Open University Science

It's about time I blogged about this, as for the last 9 months or so it has dominated my life.

I am currently studying at Open University. Just for fun.
I know, I'm crazy.

I'm willingly putting myself through coursework, deadlines, tests and so on, when I don't have to. I'm not planning a career change, I just got bored one day.

It was about 2-3 years ago. I was stuck in a dull job and desperately needed something to fill my days. OU filled that gap.

I'm the sort of person interested in everything - so to date I have studied:

Archaeology
Psychology
History of Mathematics
Evolution

and finally: Science.

This year I embarked on S104: Exploring Science.

[Btw Open University students seem obsessed to name everything by the course code - as if everyone else knows/cares what you're on about. I avoid reducing my academic advancement to this. Rant over.]

A good course as it covers all the basics: Biology, Geology, Chemistry and Physics.

The first excitement comes when your textbooks arrive, as they are colourful and shiny.

It is nice to lay them out and look at them in a pretty way, as this distracts you from the scale of the challenge ahead.

I'm not going to go into loads of detail here. An excellent post can be found at:
http://girlinclouds.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/exploring-science/

The highlights for me:

1) Hating each book whilst reading it, loving it about 2 weeks later.

2) The joy at getting your assignments back and realising you're on the right track

3) Going to the tutorials put on as part of the course - doing silly experiments.

4) Meeting other students at the tutorials - some have become friends even after the course has finished.

5) Doing maths again (I like maths!)

6) Feeling dead knowledgeable about the world in general. I've learnt so much!

The only lowlight was the unrelenting pace and trying to keep up. Each book gives about a chapter of GCSE and then goes straight up to Year 1 degree at alarming speed.


So, it is now over and I just have a couple of months to wait for my result.

My books are safely stowed away on my shelf, a sign of my achievement.

Couldn't resist another picture!

Fife Coastal Path Day 4

The final day of the walk dawned. I eagerly unzipped the tent to see the weather, and was confronted with thick sea fog. The views of last night were completely obscured and grass, tent and so on were soaked.

There were some cool spiders webs though.

There was little to hang around for. Even our little camp stove was running low on gas, so no morning coffee. We feasted on bananas, ham and croissants before packing up and setting on our way. It was ridiculously early, but nothing to hang around for.


There are few photos from the first part of the day, as it was so foggy. We walked past golf courses and Kingsbarns beach, which is meant to be very nice.

By about 9 o'clock the weather was beginning to clear - it didn't take long. Suddenly the sun was beating down again and it was getting pretty hot.

The route then turned inland along a pretty river.

The path crossed over this bridge and headed back towards the coast again, via some farmland.

Then on for the final stretch of the walk. Aches and pains were in full force, but St Andrews was not far away now, so we pushed on.

The final stretch is a great walk, but tiring as it goes up and down a lot.

And then alongside some interesting rock formations. This one I call 'The Elephant'.

 This one looks like a big club and shield.

St Andrews - our final goal! We were feeling a bit desperate for the finish line now, and at 11am the sun was seriously hot!

We stumbled in, utterly exhausted, and flopped out in the shade by the beach, next to the first kiosk we found. Cold drinks never tasted so good!

It was only lunchtime, so the rest of the day was spent staggering to a few last bars/pubs. St Andrews is a wonderful place to visit, but our energy had been spent.

Having said that, we were pleased with ourselves. We had completed our second long distance footpath, and this time carrying all our kit too. 

I insisted on one last photo next to the Old golf course.  We then headed for the bus station and home.

So, where are we going to walk next? Watch this space.

Fife Coastal Path Day 3

Day 3. Few more creaking limbs today, but still walking, still able to hoist rucksack onto back, albeit with a groan.

Today was the chilled day - the fewest miles to cover, the best of the towns. Yet another perfect morning. The aches could be ignored.

We left St Monan's passing by the windmill. It wasn't even 8am! The next coastal village is Pittenweem, so we thought we'd get a proper breakfast there once the cafes were open.

We sat and waited by the old Pittenweem swimming pool.

It was only being used by dogs that morning.

The view was very clearly and we could see Berwick Law clearly across the Forth


Pittenweem is still a working fishing village.

We found a nice place for food called The Cocoa Tree, which had a lovely courtyard outside.

