Unplayable Lies: Notes From Pittenweem

We've settled in, met the neighbors and have otherwise amused ourselves in our new community.

A Hand Update - The wound on my index finger/hand seems finally to be healing, though at a glacier-like pace. When i tested it with an 8-iron yesterday, the word "amputation" crossed the bride's lips, so I will not be playing today (Monday) or tomorrow. The next game thereafter is Thursday, upon which my eyes are set.

This also has an effect on our odds of getting on the Old Course, as we're foregoing Daily Ballot opportunities.

The House - A lovely thing just off the water:

Way more than we need, mostly, though it's hard to find any Goldilocks houses that are just right. And we might have a full house a week from tonight, but more on that later.

The house closest to the water is the House on the Rocks, which I've shown you previously. The white house closest to us is Herring House, which we had rented in 2020 but weren't able to use. Madam preferred this one, but our neighbors promises us a tour so that we could decide which we prefer for future visits.

Both houses come with outdoor seating areas of, well, limited use given the ever-present wind. This is technically the Herring House space, but can you guess the direction of the prevailing wind?

Pittenweem - The key bit for us is being virtually on the water, technically the Firth of Forth, and the Fife Coastal Path, a 117-mile path from the Firth of Forth in the south to the Firth of Tay in the north:

Yesterday we walked west from Pittenweem to St. Monans, the village in which we camped in 2019. At that time the tides were out:

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, there were lots of folks out walking, families and dogs included.

New to us were these swimming pools, because they were apparently under repair during our prior visits:

Outdoor? You're basically swimming in the North Sea so, yeah!

The signposts could use a refresh:

As we leave our abode and head to the sea, the harbor and village are to our left. We arrived at the height of the Pittenweem Arts Festival, poor travel tradecraft on the part of your humble blogger. I think we can agree that the marriage of raw physical beauty and bad modern art can be awkward:

Finding the house is slightly tricky, but was comical among the hordes of art lovers. We had to talk our way past a traffic cop, but we quickly discerned that the arts lovers spilling onto the narrow streets were unable to hear our Hertz hybrid coming... well, perhaps not all that quickly.

There were pop-up restaurants and coffee bars, though it took us a second to realize what was going on here:

The barista is operating from the boot of her car, and working very hard at that. This is what it looked like on our evening stroll:

To our right is an embankment with approximately 12-14 houses, with several outposts of the Arts Festival:

We assume that traffic will calm down this week, but just beyond these houses are a couple of benches that have become our go-to spot.

That Harbor - The last working fishing village in the East Neuk, we'll see what it feels like on a workday:

The Evening Light - There's a hint of it above, but the late-day light, specifically on our after dinner walks is magical:

A blogger at rest:

The embankment I mentioned above, in the gloaming:

The Dreel - Our go-to spot in the adjacent village of Anstruther survived the pandemic:

Amazingly, it's the favorite Scottish pub of one of my ski buddies in Utah.

As always, there's history involved:

I might have made an off-color remark about James V's wet hose back in 2019, but I'm far more mature these days.

The Co-Op - We've joined the Anstruther Food Cooperative, though there were a few items we're avoiding. While you might think I'm their target market, I'm more likely to try haggis than a Scottish bagel: