Wednesday, 5 November 2014

First weeks of Fife Life

 
Well the first two weeks of our new life in Fife have been really busy. The day after we moved into our rented house was my birthday. I didn't have time to bake a cake like I usually do, so I bought a little one from the local Tesco's, it was really tasty too! One of my friends in Yorkshire sent me a bouquet of yellow roses for my birthday, I must admit it brought a tear to my eyes :-(


 
 
 


 My 4 cats (Poppy, Lizzie, Tilly and Chester) seem to have settled into life in Fife very well! Although they've had a few fights with the resident cat next door-Tilly and Chester both have war wounds on their noses from the encounters :-(
 
They seem to be spending a lot more time indoors than they would normally do, I'm hoping this will gradually change as they get used to the area. The youngest cat, Lizzie, has already caught her first mouse, she triumphantly brought it in to show us, then growled at us when we tried to prize the little creature from her jaws!! 

 

We had time to carve a little pumpkin for Halloween, my daughter did the carving while I made Pumpkin Soup. The pumpkin was a white skinned one, so beautiful to look at, that I almost decided to keep it whole as it was such a lovely shape. 




 We've also been trying to get to know the area a little bit. There are some beautiful beaches around this part of Fife. My daughter and I visited St Andrews one morning-there we are on the photo above, tiny little shadows against the sky, sea and sand. The architecture in St Andrews is just lovely, the stone work is creamy yellow and lots of buildings have turrets. The feeling of history there reminds me of my home town of Chester.
 
 
 
We visited a Farmers Market in St Andrews on Saturday morning with my husband and son, who was visiting. I got some vegetables and some gorgeous Crab Apple Jelly.
 
 



 
 
We visited the East Beach in St Andrews that day too. I'm just trying out my new camera, I got it for my birthday so I'm still getting used to it. I'm discovering a love of stonework, the pebbled pavement on this sea front was great with the moss growing in the cracks. We've been so lucky with the weather so far, these bright and breezy days are great for exploring.
 
 
 




 
 We also visited Elie and went on a short hike on part of the Fife Coastal Path. We climbed up the path to a disused bunker on the cliff top. It was really windy on the day we went there so it was a bit treacherous but the views of Elie were breath taking.  
 


 
 The sun was starting to set as we descended on to the beach after our short hike. I could look at this view all day!
 






 
On our second trip to Elie we parked in the town centre and walked to the beach closer to the town centre, which had been inaccessible on our first trip as the tide was in. This is a lovely beach too. We looked in rock pools and I took photos of more stone work on the beach, don't you just love the texture and colours of the stones!!
 
We also watched a murmuration of starlings over the church spire and then went for a hot chocolate to a great little cafĂ©/shop called The Harbour House. 
 
 
 
Our final trip of these 2 weeks was taken one evening as the sun was setting. These two photographs were taken from Anstruther looking towards North Berwick and were taken just 10 minutes apart-it's amazing how quickly the sky darkens!
 

 
So that has been our first 2 weeks in Fife. We are only just starting to find our way around really but I think it's safe to say that we are going to love living here in Fife!
 

Saturday, 1 November 2014

A New Beginning in Fife

Hi Everyone!

I've decided to write a blog about the new life my husband and I are starting in Fife. We meet 29 years ago when we were studying at Dundee University. After we graduated we hoped to stay in Scotland but unfortunately we couldn't find any jobs in the area so we moved down to England and found jobs in Yorkshire.

Marriage and two children followed but we always felt like we were foreigners in Yorkshire, it never quite felt like home to us. Every year we came back to Scotland on holiday and instantly felt at home. People in Scotland are so much more friendly than the dour Yorkshire people!!

So at the beginning of this year we decided to make the move back up to Scotland. Both our children were away at University and settled there so we decided this might be a good time to uproot and make the move.

We sold our house very quickly, but the purchase in Scotland of a traditional Scottish cottage proved to be a bit protracted so we decided to rent a property in Fife until the cottage was ready to be 'legally' ours.

We have now made the 300 mile move from Yorkshire to Scotland, along with our 4 cats. and are safely housed in a small house while we wait for the cottage to be ours!

In the mean time we can explore Fife and get to know the area a little better.

So if you'd like to learn more about our new life in Fife please follow me here on my new blog!