Travels with a Flat Hat

In between raindrops, high winds, shopping and visiting new towns, we managed to complete The Fife Pilgrim's way this week. Actually, we were pretty lucky with the weather as each week we planned the hikes around the best weather guesses and they mostly were accurate. The primary school behind our house will start up again tomorrow (August 18, 2023) which according to the locals, should signal the summer is about over. Mother Nature must have gotten stuck on April 1 and decided to play April fools jokes on us all here in Scotland because as far as I can tell, it never got started.   Our friends have all been making the same comment as how unusual it has been this year.  I’m not complaining. I like cooler weather as do the Flowers, trees and weeds. It’s been green, breezy/gusty and Wet. Temperatures have  ranged from   55 to 72 degrees, and humidity remained between 65 to 99 percent. There have been exciting winds with strong gusts but none of the promised seve...

 ​​Spring is Sprung , Stays the Sun Hello again. I am finally sitting down to add more life highlights to my blog. Seriously though, things just kept me from planting myself in front of the computer screen to be creative enough to describe our outings. We have been having loads of fun intermixed with the normal end of winter dreariness  So here goes.  In many ways living here in Scotland is comparable to living in New England. Of course there are many differences too. Most of them are obvious, the weather is much milder here, so snow is rare and does not last long on the ground. It does make up for that occasionally with serious winds and lots of rain. As a result there are copious rainbows and  the ground, fences and houses stay green most of the year. Things can also change rather quickly from one extreme to the other. Even now in springtime we are confused about what to expect, no matter what the weather wizards predict. Susi and I do many activities on foot. The ...

  Puffin, Hiking and Rough Waters in Anstruther Our explorations around Scotland have been exciting and wondrous but the latest was much more than that. It was the fulfilment of a life long dream for Susi.   I don’t know how many times she talked about seeing puffins with a dreamy longing expression on her face. We booked the boat tour far in advance since it is an extremely popular destination for tourists. The boat (Isle of May) holds around 50 passengers and the slots fill up in a flash. As our time got closer, the weather forecast got more foreboding with a promise of a high chance for 34 mph winds which could force a cancellation. I am not sure what the wind speed was when we got the go ahead, but they were quite fierce. The waves in the harbour were fairly calm, but as we went through the walls for the hour plus trip out to the island the boat was rocking and rolling like a wild carnival ride. Many of the passengers were screaming when we crashed through some of the bi...

This Ewe just wanted to be petted, so we did. Susi and I have been trying to do at least one day each week to take a long hike or a tour of an interesting town or city.  Ofttimes our plans are all for naught due to the lack of cooperation from the weather man. Yesterday when we saw that the our forecast had changed from steady rain and wind to dry, relatively mild and overcast skies, we saw an opportunity to take advantage of the dry weather to do something outside. After discussing the situation and overcoming our lazy alter ego's desire to cocoon with a good book, we adopted a plan to hike locally.   Springing into action, we hurriedly packed our back packs, put on our hiking boots,  caught the bus to Kinross, got a cup of coffee at our favourite cafe and took a bird watching hike up to the RSBC (Royal Society of Bird Conservation) visitor center and back. By the time we were done, we had covered 13 miles and sited many birds, four of them new to our list. ...

Big Tree and Victorian Hotel   Susi and I decided to explore the little town of Dunkeld which was the Capital of the newly formed Scottish Nation in the 9th century when the first King of Scots, Kenneth MacAlpin made it head of the Celtic Church. Okay, the real reasons we decided to go there was that it was close, pretty, had some good hikes and a reasonably price hotel for an overnight stay.  I thought it would be fun to take the train from Perth there as I really like trains. Unfortunately, the connection from the bus station to the train station was tight and due to an uncooperative ticket machine and a labyrinth of halls and bridges to get to the correct platform we arrived  just as the doors were closing and the train was leaving. So we were out the price of the tickets and had to trek to a bus station in the middle of town to use our free senior bus cards to travel to Dunkeld. It wasn’t all that bad though as we took a very scenic route through valleys and hills to ...

Hey! What happened to the Blog? At least that is what I am hoping viewers might have been thinking since it has been months since I finally took the time to write another instalment. If that wasn’t on your mind, don’t tell me as my delicate ego just couldn’t take it :)  Seriously, this time of the year with the grey windy rainy unfulfilled promises of snow days, it is hard to be in the mood to sit down and write something. Although, we did have fun and do enjoy being able to cocoon in the first house we have lived in since we retired almost nine years ago. Starting with the obvious, yes, the weather was high on our agenda. It seems that have been in a cycle of high winds, driving rain, a bracket of low temperatures and muted auroras. The plants love all the attention they are getting with profuse moisture, followed by periods of sun as well as being stirred up with the fresh winds. The range of temperatures have generally been in the 35 to 45 degree range, but nights sometimes dipp...