A 'fair fortnight' - (part 1)

In Scotland, the trades (as they're known) tended to have two weeks off in the summer when the factories shut down. And, if I'm right, they tend to be a different times of the summer depending on where you live in Scotland. In Dundee, where I was born, the historical fair fortnight is the last week of July/first week of August. These days with school and childcare etc, I'm sure that most folks aren't grappling with 'enforced' holiday closures, but I'm sure some folks still do. Our holidays always start the same way. We head to Auntie's Hoose  and just flop. I love this house, it runs like mine, on coffee and lots of love. Its less chaotic than ours I suspect, but we supply amply chaos to make it seem like home. They also took me to a lovely antique place where I quite fancied this 'Peedie' look a like. Dogs on trains, how exciting! They also call us 'Hobbit's', which I guess is fair for my stature but the young adults are now towering over me.

For us, our 'fair fortnight' is usually (out of choice) the first two weeks of July. Its a good time to spend time with the kids (or young adults as they prefer to be called) before they head off to central France and spend the summer with their Dad on his far. Its also during Mr F's birthday celebrations so we tend to take those two weeks most years and just have fun, catch up with chums and generally go off exploring somewhere before the kids are waves cheerio to at the airport for 6 weeks.

 

This year was no exception, but with a twist. The cellist needed to do a weeks work experience in a non-island hospital, so we had to venture down to Aberdeen. I needed to help decorate Mr F's flat in Fife. So, being a semi-feral Dundonian myself there's never a shortage of a bed in that area so the cellist travelled and was ensconced at her Auntie's for the week.  The dogs quite enjoyed both the garden, the burn, the native sticky willies (Gallium aparine) adorned his face quite magnificently and didn't get in the way when he ate most of the resident cats food. The newly resident chameleon was a bit more of a novelty than much else. I've never, in his whole life, seen Haggis quite so still. Well, once out of the burn, anyway and how cool is it to have a burn at the bottom of your garden?

Now usually we have a summer adventure too, last year it was returning to my early school days in Cyprus to have a wee nostalgic look around. However, this year, Mr F's flat is requiring a bit of TLC and decorating so the adventures were put on hold and a paint brush, a cloot and several thousand bin bags were required. Not quite buckets and spades, however, needs must. If we are to return to the lands of Scotland, we need to sell his house. Not enough room in the current flat for me, two dogs, a sit on mower and several (soon to be located) chickens. So off with the shorts and on with the boiler suit. Cellist abandoned in the land of jute, jam and journalism with a train pass in one hand and her Aunty's in the other, I headed off to wield a paint brush in Fife. I told you my life is just all glamour. But, fear not. As I'm generally a lightweight when it comes to chores, there was a lot of skiving off. This is quite easy when you have two dogs who JUST need walked several times a day. Also easy when you've traded your own homeland beaches for the Fife Riviera. So adventure we did.  We also stalked native elder tree's and made a whole heap of Elderflower cordial for ourselves.

Stalking local elderflowers is quite easy when they're in bloom and once you're eye's in you see them everywhere. For a good ten days, I'm afraid many blooms (all below the 5ft high level, I'm very short) were sustainably taken from many a local elder. I left enough for the birds/bees and the natives both human and insect like too.  I'm not that greedy. Lucky for me elder is used in so much town amenity planting that there was barely a corner without any in.

I also indulged in a fair bit of cooking displacement activities. I've been trying to get my dim sum dumplings right for ages, now I seem to have cracked it. Holidays are good for a bit of extra cooking.

I even managed to salvage the 'turned' milk into something edible. Sour milk makes for excellent scones. Yum.

So with as bit of painting intersperced, mainly when skiving off, we walked and walked those hounds and I. We walked from the flat to the esplanade of Mr F's native Kirkcaldy. A project in the depression to give work to locals, its a fine long walk beside the beach, which is quite lucky as often the tide is so high, its beachless.

And, when at the furthest west point of the esplanade, the beaches reappear and the lands of Edinburgh are very nobly resplendent over the water. 

 It's always good to find the beach again as that means a bit of paddling, always good before breakfast. The dogs agree.

Further inland along the coastal pathways that traverse the edge of Fife,  which are stuffed full of lovely wild flowers in places. The brambles are looking splendid at the moment, a real hope of things to come.

But it wasn't all walking with sandy toes. I even indulged in a pair of new shoes (not waterproof, not garden related, I nearly had to lie down.) so I could go out for a birthday dinner with Mr F, whilst I'm sure our host's wouldn't have minded wellies, sometimes a bit of feet dressing up is required.