I had a pancake and a scone for brekkie. Mr G had a ciabatta and a scone (love the appetite walking gives you!)

Leaving Pittenweem we passed St Fillian's cave - named after some early Christian hermit. You can go in if you ask for the key from The Cocoa Tree.

We headed onto Anstruther.

Anstruther is the biggest village of all. It is very famous for its fish & chips, which have won many awards. There is debate which is the best.

This one: Anstruther Fish Bar

Or this one: The Wee Chippy

Alas, it was too soon after breakfast for us, so we plumped for these instead.

Humongous ice-cream!

In the next part of the walk we encountered many animals, grazing right up to the shore.

They didn't seem to mind the walkers coming by.

We rested at an area called The Coves, known for its weird rocks.

It was blissful to fall asleep in the sun. In those temperatures it was more comfortable to walk in the evening.

After an hour or two's R&R we reluctantly stumbled into Crail.

My personal favourite based on sheer prettiness.



We stopped for provisions, including a jumbo prawn feast at The Golf Hotel.

This was technically our stopping point for the night, but it was only 5pm and we had a long walk the following day, so we decided to push on.

The lack of photos in this section shows my weariness beginning to kick in, but it was a fine walk around the tip of Fife. We turned from the Firth of Forth and around towards the Firth of Tay.

 This was our most easterly point of the walk.

We had always intended to have one night 'wild' camping, so after staggering past a few miles of golf courses (guessing they wouldn't want us camping on the fair way), we found a suitable spot by a field of cows.

It was more comfortable than we thought possible.

Fife Coastal Path Day 2

There's something great about camping. Being woken up by birdsong, around 5am as the light streams. You open the tent flap, your eyes adjusting to the change in colour, full of hope that the sky is blue.

Day 2 was such a day. Perfectly cloudless skies from the start. We felt fine - our worst fear after a day's long walking and a night under canvas, but all was well.

The best feeling was packing up all our belongings into two not-very-big rucksacks and just walking off the site without a care.

Largo was as nice in the morning as the day before. We feasted on croissants and ham over looking the rocks.

Nearby there was a strange statue overlooking the bay.

As well as one of the real Robinson Crusoe

Soon the village was behind us,

and an amazing bay lay ahead

Ok so the picture doesn't do justice. But it was like 9am, the beach was 2 miles of pure sand, it was low tide, and the place was utterly deserted. It was heaven walking across the beach in the sunshine.
Largo - we will come back!

Got too carried away - we missed the path and had to ford a stream to get back on track!

We then passed a caravan park (really not a fan of these huge static sites - no pictures there), and headed for the highlight of the day - the Elie chain walk.

Elie Chain Walk - well it's described below:

We'd heard about it, and were determined to give it a go. The tide and weather were on our side.

It's around your typical UK rocky headland.

and it looks a bit like this.

Some chains are horizontal where you go along a ledge, others are vertical - both up and down. Fortunately there are some good footholds along the way so there is no need to be a climber to complete the walk, just dress sensibly and take your time. Also anyone much shorter than 5' may struggle with leg length (speaking from personal experience).

Here's me doing a ledge section:

And Mr G doing a descent.





Cool cliffs on the way round.

Us at the finishing line :)



Well, we made it, with a few hair raising moments (wouldn't fancy it if the rocks/chains were slippery), and turns out, being loaded down with backpacks was not the best idea.

But we made it!

High on success (and exhaustion) we literally crawled to the next town: Elie.

We headed straight to an amazing pub: The Ship. It overlooks the beach, the beer garden pretty much is the beach. Great stop in summer - does BBQs, cricket matches, Pimms - thoroughly British!

They do two sizes of fish & chips. After the morning's efforts even I had to super-size!

Here is the view from the pub

Well a couple of hours later we somehow pulled ourselves together and stumbled on.

St Monan's was our goal tonight!

We considered wild camping by this castle:

But hot showers persuaded us to move onto the campsite in the village.

Here are a few pics of the village. It apparently has the closest church to the sea in the UK! Plus it has a windmill! Another stunning town.

This was used for salt production as part of an industry lasting hundreds of years.

That night we feasted on salmon pate and oatcakes under a shady tree!