vibrant colours, I think the Scandinavians feel the same about bright colours. I know I have a cheek to moan because most of Scotland seems to be under snow at the moment but – roll on the spring!

I imagine that if you live in a warm, bright colourful place, you might want to rest your retinas from time to time, if so you can do so looking at these very grey photos of a grey place.

The Fountain in Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy.

Posted on 7 November 2012 by Katrina

We’re still in Beveridge Park, at the lily pond and fountain now.
I really wanted to get a photo of the different autumnal shades of the trees which is why the fountain is in the corner of this photo.

I just had to take one of the fountain on centre stage though. I love fountains and although this is a very tame one, it’s a trickle rather than a fount, it’s still a thing of beauty, especially on the lovely autumn day when I took the photo.

Autumn in the Park

Posted on 7 November 2012 by Katrina

We rarely get two days in a row with the same weather so when you get a good day, you just have to go out there and grab it as tomorrow will probably be grey if not wet. That’s why I found myself at my local park getting some fresh if chilly air and exercise. I took my camera of course, just to let you see what autumn is like in Kirkcaldy in Fife. Are you coming for a wee walk?

These trees are at the beginning of the pathway which leads all the way around the perimeter of what is a large Victorian Park.

The path gets quite steep here and I used to get quite puffed out by this stage of the walk. I sometimes had to stop and pretend to be tying a shoe lace or something, just to catch my breath but it’s no bother to wheech up it now.

We’re at the top of the hill and looking back now, I think, there were men in the park gathering up the leaves using machines, shame on them!

This is the view from the path, down into the main part of the park, there are the usual play areas for wee ones and skate board thingy for the bigger ones. Luckily the trees screen all of that.

Another stand of trees, there are lots of them dotted around, unfortunately there are none of our native red squirrels here, only those American grey squirrels, they get everywhere!

After walking all around the edge of the park it’s time to veer into the centre for a walk around the boating pond, it’s much like any other one with an island in the middle where the birds can nest safely. The boats have all been tidied away for winter, they’re swan shaped.

And here it is again from the other side. It’s hard to believe that there was a film of ice on the pond just the other day, well I did say that we don’t get two days together the same here.

That’s the end of today’s jaunt, I hope you enjoyed the breath of fresh air and exercise!

Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland

Posted on 22 August 2012 by Katrina

Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy is one of those lovely old parks which sprang up at the back end of the 19th century. The postcard below shows the lovely old gate posts and gates as they were originally. Sadly they’ve gone from bad to worse in recent years. In common with most parks and homes the gates and railings disappeared sometime during World War II. They were removed as part of the war effort, the metal was supposed to be needed for war work – building ships or aeroplanes and the like.

Of course it was just a propaganda con to make the British people feel that they were contributing and helping Britain fight the Nazi terror. The metalwork just rusted away in dumps as it wasn’t the correct sort of metal. I’m annoyed about that because it would cost about £3,000 to replace ours!

I’m even more annoyed about the state of the gates now. I took the photo below just a couple of weeks ago and as you can see one of the lovely old red sandstone gateposts has gone. Apparently it was demolished by the back end of a circus trailer as it went through the gateway. That was over a year ago and absolutely nothing has happened since then.

I know it can take a long time for insurance claims to be settled but over a year seems just too long. Has there been a problem with the insurance, was the circus vehicle insured, who was stupid enough to allow a circus to set up business in the park? I think we should be told.

The entrance to the park is a pitiful sight when compared with how it used to look. New gates should have been commissioned for the centenary celebrations, it would be nice to think that the powers that be might think about doing it now or when they eventually get around to rebuilding the gatepost – if they ever do!

The Kirkcaldy Council should sort out the park gateway, instead of spending bucketloads of money on things like speed bumps which are completely useless, their only function seems to be to give work to the local car repair workshops as the bumps wreck the sills of some cars, no matter how they go across them, no matter how careful they are.

Shipping Movements

Posted on 6 August 2012 by Katrina

This post will probably only be of interest to people who live near a coastline – as I do. Usually there are at least a few container ships and tankers anchored in the Firth of Forth, near where I live. I live close to the exact same stretch of coastline which gave Adam Smith the Scottish economist his ideas, but he was watching a lot more ships coming and going in those days. I’ve always wondered what they’re all doing and where they are going, but when I saw this ship (below) I just had to find out what on earth she is.

I call her a Swiss army knife of a ship because she has all sorts of bits and pieces hanging off her, I’ve never seen anything quite like her. Anyway, it turns out that she is called The Solitaire and she is the world’s largest pipe-layer. She is absolutely enormous and she has been in the Forth for a couple of weeks now as she is between contracts at the moment. They don’t have to pay berthing fees if she is anchored mid-river. She’s off to China in the autumn to have her crane upgraded from 300 tonnes to 850 tonnes.

Solitaire was embroiled in a fair bit of controversy a few years ago, when she was sabotaged off the coast of Ireland by people protesting the Corrib gas pipeline and its construction. Apparently, the pipelay stinger (the lower of the two white bits hanging off the back of the vessel) was completely detached, forcing Solitaire to limp to Greenock for urgent repairs.

If you want to know the names and details of ships all you have to do is visit this website.

There has been quite a lot of ship movement out there recently, I’m hoping that that means the economy is improving a wee bit. I know, I’m clutching at straws!

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Category Archives: Local interest