Fife Coastal Path Day 1

So we're back from our walking adventure, and over the next few days I'll be blogging about our travels along the Coastal Path.

With a short amount of time, we decided to pick the best section of the route: Kirkcaldy to St Andrews. Also this helped our plan of using public transport as we could get to both locations.

So the holiday started in a rather uninspiring location - Glenrothes bus station. The skies were grey, but looked set to clear.

Arriving in Kirkcaldy the weather was no better - North Sea fog covered the beach!

Fortunately the route was well signposted. So we were off.

Kirkcaldy is not very exciting so we quickly left the town behind. We didn't stop at the castle as we wanted to get moving and the visibility was poor.

Hugging the shoreline we followed the old boundary wall of Dysart House.

This then lead through a tunnel and out into Dysart harbour.

The blue sky was just beginning to break through.
Dysart is a pretty harbour now but has had a busy industrial past.

Leaving Dysart we passed clear signs of this heritage

Soon the coastal villages came thick and fast. Next up was Wemyss. Wemyss has undergone recent restoration. The village is now pristine.

We stopped here for a spot of lunch.

Wemyss is also known for the caves outside town.

Then the lowlight of the walk - the towns of Buckhaven and Methil. These are still industrial towns, whose fortunes were down to local coal mining. Now they are using the old docks for offshore renewable energies.

We sped on to our final point for the night: Lower Largo.

The village beckoned.

Lower Largo is a very pretty place. We had a meal at the Crusoe Hotel, a pint at the Railway Inn, then up the hill to our campsite for the night.

To be continued...........

Night of the museum

Last weekend was 2012's Museums at Night event.

I was lucky enough to find myself in London on Friday night with time to myself, so I headed to the V&A museum (open til 10pm every Friday!)

I've become a big fan of art museums since they became free a few years back. I don't know much about art, but enjoy just being able to 'dip in' for an hour or two.

Here were some of the things which caught my eye:

V&A is about design art rather than the 'painting' sort, and as you can see, it covers every corner of the globe.

After a nice little stroll I then treated myself to a pancake at the local creperie in South Kensington.

This one was a Buckwheat Tartiflette (that's bacon and cream).

Nom!

A different type of holiday

So at the end of May we're having a holiday with a difference. We're walking around the Fife Coast path. It starts at the Forth Bridge and up to St. Andrews and beyond.

The Rules are as follows:
- We'll be getting to the start by bus, and coming home by bus
- We're camping all the way, carrying our kit on our backs.
- At least one night we'll try wild camping.

 Here is our tent. We put it up last week to air it:

Fife is a very pretty part of Scotland with lots of nice coastal villages like this:

Along the way we hope to eat lots of good fish & chips, which this area is famous for.
I only have a small backpack. I must try not to take too much.

I hope also to have room for homemade granola bars and parkin cake (a Northern English speciality) to sustain us as we go.

New York hols

Quick run down of the holiday - to elaborate.

Day 1
Arrived in NYC around lunchtime. Checked in and headed out to Bryant Park. Had gorgeous hot chocolate and macaroons at Lily O'Brien's, then headed into Public Library for a wander. Lovely place, exhibition on Shelley.

Wandered onto Chrysler building and Grand Central Station to admire architecture.

Back to hotel to change for theatre. Dinner at Appetito.
Wicked at theatre, walking through Times Square.

Day 2
Early start with our Big Apple Greeter. Straight onto Subway for quick lesson. Then scooted down to Battery Park - seeing Castle Clinton. Then onto Bowling Green Park, the Bull of Wall Street, Wall Street, Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel, which had a poignant display in memory of 9/11. Carried on through town to city hall, Woolworth building, and half way across Brooklyn Bridge to admire NYC skyline.
Then past the law courts into China Town - taking in all the odd things on sale - from birds nests to chicken tendons. Left guide and had Chinese lunch.

Afternoon went into American Indian Museum, and across the Staten Island ferry to see Statue of Liberty.

That evening we went up the Empire State building - another art deco masterpiece and watched the town at night come to life. Then headed for pizza at Lazzaras - just before closing time.

Day 3
Natural History Museum on Upper West Side. Visited geological, space, and animal galleries - barely scratching surface.
Hunted for bagels to no avail, but found a sandwich place for lunch and went to Zabars deli - another NY institution - and bought some excellent cakes (cheese counter particularly impressive).
Headed down to Financial district again and chilled in World Financial Centre (as there was nothing else to do that didn't involve walking) and waited for our 9/11 memorial slot.
Site impressed us with its simplicity, and future plans - the new buildings, the open park - seem fitting.
Headed back to town and went to our local pub - the Ginger Man. Awesome place!! Hundreds of types of beer, which we sampled and coupled with some salty hotdogs.
Feet sufficiently recovered to wander onto the Morgan Library - free Friday evenings (win!)
Incredible collection of priceless books, placed in a staggeringly elaborate library, that somehow gets away with it on this side of the pond.

