March 28, 2017. Checking out villages on Fife's North Sea Coast

LOCATION:  Housesitting outside of Cupar, Fife, Scotland

WEATHER:  We lost our sunshine.  Cloudy.  Much cooler.  Highs in 40s

We drove back to the North Sea coast, about 5 miles, to explore some more fishing villages.  The first village we went to has a fish & chips shop that has won "best in the UK" for several years.  We split a haddock basket.  We are trying to figure out the difference between breaded, crumbed and battered.  Anyone know?  George got some "mushy peas" on the side.  They tasted like baby food to me.    

We walked along the waterfront, and stopped at a pub to warm up (and of course to have a pint)

It was very quaint, with just a few retired fishermen having a pint.

The harbour is very picturesque.  Just a little fishing these days.

From Anstruther, we drove about 3 miles to the next fishing village called Crail.  It is one of the oldest along the coast.  It, too, is very quaint.  We stopped at this tea shop for a coffee.  It used to be a fisherman's cottage.

On our way home, we stopped at "Scotland's Best Kept Secret" --- a huge bunker built in the 1950s to house people in the event of a nuclear war.  It was really eery.  Defense personnel lived and worked there for about 5 years, tracking Soviet missiles.  

 

 

I picked up some tourist brochures and was reading through them when I spotted some amazingly terrible spelling/punctuation.  I've noticed that writers tend to leave off apostrophes quite a bit here.  This brochure (about the Queen's holiday castle no less) reads....."This is one of the countries most important habitats......".  AARGH!    Should be "the country's most important habitats! Don't these publishers have proofreaders? ! ?!

Then, in the evening, Bill Bryson, one of my favorite authors, wrote about the same thing... the appalling grammar and punctuation of these pamphlets. Quite a coincidence.  I'm reading his book "Notes from a Small Island", a book about his travels around Great Britain about 40 years ago.

 

DINNER:  Leftover mushroom sauce served over sautéed polenta slices.