St. Andrews

We got back from an overnight stay at St. Andrews at tea time last night - fish and chips from The Cowshed was the easy option rather than cooking. Before our little trip, we were in Inverurie as usual on Tuesday - Gary arrived home from work, feeling a bit under the weather with a cold, and he slept through the whole of the Manchester Utd. match that I watched whilst we were there. I even had to move his car so that we could get ours out and head home - and he never stirred once.

We drove south on Wednesday morning when a number of bridges in Scotland were closed due to the high winds. Fortunately, the Tay Bridge was ok - for cars at least. Arriving in St. Andrews just before noon, we parked our car, checked in to the Rusacks Hotel then took a short stroll along the Scores and up to Market St. to look for Forgan's, where we had booked lunch. It had been recommended to us by Keith and Annette Gray, as had St. Andrews Brewing Co, where we had a quick beer before lunch. Both recommendations were excellent.

Returning to the hotel, we relaxed for a couple of hours, enjoying the view from our room:

After a glass of Prosecco, we decided to pay a visit to the cinema before dinner - Sunset Song was on. The film is about life in the Mearns, Aberdeenshire farming community at the start of the last century. Our dinner wasn't until 8 pm and the film was scheduled for 5:25 pm - more than enough time, we thought. We didn't figure, however, on a very lengthy preamble of adverts and trailers, plus a longer than normal film - 2 hours, 15 minutes, to be exact. It's what could be described as a slow burner - it's all about atmosphere and scenery. We wondered if it would ever end and we knew we were going to be late for our booking at The Seafood Restaurant.

It was lashing rain and a howling wind when we left the cinema and we went to the wrong place initially. When we finally got to the restaurant, we were soaked - and we were the only customers there. The staff - all seven of them - looked a little exasperated initially, but it didn't show in terms of the quality of food and presentation. There were a couple of unexpected extras - Amuse Bouche to start, and a couple of petit fours to finish - but the main courses we ordered were:

My order - sole

Jo's order - monkfish

The waiter  took our photo:

Our nightcap back at the hotel was another glass of Prosecco. The room we stayed in was nice - in line with the location, they all had golfy themes - ours was the Bobby Locke room. The Breakfast Room in the morning overlooked the Old Course, which was initially bathed in sunshine before distant storms gave us some nice rainbows to watch:

We sat in the pretty reception area after checking out, then decided to go for a short drive round the East Neuk of Fife - through Kingsbarns, Crail and eventually Anstruther. It was bright and sunny, but the wind was really strong and our initial idea of a stroll was soon nixed and we headed for the relative warmth of the Scottish Fishermen's Museum:

We had planned to visit their Tearoom afterwards, but it was now lunchtime and the place was packed with schoolkids, so we moved on to nearby Pittenweem and found a cafe there, after a walk around the small fishing port:

Driving back up north, our last stop of the day was at Guardbridge, where the Eden Mill Brewery and Distillery (http://edenmill.com/) have a nice visitor centre. We arrived just in time to join a brewery tour. It was well done, but I had to restrict my intake of their samples as I still had to drive home.

Desmond - who's he?

Here in the North East, we seem to have completely escaped the 4th named storm this winter - thank goodness. Those poor souls in Cumbria have had it real hard - again. Is there an argument for at least considering planning for medium/longer term depopulation of certain areas which experience repeated floods, like Cockermouth etc?

All we've had has been some temporary widening of the Dee as the snow melt came down from the ski resorts. The river is back to more normal levels today - I had a good look as I cycled along the Deeside Way this afternoon.

Got some golf in yesterday morning as well - full summer course too. Wall to wall sunshine, but it was pretty cool on the hands when the wind blew.

We had our new neighbours move in to number two this weekend. Mike and Gayle moved out a couple of weeks ago and Catherine moved in on Saturday. We know her name because she was good enough to come along and knock on all the doors in the street to offer them the chance of moving their cars if they were going out because their removal lorry would probably block the street for a while. Jo did move her car, but, in the end, it wasn't necessary as there was still room to get by. Still, it was a nice, thoughtful gesture - a good start.

We're on the move again this week - we've booked a night at Rusack's Hotel in St. Andrews on Wednesday night, with lunch beforehand at Forgan's (http://www.forgansstandrews.co.uk/) and dinner in the evening at the Seafood Restaurant (http://www.theseafoodrestaurant.com/). We should be able to get there OK - I don't think the Tay Bridge is falling down (hope not anyway) - unlike the Forth (Road) Bridge. I'm glad we went to Edinburgh last weekend. Even although we went by rail, I'm sure it'll be madness no matter which way you travel with such a major artery being closed for a while.

That's all for now. Inverurie again tomorrow.