Good morning from Pittenweem, where your humble blogger has set up shop at the end of our kitchen table, gazing out at the Firth of Forth, which this morning features substantial whitecaps. More on that in a bit....
The name, unsurprisingly, derives from Gaelic:
The name derives from Pictish and Scottish Gaelic. "Pit-" represents Pictish pett 'place, portion of land', and "-enweem" is Gaelic na h-Uaimh, 'of the Caves' in Gaelic, so "The Place of the Caves", named after St Fillan's cave.
That St. Fillan's is an odd looking thing that we walked by yesterday, with not much to see. Though admittedly this makes it sound more substantive:
This chamber is St Fillan’s Cave, a natural cavern probably carved by an underground river thousands of years ago. The miracle-working Saint Fillan is believed to have lived in the cave in the 7th century, reading and writing in the gloom with the help of a luminous left arm. Inside, you can visit the stone altar, explore a dead-end passage and see the steep steps creating a former entrance to the cave from above. The cave is still a minor pilgrimage site, with Christian services occasionally held under the rock roof.
This is the entrance:
And one from inside (to be clear, these are photos I've grabbed off the Internet):
Perhaps worth another peek inside....
It was a day planned for settling in, making the rounds of our favorite markets and reacquainting ourselves with The Weem. Probably just as well that we hadn't planned on playing, as it was quite the gamut of weather conditions. More on that in a bit, perhaps.
As an organizing principle, we wanted to catch the Bowhouse Markey Day at the opening of 10:00. Don't know much about the buildings, which were part of the Balcaskie Estate, which of course means nothing to us. But it features wonderful stone buildings and a delightful courtyard enclosed on three sides for wind protection:
Alas, in another bit of bad travel tradecraft, this is what we were expecting:
Yet this is what we found upon entering the main hall:
Turns out that those market weekends are only on the second week of each calendar month, which we will unfortunately miss. Avoiding the Pittenweem Arts Festival is great, but comes with a cost....
They were still installing the show, which featuring four artists, which for us was just perfect. And, unusually, we even liked the work:
We are very excited to be once again hosting the Space To Breathe Art Exhibition and Festival at Bowhouse. This three-week-long exhibition will showcase incredible phototrophy and artwork from renowned artists like Andy Goldsworthy, Susan Derges, Harry Cory Wright, and Alexander Lindsay Photography.
Some samples:
Theresa knew of Andy Goldsworthy's work, and we spent quite a bit of time speaking with Alex Lindsay:
Alex's own website has some even better phots of the installation at the Bowhouse:
Quite unexpected, but travel is like a box of chocolate....
We did hit the butchery, though even there there was an oddity, as they had little beef on offer, despite huge racks on display. Something about the five-day curing period that didn't make much sense, though our pork loin proved pretty tasty.
While the weather cooperated, we took our first walk over to the tidal pool, which wasn't doing much business:
When Theresa went for her morning swims last year, there were quite a few hearty souls, though disproportionately distaff. Later in the day we met an older couple, the wife being a Pittenweem native. Apparently, the Pittenweem fishing industrial complex was dominated by the Bowman and Hughes clans, and the wife was related to both. Sounds like the Montagues and the Capulets, though we didn't pry further.
We were over there:
I got it slightly wrong in a prior post, as that structure on top of the hill is public restrooms, the shelter being to the left. There's an open area past there which currently has a smallish playground, and she told us it used to have a grand pavilion covering most of it, which blew away in the Gale of '68. OK, I'm easily amused, but how hard must the wind blow for it to be memorialized thusly?
Gale damage was extensive in central Scotland, and Glasgow was particularly badly hit with gusts exceeding 90 knots in many places. Also 250,000 houses were damaged in Scotland, leaving more than 2,000 people homeless. 20 people died across central Scotland, 9 in Glasgow alone.
One aspect of the tidal pool that amuses us is how folks change out of their bathing costumes after swimming. Some bare all, though the more interesting folks have a delightful choreography of using towels to cover their costume changing, much of which is here:
Apparently there used to be a series of ten or more changing rooms, the ladies being here and the gents on the other side of the pool. Not sure if those were a victim of the '68 storm, or just fell into disrepair.
We were outside as allowed by the rapidly changing weather, enjoying the coastal path:
Several bits of rain blew through, though we were rewarded for that with the rainbow that wouldn't leave:
We did catch the ladies Wimbledon final, but when there was a window between storms I ventured up to our small sitting area off the upstairs bedrooms, drying off the chairs and table:
That's easily my favorite spot in the house, the issue being how much use we'll get out of it with Scottish weather being so....well, Scottish. Of course, I had no sooner settled myself here when it began to drizzle. But I was quite content to sit through it, and when the sun occasionally broke through it became surprisingly hot and muggy.
The plan was to grill and cook, the former of which went reasonably well, the latter was a struggle:
The fire starters were courtesy of John, the "coal" purchase by an engaging vendor at the Ardross Farm Shop in Elie, there being a long story about saving trees in Perth or some such thing. But ignition was achieved:
Best of all, it didn't resume raining until everything was off the grill.
Even better, the rainbow endured until our after-dinner walk:
On our walk home, low tide allowed an infrequent stroll on the beach, although no sea glass was found:
Today the golf resumes, although it'll be wild. The wind is howling, as evidenced by those whitecaps on the Firth. The BBC speaks of strong winds and rain, whereas the Met Office is raising our hopes with their false optimism. Their chances of rain are capped at 10%, though they quantify the wind at mid-20'a mph, gusting into the mid-30's. I do believe that's enough to affect the flight of a golf ball, though we'll be testing that hypothesis.
We're on the Craighead today, and we'll have more on that tomorrow I suspect.
See you then.
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