Day 4
St Patrick's Day dawned sunny. Stopped at Magnolia bakery for a cupcake and then up the Rockerfeller Centre to admire the city in the sun.
Back down and wandered along 5th Avenue. All the flagship stores there - Gucci, Armani, Tiffany - but jammed solid with green-dressed revellers for the parade. No chance of getting close to see, and feet were not up to the task, so gave up and hired bikes through the park. Park again was stacked full of people - both the Patrick's overspill but also joggers, cyclists etc. Did the lap of the park on the bike trails, but feet weren't up to more, which was a shame as we may have missed the best the park had to offer. Lesson learnt the hard way.
Headed to the Time Warner for lunch - the crazy Wholefoods in the basement. Then onto Chelsea and the High Line. Walked full length, stopping at points along way to rest feet and various interesting points, and good diversion to Chelsea market too.
Very tired walk back to hotel. Dragged ourselves out later to Times Square for photos, to see Empire State in green, and to enjoy true American diner food at the Brooklyn diner.

Day 5
Bit of shopping around 34th and Broadway, then wandered down past the Flatiron to Washington Square. Chilling and people watching (random student acting, piano playing, guitars, chess - the lot) before lunch at Le Pain Quotidien.
Wandered through the streets of Soho in afternoon - discovering some great, less mainstream shops and wandered up to Strand bookstore and Forbidden planet. More time chilling in Union Square, then back to Ginger Man for more awesome beer, hotdogs, pretzels before heading home.

It's always sunny in Fife

Yes it's true. Many a time I have looked from my office window in Edinburgh - straight out across the Forth - to see glorious sunshine. Whilst Edinburgh sits under a dark cloud, the Kingdom shows clear skies.

Yet again, here I am now in Perth, but as I head home south down the M90 every evening I look east, and the likelihood is that the clouds will be breaking and blue skies will be coming through.

I guess it makes sense. It's on the East coast, known to be far drier than the West. There are few hills of any size, and it's far enough south to be protected from the harsher North Sea climate coming from the Arctic, and surprisingly it's still in line with Denmark. I had expected it to be up around Oslo!

Anyway, Fife proves to be a blessing. When the rest of Scotland feels distinctly un-summery, drive east for half an hour and it's like living in the South East of England again. Last Saturday, whilst the rest of the country was somewhat gloomy, St. Andrews was hot hot hot! The beaches were packed, there was not a spare outside table to be had at a cafe or pub anywhere.

So what were my impressions of St Andrews? Elitist, snobbish, yes St Andrews is certainly those things. But, it has great people-watching potential, and many an hour can be lost wandering around town ; the town is one of the few in Scotland which seems untouched by bad 20th Century town planning, or by hurled houses and as with all of Fife, the seafood is to die for.

Of Blackberries

The old fashioned kind of course.

Still not able to identify the apple tree in our garden. Certainly the fruit has grown beyond the size of crab apples now, which means there are more recipe options when the forbidden fruit has ripened. But whether these are the cooking or eating kind remains to be seen.

In the meantime, I have noticed the other fruits in the garden. The blackberries in particular are in great supply, and I have managed to gather enough to make cooking some worthwhile. Not sure how long their season lasts, but looks as though there may be more on the way later. Hopefully some will coincide with the apples so I can cook them together. Have my eye on Blackberry, apple & cinnamon cupcakes particularly.

Tonight? Well after some quick research I found a recipe which I had all the ingredients for, and was suitably summer-y. Blackberry shortcake stacks. The original recipe made a large round double layer cake to be cut into individual slices, but I decided to make mine triple layered, and individually sized. Still too much for me though!

Worth also noting that I found a good website describing advice on picking wild blackberries. This included the dangers of picking berries near cows (!), and consideration to other people. Both irrelevant when the brambles are in your own unruly garden. But I did make sure to follow point 3 - leave enough for the birds to eat.

Interesting traffic warnings

I do love the Scottish Highways Agency. They are always so inventive with their warnings on the motorways. No 'Don't Drink and Drive' or other common pieces of advice, far more original.

Shall update this post as I see more, but today's was another classic:

'Can you rely on your spare tyre?'