Tea & Tractors: Auchtermuchty and the Fife Show

One day, my friend Marissa and I decided to visit the village of Auchtermuchty.

(The [ch] is pronounced like "Och, aye," or "gezellig." For my non-Dutch friends, click here for a definition of the latter.)

Something you should know about Marissa is that she is a connoisseur of tea rooms. 

So, the reason we decided to trek to this slightly remote little village (~45 minutes away by bus) was because she once saw the sign for this tea room on her way through Auchtermuchty to Falkland and had wanted to visit ever since. 

Her enthusiasm for tea rooms is infectious. I don't pretend to have as much knowledge of them as she does, but I have definitely learned to love them. In short, I was a willing partner in... tea-ing...?

Our objective.
There was a car parked in front of it, so I didn't get a better picture.

Marissa! :)
Inside, the Tannochbrae tea room was decorated to look like the 1940s.

This is Sir Jimmy Shand.
He was a famous accordion player who played traditional Scottish songs.
He grew up in Auchtermuchty, so they like to brag about him.
They played accordion music in the Tannochbrae tea room :)

 The following pictures are from around Auchtermuchty.

War memorial.

photo creds: Marissa

After tea and poking around a bit, we caught the bus back to St. Andrews. I got off in Cupar because the Fife Show was happening and I wanted to check it out. Plus, the Howies were there, so I could get a ride back home with them.

Marissa continued on to St. Andrews because she had a friend's soaking to go to.

Soakings are a St. Andrews tradition.

After a student has completed all of his or her exams, their friends gang up on them and pour water all over them.

I think we should institute this as a tradition at UFV.

Anyways, the following pictures are from the Fife Show.

The tractor show :)

The fancy dress class!

The Cat in the Hat with Thing One and Thing Two.

My favourite: The Licorice All-Sorts pony :)

The Queen and her Royal Guards.

I really liked this horse.
He had the prettiest, most flowy, gracefullest trot ever.

Apparently, these parade through the town of Cupar to the fair grounds at the beginning of the Show.

<3  :)

Wildflowers

Well, okay, not all of these are wildflowers. 

And no, this isn't the most interesting post, but I've been taking so many pictures of flowers lately that I thought I'd share some of them. 

Perhaps it's because I've been visiting so many places with spectacular gardens lately. 

Or maybe I've just been inspired by a particularly talented photographer aunt of mine.

I don't have nearly as nice pictures as she does, nor do I write beautiful things to go with them. 

I guess I just like flowers. 

These are all from Balmullo.

I love that this shrub with orange flowers was planted  next to such an intensely blue door!

Urm, no, they're not flowers at all.
But they're so cute! :3

Not a flower.
But it's a plant.
And it's kind of cool looking, I think. 

Julia & Linda: Stirling & St. Andrews

We caught the train to Stirling in the early afternoon.

Because we only had the afternoon, we headed as straight for the castle as we could, not being 100% sure where it was.

We saw some pretty cool things along the way, though.

We think that these little rooms were gaol cells or something.
They opened directly onto the street though, which we thought was weird.

Cool gate.

Stirling Castle must be one of the most fought-over in Scotland!

It was under siege something like 8 times, and was passed back and forth between the Scottish and English for centuries. 

William Wallace and Robert the Bruce fought significant battles here.

Hence the attraction for us tourists ;)

Entering Stirling Castle!

Battlements of Stirling Castle.

Julia & Linda at Stirling Castle.
That wee tower on the hill behind them is the National Wallace Monument.

The National Wallace Monument.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go see it as well.

Robert the Bruce.

Part of the gardens with the older part of the Castle.

Linda's a powder monkey.
Or she would be if this was a ship...

In the kitchen.
Full of ghostly kitchen workers.
Apparently, kitchens were NOT where a woman should be.
They were definitely predominately populated by men. 

Cool, castley tunnel.

They were re-creating the Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries.
They drew the pattern first - that's the white sheet behind the actual weaving.
Then they matched all the different colours exactly before finally starting to weave.

Sweeping valley below Stirling Castle.
No one can sneak up from this side!

Three sides out of four are sheer cliffs like this.
We couldn't imagine how this place could be defeated!

In the courtyard.

The Queen's room.

In the great hall.
Very regal, doncha think?

The Church of the Holyrood.
Dating from the 1100s, it's almost as old as the Castle.

A statue of William Wallace in the actual city of Stirling.

This was a close as we could get to Platform 9 and 3/4 :P
Even though this wasn't even the right station...
...We're just slightly weird fans, okay?

So, Julia and Linda now think that Scottish public transportation is The Worst.

Here's why:

While we were waiting for our train back to Edinburgh from Stirling on platform 9, like the sign told us to, the train went to platform 3 instead!
Thankfully, we were able to catch the next train back to Edinburgh.
Then, after a mad dash from the station to the hostel to pick up our luggage and then to the bus station, we caught the last bus back to St. Andrews.
However, at one stop, the bus driver left and another took his place. No problem, right?
Well, there wouldn't have been if the switcheroo hadn't taken ten whole minutes!
We pulled into St. Andrews station just in time to see the bus to Balmullo turn out.
By this time, we were so exhausted we could barely produce complete, rational sentences.
At least, I was.
I thought about crying, but we went to Tesco instead and hung out there for an hour until the next (last) bus would leave.
We sat down in one of the aisles and pretended to be interested in the paperbacks in the rack.

Even though we didn't actually get to bed until 1:30am, or thereabouts, we were up in time to catch the bus to St. Andrews for church and some exploring.

They were really cold...
It was really windy.

Arches in the Cathedral.

My pretty friends :)

The sun did come out a little bit.
We ate lunch in this pretty little garden tucked away in an alley.