Night Cole 🛏 (Patreon)

😂 Poor Cole’s having a bit of an uncomfortable night... I’ll have to start being nicer to him in Phase 2 😜

I might not be going through quite the same emotional turmoil as our blonde bombshell, but this pic still reflects my night... Yesterday we went for a long walk along the Fife coast - an absolutely beautiful landscape that I took absolutely no pictures of (silly RanliLabz). 

We started on the nearest beach, hopping between the jutting rocks and shallow rockpools until we found ourself on a second stretch of small round pebbles. Those grew in size until we were sliding around a field of fist sized, peach coloured boulders... which themselves abruptly stopped to become a fine, gritty sand. Just when I thought Fife had no more variants of beach to offer us, we stepped onto a gorgeous expanse of intact, bone white shells that left me feeling a bit guilty for walking over. 🐚 

As the beach petered out into sea, we climbed some very steep stairs some ancient fishermen or shepherds must have carefully cut into the rocks. Those took us to the top of the low cliffs, and their panoramic view of the North Sea - iron grey and a little rough, an island rising from the mist-topped waves and the tiny blinking lights of oil-rigs far out to sea. It was drizzling a little by then, but the fine spray was pleasantly cool and refreshing after a long walk, and our destination was only a couple of klicks along the sea front... the even smaller town of Crail.

A pit stop in Crail for some urgently needed caffeine in a friendly little pub, and we began the return. This time we went inland - for I never retrace the same route twice! The landscape is relatively flat for Scotland, though you can still see the hills begin to rise in the distance - a foretelling of the mountains lying far to the north. The fields are the deep, mossy green of a rainy land - fertile meadows for the clumps of sheep that brave the drizzle to chew cud and stare curiously at passing walkers. The occasional farmstead rises and falls - low roofed and whitewashed,  surrounded by the messy outbuildings and equipment of a working farm.

Most of the way back is simple - footpaths through the fields or wide grass verges. Only occasionally are we forced to walk on the narrow, hairpin-bend country roads... praying that the next driver to round the corner didn’t have an extra whisky with breakfast 🥃  As we return to our temporary home in Cellardyke, google helpfully tells us the entIre trip was only 10k.... Alarmingly unfit from 6 months of lockdown, I’d imagined double that! When my marathon-running companion suggests pressing on in the other direction, I gasp in winded horror before mumbling something about needing to send some messages, best to get back. They are kind enough not to press the issue 😊

Anyway, that was a very long-winded - but hopefully rather picturesque - way of saying that my feet hurt 😂 Another sleep pic tomorrow... I wonder which of the three remaining cadets will fit the mood!