under another sun

Jade working. Sam also doing his two shifts. A slowish start for us in our Roger Street, Cellardyke. Went for a stroll around Cellardyke, passing a blue plaque for Peter Smith, known as Poetry Peter born in 1847. Eventually mooched up to Kilrenny to chat to Sam between shifts. I snuck in a sleep too, as I am still feeling drained from this heavy chest cold.  Also much exercised by a poetry dilemma. I entered two poetry MS into two competitions -- the same MS but under two different names. I find myself shortlisted in both competitions, and am now excruciated by the idea that they might both win and I would have to explain to one what I had done, and be expelled in ridicule from the poetry world, with too many penalties on my poetic licence and so on. I find out next week. Sod's law says it will be the same day.   Once Jade was done, we went outside a pub in the weak Scottish evening sunlight and drank some beer, then made off a few yards to the Anstruther Fish Bar. Here we had...

 To nearby Crail, to look at some rather good local pottery, with a courtyard full of pots, and a shop indoors too. We came away with two dishes. There is a combination of colours that I am beginning to think of as very characteristic of. Some of which I have seen in the tartan shop Lorraine and I took Sam to in Stirling some time ago: these are gold, amber and pale green, and deep blue and purple. Some of this palette reflected in the work there.  Then down to Crail harbour, where I mooched about taking some snaps. Got talking to a wee boy and his family fishing for crabs at the end of the pier. He proudly showed me one of them, which was a photo I liked lots. Mooched about in Crail for a bit, before we drove off to Cambo Gardens . Had a lovely walk down a wooded valley with a stream running to the sea threading through some golfers at one point just at the end before the beach. Jade and Sam found a big body of a marine creature washed up on shore, which we did not look at, b...

Slept pretty well, and wandered downstairs and out of Mog and Jerome's house and into Sam and Jade's home. A strong Sam style cup of coffee and toast and Lorraine's seedy breakfast and all was well. Jade drove us to St Andrews, where she works. She was a great tour guide today. We looked at the amazing building Jade works in, and the castle ruin, and along the coast for a couple of hundred metres to a small harbour, where people were fishing for crabs with ground lines. Looming behind us were the remains of a medieval castle, framing sections of the sky. Next food. Went to eat on the pavement outside a cafe, and as the day was warm and fine, and the whole thing felt unexpectedly mediterranean. I ate an unbelievably healthy salady vegan style dish. Afterwards Jade became guided us through town through academic courtyards of mowed lawns and centuries old buildings and into a wonderful bookshop, where I bought Alasdair Gray's  The Ends of Our Tethers, 13 sorry stories , an...