 We headed to a little hidden place in Aberdour recommended by some foodie chums, called 'A Room with a View' a truly beautiful location and an amazing eating experience. So lovely I'll do a wee blog about it all by itself, its worth the efforts as it was one of the best eating experiences I've had in Scotland. And, so reasonably priced too.

'A room with a view', Aberdour. A truly stunning sea food restaurant.

Pan seared halibut with a smoked mackerel risotto. Delicious.

So, it wasn't all painting and hard work. There was a bit of fun, a bit of walking and a bit of retail action. One of the missions when down this visit, aside hospital internships and decorating, was to find a bit of a posh frock for our impending wellie-fest in the autumn. Having been to what seemed like a million scary dress shops. A local visit to a charity shop in Dundee might have been the most fruitful of all. The right size, the right colour, the right fit and all for £20. OK so it had some rather hideous buttons on it, but if you can see past what's right infront of your paint splattered nose, often a gem can be found. A good half hour of snipping carefully and unpicking said horrid buttons, they are no more.  If this does turn out to be 'the one' then I'll be more than a bit chuffed at finding something recycled and quite pretty.

 However, with a potential frock sorted - time to wash it and hang it safely away from the emulsion. No rest for the wicked, this was a working holiday after all.

Part 2 of the eating fest which was our holiday will follow, there's far too much food in it to do it all at once. You'd think we were piggies.

 

Adventurising, the art of having family adventures.....

The art of family adventurising - summer 2011! I'll be going through my gazillion photo's of our peedie 1845 mile round trip full of adventures and putting a few indiviual adventures up over the next few days, but for now, I've had a flick at the photos and here's an overview of our adventurising this holiday! We're lucky, we all still have adventures as a family, with the younglings at nearly 15 and nearly 17, I know how lucky I am that we still have these types of holidays, I hope they do continue!

Adventures involve alot of fresh air in our lives, alot of fun and alot of food. On adventures it pays to know which is the best ice-cream shop in the region you are in. In Brora, we stopped for ice-cream at Capaldi's, in Dundee it's got to be Visochi's. However, in Fife, the best ice-cream shop is Jannetta's, you will hear no other one mentioned in that town, that shop is the best, 52 flavours as well!!!

 Not purple wellie weather at the moment, its balmy 20+ degrees tonight in St Andrews, so the cellist kindly lent us the converse, for the obiligatory, we're off on an adventure shot! Thank you cellist! And the creels are by the harbour and east sands bay where in Grandpa use ot keep his boat in St Andrews, he fished for lobsters, so we like creels! And, when on adventures we like to visit this part of the world to say hello to him. However, given the weather, the trusty favourite jumper had to come off!

Peedie of course comes on adventures, not be the same without him, and today he's wondering where we are off to.........another beach, excellent!

 A bit of sand, sea and a bit of paddling, with the silly green toes. Green fingers are for gardening, green toes are obiligatory for paddling!

Ok, if you insist I'll go in too, time for a proper paddle!

When adventurising in each location we visit we try and seek out the old familiar things we like to do, I love St Andrews as I came here frequently when back in Scotland (my father was in the army so we moved around alot). When we returned to Scotland, St Andrews was my grandparents favourite place, and they often had one or two of us grandchildren with them. I take my family here now and we love it! However, my Mr Flowers, use to go to Elie alot with his parents, so its a new place I've discovered too. Brilliant!

In Elie we tend to walk on the beach but this time we found a brilliant new adventure to add to the collection - the Elie Chain Walk ........

Looks a bit scary huh and yes the sea is lapping below, one wrong footing and a splash, how exciting!? We'd read the review above (see Elie chain walk link) and decided to go for it, a free adventure too - and it was amazing!! Tinned Tomatoes has a blog on it too - here you go for that link. We all throughly enjoyed it and have put it on our 'must do when in the area' list. I'd highly recommend it. I'll blog about it as a whole adventure of its own, but todays natter is about having lots of adventures, so I'll keep to my mixture for now! 

Looks a bit challenging doesn't it and more than a bit fun! We all did the walk both ways - when we got to one end we returned the other way - what an excellent day that was. Started with a beach walk, chain walk in the middle, ended with a beach walk and a picnic.

  Aside the dog putting sand in the raspberries from the farm shop we found on the way to the adventure, not a bad afternoon! Elie is a beautiful village in the East Neuk of Fife. And then it was time to head to the deep south, well to the North Lincoshire estuary to have a few England adventures....garden centres, warhammar worlds, picnics, food, grub, walks and catching up with a few pals including Daffy, who has the most beautiful pictures of a bit of our adventure on her blog too!

