Wouldja Be My Neighbor

Yesterday was a lazy day here in the East Neuk, exactly what we both required.  The travel catches up with you at some point, and yesterday was that point.  But this trip has yielded an unexpected benefit, as we've had an opportunity to meet our neighbors.

I included this picture a couple of posts back:

Eider House, where we live, is the brown stone building on the right.  The white house attached on its left is Herring House, also available for rent.  In fact, we've rented Herring House, we just never occupied it, because that was 2020 and we were all under house arrest.

A day or so after we arrived we noticed activity next door, and had an opportunity to introduce ourselves to Susan and Richard, who we had assumed to be visors, but but in fact are the owners of Herring House.  I told them of our 2020 near miss, and yesterday Richard gave us a lovely little tour of the house.

In addition to a lovely house in a special neuk of the East Neuk, they have this spectacular outdoor space:

Everything up to that wooden fence is theirs, and it's quite special, at least on those two days a year it's not blowing a gale.  

Yesterday, en route to fetching a coffee for Theresa, I passed Richard, and the subject of golf arose.  "Have you played the Balcomie?" he enquired, and it just so happens that I have.  He's a member of Crail as well, and we spoke briefly of Crail, as well as the other links in the area.  Additionally, he told me that our house has a golf connection.  Specifically, for the 2022 Open Championship at the Old Couse, Matthew Fitzpatrick had stayed in Eider House.  GMTA.  Paul Lawrie had rented their house that week, so I expect all were quite comfortable.

The path on the left side is public, either part of or feeding into West Wynde, our pathway up to the High Street and our favorite bakery.  The wall to the left we'll get to in a second, but above Richard and Susan's space, is this little plot, which is ours for the week:

Up those stairs are where you've seen us dining al fresco, which we did again last evening.  I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon sacked out on the sunny knoll:

It's a curious little alcove in which our house sits, this being the view from our kitchen:

Yes, I spent some time sacked out there as well, it was very much that kind of day.  That's the famous/infamous House on the Rock, but between our property and that is the Fife Coastal Path, so the world does wander by, which we quite enjoy.

We also met another neighbor, though this was more Theresa renewing a brief acquaintance from 2022.  That white wall is the first house on the Fife Coastal Path, a delightful spot with almost perfect views of the Firth.  Lorraine told us of the damage in their winter storm, and that she had some dramatic videos of the storm that her son had taken.  She told us she would be out back working on her furniture, and that we should just stop in if we wanted to see them.

I had actually blogged this storm damage before our trip, linking this description and posting this photo:

We might have inadvertently interrupted Lorraine's cuppa, but she invited us in and not only showed us the photos and videos, but was kind enough to take the time to send them to me to share with you:

That's three-year old Frankie surveilling the damage after the storm.

The videos are quite stunning:

And this:

The sea, she was angry that day!  Just very grateful to Lorraine for sharing these, and enjoying our friendly neighborhood.

I'll just leave you with some photos of our after-dinner stroll to the tidal pool:

And this of the evening sky from our aerie:

Earlier in the day, I had noticed this up on the High Street:

I actually didn't know we were Royal..... 

We're off to the Balcomie today.  Another beautiful day in the East Neuk, though a bit cooler.  

Crail Golfing Society - Microblogging Edition

As presaged pre-departure, my challenge this trip is to find something of interest to blog.  You'll be the judge of how that pans out, but it likely will include less blogging and more photos, although I've been taking far fewer of those.

Since I checked in Sunday morning, we've played the Balcomie on Sunday and the Craighead on Monday.  As always, the ceremonial opening drives are memorialized:

Astute observes will immediately focus on the bare legs, we have again been blessed with that which Employee No. 2 calls Scott Simpson weather.  Of course, one doesn't get cocky on this subject, it can turn on a dime.

For those unfamiliar with this venue, the Crail Golfing Society dates back to 1786, and is the seventh oldest golf club in the world:

Good gentlemen seems redundant, but whatev....

That building visible in the shot of Theresa has a wee bit of history as well:

Lifeboat Shed

Still standing proudly today at the back of the 14th green and casting a shadow over the 2nd tee box of the Balcomie Links is a unique stone building. This was the Crail Lifeboat House that operated between 1884 to 1923.

We love the Balcomie, though it does present some challenges, not least being pace of play.  I call it the Old Course Mini-me, because it shares some genetic material with that moat famous of links, most notable one double green.  This is a helpful warning sign on the second tee:

It's even crazier than depicted, because to the left of the 11th fairway is the 9th, though that's a bit out of range from the second tee.  We did well with tee times this year, most being around 10:00, the first member times each day.  That means that, not only will there be lots of targets in these fairways, but they'll be visitors who likely have little clue where they're going (excepting those with caddies).  It's quite crazy, but in an amusing manner.  But you can see how difficult it is to et folks around, and then factor in the short Par-4's such as the seventh, where the green is blind and one needs to wait until the group ahead reaches the 8th tee.

