The nineteenth hole
Today we were in St Andrews. Well, we had woken in Leith, in good company since we were adjacent to the Britannia.
We giggled with Rhea, a member of the security staff who checks us in and out of the ship each day. She held her hands over her ears this morning…why?
The answer was a few feet away across the gangway :-) Yes, we are in Scotland.
We were headed through the barley fields (an essential ingredient for whisky) away towards the Firth of Forth.
Over the Queensferry Crossing, the latest of the bridges over the Firth into Fife.
We were headed for St Andrews for no other reason than we’d not been there before. Any opportunity to discover a new place is a good one, n’est-ce pas?
First stop was at the ruined Cathedral.
The ruins are a place of pilgrimage and an important part of the history of Scotland. It seemed, however, that the princpal motivation for stopping here was to get a good overview of the town so those of us who were none too excited by the Royal and Ancient could work out alternatives. I might add that we non-golfers were in the minority!
It’s a cute place though with a bustling centre. We enjoyed a couple of hours wandering around and enjoyed the atmosphere.
We found some things hard to resist - well, it was getting on for lunchtime!
With plenty of time to spare, we made our way back towards the beach and our meeting spot, thinking that we’d find a good place to sit and enjoy our bakery finds. But no sooner had my Hero taken a first bite of his brie and bacon wrap than a huge gull swooped down and grabbed it! I leapt to my feet (of course) and for the next few seconds - no longer than that - watched in shock as another half dozen of these vicious birds joined in the fight for the thing. Horrible.
Still shaken, we retreated indoors to a small cafe to recover with a drink in an altogether calmer environment.
At this, the golfing end of town, the scene was very much littered with the remains of the Open, which was held here just a few weeks ago.
It was surprising just how much of the paraphernalia was still left. Given that it must take several weeks to construct as well, for much of this season the large open spaces, car parks and approaches to the course must be in a similar mess. I don’t think we saw any of this at its best.
A lone golfer was trying a shot in the midst of the security fencing and stuff.
Meanwhile, a bridal party was making their way through the building site. All life was here!
Returning to Leith by the same route as we’d taken earlier, there was a photo stop by the Forth bridges. This morning, we’d taken the newest of the three, the Queensferry Crossing but on the way back, we drove over the older suspension bridge, known as the Forth Road Bridge.
From this viewpoint, all three of the bridges were visible, if not in the same camera shot. The oldest of the three is the magnificent original Forth Bridge which takes the railway north.
The commemorative stone marks the opening of the Road Bridge in 1964, when my dad, Gordon, just happened to be here and able to watch as The Queen cut the ribbon. The bridge always captured his imagination and as a result, we have bits and pieces of ephemera from the time and any mention of it prompted “I was there you know!”
I’m glad to say that, when we returned to the ship, the Union Flag was flying the correct way up and all was well. We had a great day and looked forward to a lovely evening with friends in what we consider to be a rather more comfortable nineteenth hole.