For the folk like me who don't drive on motorways very often, that was a bit of an adventure too, whilst I don't mind a bit of that kind of driving to keep my hand in, I'm not very keen on this as an everyday experience, although I'm secretly proud that I managed to drive all the way from Orkney to Nottingham (getting lost alot and finding my old high school in Nottingham was an added bonus, when lost!!!) And so, after all good adventures were long gone and time to go back home, the long trek home, up the motorway.

A brief stop at Edinburgh airport to drop the young folk to their plane for a summer in France with their father, where by all accounts for the next 6 weeks they'll have many adventures of thier own with their other family. I'll miss them, but I'm sure they'll have such fun, there are great ups and downs to having a split up family, so we take that bit on the chin. It's only kind to make it as easy for the kids as possible! However, early departures to airports and long drives to ferries, whilst a part of the adventurising, are not alot of fun!

Although, with a car packed full of homeward bound goodies and plants, blankets cushions, picnics and puppies - there's always a sense of adventure with any kind of trip isn't there?

Living on an island, ferry journeys dominate the beginning and end of your adventurising.  It's fun going home on a boat, plenty to do and see, folk to catch up with, I managed to meet over 10 folk I knew on the boat and had a peedie (small) blether (chat) with most of them. How lovely an adventure that was too!

 And, so to home. To be greeted by chickens, gorgeous red ripe tomatoes from the indoor allottment - how utterly fabulous that was (thank you J for looking after everything so well!!!

And, whilst popping the dog out at bedtime, a gorgeous sunset, no street lights, no 24/7 life, no traffic, just the sound of curlews and oystercatchers singing away.

It's lovely to have adventures, but its nice to be home!

Adventures in Hoy, with stripey stone beaches and the odd highland cow

Now having a new pair of wellingtons incurs a bit of responsibility - you have to make sure they get an idea of where they live and make sure they have adventures to keep them from running away from home. A bored pair of wellingtons, is not a happy pair is it now? Living on Orkney, there are um, about 80 odd islands in this little archepeligo (or should I say, not so little, maybe?) and its only fair to the wellies to get them out and about. We've been to many but Mr Flowers had never been to Hoy so thats the destination for our little adventure today. You'd be right to wonder if these wellingtons ever do any gardening, they do, but often they are also out on adventures! Today its Rackwick beach! 

Yesterday in true island hopping style we adventured off to Hoy, 35 minute ferry ride (£11.95 for a car one way) on one of the smaller inter islands ferry, to the second largest of the islands (mainland Orkney being the largest). Here we are at the bay of Rackwick, I think probably one of the nicest beaches I've ever been to (and if you know the kind of beach action we get up to that is indeed an accolade! I think its the combination of huge enormous cliffs, beach and gorgeous stripey stones and the notion that you can camp right on the beach beside a bothy (old barn), how perfect! A bit more info about that here..............from my old neighbour!

Anyway, being on adventures in new places means that your trusty cairn terrier Peedie pup leads the way - more checking out for abandoned sausages from the campsite than anything dangerous, but he does like to lead the way - so we let him! What a campsite eh? And the cliffs, amazing and difficult to get an idea of scale.........The roof of the bothy covered in large flag stones and then heather thatch, amazing what folk can do when wood and straw is scarce, brilliant use of local materials!

And we found a peedie (small) bench - which had a poingnant sign on it - I don't know the story, but these chaps seem awful young - we did as instructed and had a site and a think about these unknown (to us) chaps and our own loved ones..................

 And, we sat...............of course when adventuring, you wear your most glamourous gear! The cellist is at least slightly co-ordinated, although she has stolen my hat (so I stole Mr Flowers hat) - I'm my usual ramshackle of riotous stripes, borrowed hats and odd colours! And I know its nearly July and here we are in fleeces, hats, scarves etc - its 10 degrees here today - not a wet wild day, but NOT very warm! The temperature doesn't get very high here, although to be fair we've had a run of lovely (eg not wet and howling gales) weather over the past couple weeks, well aside that ONE nasty gale last week!

First there is the burn (small river) to cross - and a bit of a recycled (and a bit ramshackle if I might add) bridge to cross..........peedie was NOT keen, and can't blame him, his peedie paws might have got stuck, one advantage to a small dog - easy to scoop up under an arm and carry!

And, so to the beach...................its difficult to get an idea of the scale of both the beach and the cliffs - but we'll give it a go......Mr Flowers Ma, beach, cliffs - gives a bit of an idea of the size of the cliffs......!

Rackwick means 'rock beach' and boy were there rocks - the most gorgeous stripey rocks I've seen for a while, some the size of bean bags, some the size of bowling balls - all jumbled together on the beach - mostly stripey red sandstone, some slate black - but all amazing to look at!

 Now, here we go again, not much of an idea of scale - well heres my size 4 (EU 37) wellies on one of these delightful rocks!

 OK still not a great idea of scale, the cellist (age 14 and 11/12ths) had an idea 'Do you trust me?' she said, 'Um, maybe......' the reply - 'Mum, go stand on that stone she told me and conduct the sea....!' - 'Um, do what?', 'Conduct the sea!!!, Go down there arms out and conduct the sea.' - being told my mission - I did indeed go and conduct the sea.......

 Now, the cellist does have an idea of scale, so maybe conducting the sea helped after all? That girl has a great eye for a photograph. And she does make me do the silliest of things - or maybe we inspire each other!! Perching on stones, conducting the sea, how perfect a way to spend a day!

And, whilst we are at it - I'd best say - photos here are a combination of Mr F, cellist and myself or everyone gets a bit huffy - but not today - beach far too gorgeous!

Finally the beach! And, a kiss for being a good conductor! How lovely it is to be loved! What a smacker I got there! And, yes at 14 and 11/12ths she's already taller. The gamerboy was snoring - having a day off for good behaviour at home (yesterday he helped build the table and bench in the garden). When not adventuring we do a little gardening, honest injun!

 Having discovered the delights of the beach, the Peedie pup was in his element - he almost looks graceful here! Whats he heading towards you might ask...................

 He's spotted my scarf and he's off for a tug of war with me - a very cheeky dog indeed - cairn terriers are full of life and this one is no exception!

 Now don't ask me who's winning - I've no idea - the scarf is well use to this kind of nonsense - we scarf fly and tug of war alot on beaches the wind helps hugely and its great fun!

Beaches often mean a sandy nose though!

 Ok, I'm sure you're bored with our antics so back to the view - you can see this beach from the ferry when you go to Orkney, the cliffs either side are quite dramatic - aren't they?

 An eyeful of cliffs and an idea of scale - the cellist obliging this time!

 And those rocks - so beautiful - someones left us a bit of beach art - how perfect! We didn't distrub it, I'm sure the sea or the wind will soon enough!

 Again more beach art, in Orkney you'll see this type of thing everywhere - I always like to have a look and see what folk have done with the stones! Gives a good few ideas for the garden too......

 And there are so very many stones to look at we could have done that all day long, but we only had the day in Hoy so we had to make our way up to the car and say goodbye to the beach!

 Bye to the cliffs on the left and bye to the cliffs on the right - the old man of Hoy sea stack (449 ft) just barely visible at hte edge of the cliffs in that photo - maybe that gives an idea of the scale of the cliffs which are MUCH taller!

 One final look at the stones! This one is large enough for both the cellist and I to stand on, half way up the beach, imagine the force that got it there?! But far too pretty for our mangey feet to obscure the colours!

Goodbye to the stones and up onto the dunes - one final look back!

Tramping through the dunes, past the campsite, past the bothy finally a picture of a flower! Thistles are beginning to come into flower here - these are marsh thistles (Cirsium palustre)- when they are fully out I love the architecture of them a week or two they will look brilliant arms stetched out waving in the wind!

 More exploring a bit of lunch and a fair bit of driving along empty single track roads toward crofts and cottages under the high hills of Hoy....we did see a couple of cars when we were there for the day, but to be honest maybe not more than half a dozen! About 300 people live in Hoy, maybe they were all at different beaches today? There are many to choose from! Lucky for us we had the island almost all to ourselves to explore at our leisure!

 How lovely would it be to live here? Over the road, we spied my very favourite bovine - the noble Highland Cow! When we farmed in Colonsay, we had a couple of highland cows, its my ambition to own another few, one day. But for today at the end of our adventure in Hoy, at the very end of the road on the island how lovely to find one sitting ready to frame the view over to the mainland of Orkney - thank you very much you bovine beauty!

 No, now no need to get up and greet us, please go about your business watching the view and contemplating life! But, if you don't mind a close up, we'd be much oblidged!

 Then back to a bit of sitting! Time for us to go home, what an excellent adventure indeed! Thank you HOY! We needed to dash back for the ferry and homewards - we look over to Hoy from our house - so its nice to look over to the house from Hoy - we did give the house a wave when we were over there - just to be polite!