Whatever the Balcomie's shortcomings, they certainly don't include a shortage of eye candy:

This is from the elevated seventh tee:

Those folks are on the Fife Coastal Path:

Linking the Forth and Tay Estuaries, the Fife Coastal Path runs for over 183km though the varied landscapes of Fife. The route links some of Scotland's most picturesque former fishing villages as well as the home of golf - St Andrews with its ancient University. In between are miles of golden beaches, attractive woods and nature reserves but the route also threads its way through industrial towns such as Kirkcaldy and Leven. History is everywhere, from the winding gear of the former coalyards to ruined castles and the pictish and prehistoric carvings in the Wemyss caves.

A map of the route can be found at that link, and their top photo is amusingly of our beloved Pittenweem, a shot you've seen several hundred times in the last three years.  But golf here often includes sharing the land with the public, which is largely quite a nice thing.  

The golf itself was modestly interesting, though I might be setting the bar a bit low here.  Theresa hit the ball beautifully all day, though her husband had a more mixed day.  I lost three balls, quite unusual on the Balcomie and a troubling trend line in terms of supply adequacy.  However, I did have two eagle putts, my typical metric for fun (three being my personal best).  Don't be overly impressed, as the first came from driving the 7th green, a mere 273-yards from the yellow members' tees I played (but substantially downhill).  Damn near made the eagle putt, but fortunately made the six-footer coming back for the bird.  The second eagle putt came on Par-5 11th, which is 427-yards and benefits from the prevailing winds, though I suspect I'll move to the back (white) tees tomorrow, which stretches the course to a massive 5,861 yards.

I had mentioned that our nephew was to visit, and he arrived and settled himself while we played.  Ryan is a street musician these days, you'll find him busking on the streets of Vienna.  He comes for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, playing a late-night set at a bar there (far too late and far for his Uncle and Aunt to attend).  We made a quick visit to the tidal pool:

You'll let me know when you tire of photos of the tidal pool.

A beautiful Scottish day (oxymoron alert) has us dining al fresco:

We don't let those opportunities pass, because they're few and far between.

On Monday we played the Craighead, and Ryan joined us for the walk.  The camera didn't make too many appearances, though I did capture the bride's escape from a nasty bunker twenty yards short of the Par-3 fifth green:

Ryan though he was just there for a walk, but Theresa started handing him her driver to give our ancient game a go, with amusing results such as this from the Par-3 seventh:

This is one I really should spend some time figuring out to crop, to ensure you can pick up the golf ball.  This, kids, is why in buying a home on a golf course, we avoid the right side of the hole.

Now, lest you think I'm being cruel, a couple of caveats:

1. Ryan is not a golfer and this was his first time on an actual golf course, plus:
2. Were Ryan to be a golfer, he would be a left-handed one.

You see the degree of difficulty, and he actually squared up the club face on a later attempt.  So we're not giving up on him and I think he was intrigued by the game a bit.

The only golf I'll bore you with is my two-hole yin-yang sequence at Nos. 13 and 14.  No. 13 is a modest Par-3 that looks quite benign in the Course Guide:

That warning is quite appropriate, as the prevailing wind is right-to-left, which is quite a bad fit with the draw spin.  The last few times through I've been unable to keep my ball out of the Firth of Forth, yesterday being no exception.  I'll try to get a better photo, but far right of the image above is the ball washer for the 14th tee, and I've long joked that that should be my start line.  I may have to Billy Casper it, and lay up with a sand wedge.

Perhaps this cropped image will help:

First, note the ball washer.  But secondly, easy enough to think one should align further right, but notice where you'd be aimed.  I think seriously need to aim at the grassy knoll, but with two less clubs than needed to reach the green.  But that could well leave me with the most dreaded shot in Scotland, the soft pitch from a tight lie over a cavernous bunker....  Really, what could go wrong?

But I made my first par ever on the daunting No. 14, which I call the Florida Hole:

The direct line to the pin from a well-placed drive shows a forced carry to the green and, unless you're especially long off the tee, probably would be a shot that wouldn't hold the green in any event.  I think their guidance is slightly off, in that the aim point on the second is not the green at all, but the approach that kicks all balls left.  I pulled off both shots perfectly, leaving myself a long, downhill putt from the fringe, but to me that's as well as one can do.

