Starting off Scotland in St. Andrews

As you near and cross the Scottish border, it just feels different. The sky is bigger where blue clashes with white and a myriad of shades of grey as the clouds refuse to go quietly. The hills are more rugged as golds and greens on the fields mesh like the tartans of the clans who used to stride these hills. The fields seem more unkept, with tall and wild grasses. The wildflowers seem, somehow, wilder. The rock walls less hewn and delicately shaped. Purple heather and clover and thistle dot the roadsides and sprinkles of them highlight the hills as they ascend off to the distance. The weather here comes from all directions, never straight down, and shifts its moods impetuously and temperamentally. And as a dark cloud clears and washes away the rain, the sunlight streams through and your inner Robert Burns screams to be let out and unleashed on his pen.

We began a trip of more than a month in the Scottish hills, highlands, islands and cities in the birthplace of golf: St Andrews. We arrived, on a Sunday, in time to walk the course, which is permitted on the sabbath, when no golf is played. We were, seemingly appropriately, caught in a rain shower which turned harder before disappearing leading us to cancel a later dinner reservation and to eat, instead, under the shelter of the tent on the patio of the Jigger Inn, which sounded, from the voices around us, a lot more like St. Louis or St. Pete than St. Andrews (but I suspect that’s not unusual), overlooking the 17th green and 18th fairway.

Best laid plans #1: Golf. Nine months ago, when we booked our accommodations here, I tried to book a tee time at the Old Course. I would have thought, and did think, that would be enough lead time. It was not. I could have joined the 48-hour-in-advance lottery or camped out overnight at the pro shop for a chance at a day-of tee time, but I’d honestly rather experience the memory of playing St. Andrews with golf buddies than with some dudes from Texas or Beijing I don’t even know, nothing against them. So, if you’re reading, you know who you are. Let me know when you’re ready to make the trip to the home of golf.

Best laid plans#2: The Puffins. Our second foray into best laid plans was our planned visit to see the puffins on the Isle of May. We used Anstruther Pleasure Cruises for our trip to the island, a carefully preserved island teaming with seabirds and seals. I’d read that in mid-August it was possible to see the puffins, so we booked the cruise. It was not to be, while we did see a stray puffling (baby puffin) or two floating in the water or darting by in the sky at lightning speed, the hills filled with puffins we’d been dreaming of for literally ten years had left for Iceland two weeks ago. Interesting fact: the pufflings are actually left behind for four years, floating in the waters, living in isolation until they are big enough and old enough to make the journey. Now that’s a tiger mom for you. If you do go, we’d strongly recommend the company we used, very professional with loads of information if you can parse it through deep Scottish accents. It’s not a large craft and can be choppy, so if you’re inclined to motion sickness like the woman on our cruise from South Carolina who asked for a bag as we unmoored from the dock, don’t go.

Note: the bird floating on the water in the image below the cartoon puffins is a puffling.

We spent the balance of our time just wandering around the streets and taking in the hubbub of St. Andrews. We visited the British Golf Museum (aka the Royal and Ancient World Museum of Golf) which frankly wasn’t really worth the £15 admission fee and grabbed a lunch of fish and chips (our first in over a month in the UK believe it or not) from the Tail End and enjoyed our well located and equipped spacious Airbnb.

While Melissa worked one night, I took to the streets to experiment with night photography on my new-ish iPhone. I got some fun pics which I’ve shared below including a few of the carnival rides from St. Andrews’ version of the summer carnivals we’ve seen all across the seaside towns of the UK this summer.