Pittenweem Perambulations

When last we spoke, Employee No. 2 and I were headed to the Bowhouse Farmers Market, located a few miles west of us on the A917 in St, Monanas.  We'd been tipped to it by a few folks, and for good reason.

The old stone building is suitably impressive, no less from the inside:

This was at their opening at 10:00 a.m.  By the time we had done our shopping, it was wall-to-wall Fifers.... Actually, not all locals, as our friendly next-door neighbors (the ones in the house we had rented in 2020),  did a Bowhouse drive-by on their way home, although we never actually found out where home is for them.

In light of a late tee time, we had decided to do breakfast for dinner, don't judge us, and a sourdough loaf (second from the right below) resulted in toast that brought conversation to a close:

Well, not all conversation, because the bride took a bite of her bacon and avocado sandwich on sourdough, and informed that I would be headed back to the Bowhouse for more Sunday morning.  Having sampled my sourdough toast, I had figured that bit out on my own.

If it swims, they'll smoke it, a very good thing indeed:

File this under the education of a blogger because, if asked to name something viler than haggis, I'd have been stumped.  

Of course, there was that international incident in Strathpeffer a few years back, in which a certain dish was presented as "Scottish Sausage".... Good times!

Do you actually know what haggis is?  This Wikipedia entry has some funny bits:

Haggis (Scottish Gaelic: taigeis) is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead.

Savory is a bit of a value judgement, no?  I had been reliably informed that one man's terrorist was another man's freedom fighter but, whatev.  But this was my favorite bit:

According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour".

At least we've found some common ground.  I'll just note that the process by which sheep's pluck morphs into a savory concoction escapes your humble blogger, which we'll add to that lengthy list of personal failings...

Lots goin on at Bowhouse:

Those outdoor family tables could actually get some use, sheltered from the wind as they are.  Unless, of course, it functions as a wind tunnel...

We then gassed up the car, which proved harder than expected.  It was an unmanned gas station, and it leads into another mini-rant, to wit, for as long as I've been coming to Scotland and Ireland, their payment technology has been superior and far easier than our own.  At present, they just tap their cards, whereas our Chase Sapphire card requires a signature.... 

We did get our fuel, thanks to a Morgan Stanley debit card that our Morgan Stanley advisor reminded me could be used to avoid ATM and FX fees.  Though I wasn't even sure that I had ever actually set up the PIN, it worked like a charm....  It takes a village to get Scott and Tessie around Scotland....

Some golf was played, if you'll allow for the loosest possible definition of that term.  As I had noted, Tessie was talking the smack and clearly wanted a piece of your humble blogger, and this greeted us on the first tee of the Craighead:

Who told them?

I don't actually know what kind of competition was out ahead of us, but pity them,  The Craighead features greens that are small with severe undulations, and these pins were in some truly harsh locations.  I paced off one that was exactly two yards from the edge and a typical run-off, and at times it felt like their season-ending Superintendent's "Revenge" tourney....

Amusingly, our decision to play one of our characteristic matches had the immediate effect of causing us to lose our games and our minds, though the actual order remains obscured even in hindsight.  I hit an exact replica of Friday's first-tee smother hook, and was relived not to find it in the nest of bunkers that protect the inside of the dogleg left.  Correction, I was temporarily relived, because the ball was nowhere to be found, notwithstanding there being nowhere for it to have gone.

The weather was the most interesting aspect to the day, ultimately providing a very happy ending.  But for our early holes there was quite the glare, rendering us quite blind.  I had my sunglasses on and off several times, neither seeming adequate to the task.  But the tracking of golf balls was impossible in that light, inconvenient on a day with wider--than usual shot dispersion.  That's some fancy words to convey that we both sucked....

Hubris, it so happens, is not just a river in Greece.  Your formerly humble blogger had been quite full of himself in reaching Par-5's on both the Balcomie and Craighead, which in these baked-out conditions isn't exactly a bridge too far.  On the Par-5 sixth, the Course Guide instructs the player to keep his shot short of a section of the wall, though this guy didn't fly seven hours for the purpose of laying up.  For the second consecutive day I successfully threaded my drive between said wall and two fairway bunkers on the right, taking dead aim at the very reachable green.  

I hit some kind of skanky shot off the toe of my hybrid, which went dead right until it was mercifully lost in the haze.  Disturbingly, the bride immediately followed me OB, and the  hole was halved with net double bogeys, which will suffice as a proxy for our day.  Oh, there were a couple of moments, such as the bride rattling the pin with her third on the Par-5 eighth, one that could have just as easily gone in for a natural eagle.  

I actually heard her ball strike the pin with my back turned, looking for an ugly snap hook of my own.  In case you're not keeping a scorecard, that's two reachable Par-5's on which I placed my drive perfectly, only to never find my second shot....  This was a particularly nasty snapper, and Theresa helpfully told me it had reached the "wispy" stuff, quite the delicate term for knee-deep hay that a reaper would struggle with.

The more interesting bit was the mid-round haar.  This was the seventh green as it hit:

A little later it took on an eerie quality, although it's a big ask to expect the camera to do it justice:

It had the appearance of smoke swirling, whipped hither and yon by the wind.  

Not that it lasted very long, as we were soon basking yet again in sunshine:

So, some golf was played, and a couple of good images were captured:

This might be the photo of the trip, at least in the golf action shot division:

The late day light didn't disappoint:

In view of the weather forecast, we played Saturday instead of Sunday which, based on early evidence, might have been a good call (although, based upon the quality of play, might be considered an abject failure).  But this is Pittenweem on Sunday morning:

There's authentic Scottish weather inbound, its' the magnitude that remains in doubt.

And it's off to Bowhouse we go, then the Coop.  Catch you further on down the road.