We put Ryan on a bus to Edinburgh after an early dinner, and today is an off today of marketing and relaxation.  As I've just been reminded, it is time to get on with our day, so we'll catch up down the road.

Golf In The Kingdom - Fife Edition

What do we get when an idyllic Scottish vacation is combined with a lazy blogger?  Not much, it so happens, at least on these pages....

Friday presented as a warmish, mostly dry day, and we collectively decided to to head North To The Links of Dornoch, )with apologies to Herbert Warren Wind), for a walkabout and a mini-picnic.  But, en route, we caught sight of the first hay bales of the trip:

In case you were wondering, we will revisit all of your humble bloggers obsessions.  We've now in Pittenweem, having driven down from the Strath yesterday, and on the drive we saw a wide array of bales of hay, including some that were rectangular.  You can therefore expect a disquisition on the virtues of those rectangular bales as compared to these more elegant and visually pleasing cylindrical examples.

We took a quick look at the Skibo Castle course, one that Theresa and I had tried unsuccessfully to grab a look at many years ago:

Those were the only players visible on the course, but Skibo is that kind of posh place that one imagines doesn't get much play.

Ostensible, our purpose was to see the new clubhouse being constructed by Royal Dornoch:

That's the old structure to the right that provides the relative scale.  And while clubs have been known invest excessively in their clubhouses, it would be hard to think of an example where more space was so obviously needed (and where the resources are adequate).

Dornoch's problems might be of a higher class than our own clubs, but they still exist.  This new facility is essentially shortening the first hole of the Struie Course, RDGC's members course.  That may not be quite the accurate characterization, because one is required to accept a period of membership in the Struie before ascending to membership in their Championship Course.  The problem, shocking in these post-Covid times, is that nobody is resigning, so that Struie members are being admitted to the Championship Course in a trickle.  I had contacted RDGC about the possibility of an Overseas Membership, and received this e-mail in June from the club:

Dear Prospective Member,

At the Council of Management meeting held on Monday 3rd June it was decided that applications for Struie Course membership would remain closed.

There were only 10 offers of upgrade from Struie to Full membership approved this year and with 564 Struie members still waiting for the upgrade it was deemed that there was no space to accept any new Struie members this year as the prospects of being upgraded are well into the future.

We are sorry not to have better news but with member retention so high, movement is very slow.

I can't see where there's a problem.  At ten per year, it'll only take 56 years to clear the backlog, and one assumes that all will be content with that timing...

We made our way down to the beach, where the tide was out

Dornoch is private property, but there is a pedestrian right of way that allows you to cut in from the beach to a pathway along the inward nine.

That path had a dangerous section we'll just call gorse alley:

Keep those arms close to your body....

Then this image cause my PTSD to kick in:

That grassy knoll in the center of the frame is above a bunker strategically placed to grab your second shot on the Par-5 12th, and is the spot where I ripped an inch of skin off the index finger of my right hand back in 2022, extricating my ball from a dep lie.  The shot came of well, unfortunately so did my skin.

And this from the back of the second green:

Hard to see where Donald Ross got the idea for push-up greens, eh?

Theresa and I always love to pay homage to Stuart Shaw, a lovely man who caddies for her on our first visit.  The Carnegie Shield is the major amateur event at Dornoch, and (as pointed out by my caddie that day), Stuart won two of them 23 years apart (you can see his name at the bottom on the left as well).

A quick walk to the tidal swimming pool last evening:

 

It was here last summer....

That stone house in the center is us, those three gabled windows being our aerie bedroom.

This is the sky through our bedroom window as we turned in last night:

Off to Crail this morning for our first go at the Balcomie.  Our nephew, who performs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is on his way up for a short visit as well.  More later.

A Strathpeffer Welcome

I am pleased to report that Employee No. 2 and I have made it safely to the Strath, and the characteristic warm welcome from Elsie and John.  Delta Airlines was kind enough to prevent their blue screens of death from hindering our journey, and we were able to arrange for Stuart, our driver from last summer, to ferry us North, avoiding the long drive after a sleep-deprived night.  

The drive North to Inverness up the A9 is beautiful, yet a tad harrowing.  Despite planning to expand it to a dual carriageway, it's one lane for most of the way, and that one lane will be shared with cyclists.  We had very light traffic, so the journey passed quite quickly.

Our arrival day BBQ was delightful.  I didn't get a useable photo of the Grillmaster, but this from last year will suffice:

One of my favorite bits of our BBQ's here, is the living room window that functions as a serving hutch:

Of course there was Banoffee Pie:

Apparently I'm not the only one that feels this way about Banoffee:

What does banoffee pie taste like?

Banoffee pie has gooey toffee, banana, and crunchy graham crackers in every bite. It's an incredibly rich and delicious dessert, so a little goes a long way, but anyone who tries it loves it! This traditional banoffee pie recipe features a buttery graham cracker crust, rich dulce de leche, and homemade whipped cream.

Elsie actually uses McVitties Digestives for the crust, but we'd come to Scotland just for the Banoffee.... Or at least I would.  Amusingly, in finding that 2023 picture of John at the grill, I found this of the 2023 Banoffee:

As Mark Twain famously noted, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme.

Lots of nature to be seen from their home's elevation location.  After dinner we sat outside for a bit, staring up at the House Martins:

And a visit from a red squirrel:

John had explained to us that their red squirrel population had been decimated by bringing the larger, American Gray Squirrel to the U.K., although there is tendency to blame the colonists for all their ills.  This was amusing to us, because we had just watched those American Gray Squirrels destroy our sunflowers at home:

It looked like downtown Beirut by the time they finished.... 

We did play some golf on Thursday, at an unexpected venue, Strathpeffer Spa Golf Club, where they've been playing golf since 1888.  This was quite atypical for us, inland golf and and in buggies (carts) to boot.  The course tops out at 5,001 yards and features seven Par-3's for the men Par is 65-67 for men, 68 for the ladies), but the elevation changes are so severe that you'll feel it was more like 8,000 yards, especially if you walk.  

Here's how they describe their opening hole:

Tee Off

The fun begins right from the opening hole, which features the longest drop from tee to green of any course in Scotland. Club choice is a dilemma at this dramatic driving hole, with its burn and small green with a tricky out-of-bounds on the right.

I took some photos, but they didn't come out great:

The camera simply can't capture the severity of the elevation changes adequately, but there's a reason we were in buggies.  

But perhaps the most fun is with the attribution of the design of the golf course.  here's the presentation as per the club's website:

Legends

The course layout itself owes its provenance to golfing legends too – originally designed for the club’s founding in 1888 with nine holes by twice Open Championship winner Willie Park (Jnr), and in the early 1900s extended by Tom Morris, “the Grand old man of Golf” to 18 interesting holes.

But it's all far more speculative, as per this exhaustive history of the village:

There is a crude map of the original nine hole layout, which opened in 1888.  But the attribution to Willie Park doesn't appear in the records until 1909, and that attribution omits any distinction between Willie Park, Sr. and Willie Park, Jr.  (the former won four Opens, including the inaugural version, and the son won two, but had the more extensive design credentials, including the Old Course at Sunningdale and Maidstone .on Long Island).

Mr. Scott cites the contemporaneous accounts, then provides context.  In this case, the attribution to one of the Parks, he speculates, might rest on the fact that a Mr. and Mrs. Park of Musselburgh stayed at the Ben Wyvis Hotel in July 1887 and attended a concert at the Spa Pavilion on July 23rd.  Hey, it could have happened that way....

The Old Tom Morris attribution might be more of the same.  He's not listed in the index, though John found him mentioned as in attendance at the opening of the 18-hole course, though I've not found that reference myself.  Old Tom designed so many courses, including Tain nearby, and would take off at the drop of a tam if there was good fishing nearby, so this just falls into that category of bits that are too good to risk by fact checking.

But my favorite part of the history is that the contemporaneous accounts indicate that the course will be the finest in the North of Scotland, with the following limiting principal:

...omitting Dornoch from the comparison, for the golf links of that town are not equaled in Scotland except by St. Andrews."

That's from 1888, when presumably Dornoch was still open for new Overseas Memberships. 

We had a delightful outing, at least until it started to rain.  The way it rolled in felt like a proper Haar:

The term haar is used along certain lands bordering the North Sea, primarily eastern Scotland and the north-east of England. Variants of the term in Scots and northern English include har, hare, harl, harr and hoar. Its origin is related to Middle Dutch haren, referring to a cold, sharp wind.

Though this came in from the West, so not technically not a Haar.  Blame it on the Irish, no?

A lovely dinner at Coul House, the ancestral home of the Mackenzie's dating back to 1560.  We've been there previously for coffee and shortbread, but this was our first proper meal there.  All so wonderful that when we got home I had no room for leftover Banoffee.  That awaits this evening...

As I write this Friday morning, the sun is shining brightly and the forecast is for a fine day.  Our plans are in the formative stages, though we may go up to Dornoch to see the construction of their new clubhouse and walk along their beach.  Tomorrow we depart for Pittenweem, and Sunday is our first day of golf at Crail.  Our first Old Course Daily Ballot entry will be submitted this afternoon, for play Monday, so wish us luck there.

We'll catch up further down the road.