I'm not one for moaning about the weather but when we bought the caravan here in St Andrews we thought that we would have plenty of opportunities to explore the surrounding countryside on our bikes. Sadly this has yet to be the case as drab skies and persistent rain have put something of a dampener on our plans. But not today. No, a patch of blue sky over Craigtoun Meadows was all the encouragement we needed to get the bikes out of storage and get pedaling. We headed down to see the William McTaggart Exhibition at the St Andrews Museum having promised ourselves that we would have a look at it as soon as we got chance. Sadly it finished at the weekend.
Unperturbed by the exhibition's closure we decided to do a coastal ride and headed past the famous Old Course (above) and the lovely Old Course Hotel (where we will be staying in November) down to Guardbridge. We checked out Balgove farm shop on the way and were impressed by both the variety and quality of provisions on display and the bright, airy and reasonably priced cafe.
We returned by the same route and headed for the famous West Sands. In all the years we've been coming to St Andrews we have never been down to the sands. The road behind them runs for about a mile down to the Eden estuary and it was great cycling with wonderful views across the Eden to Tentsmuir Forest and back to St Andrews itself.
We were never more than a few yards from a golf course during our cycle and the beautifully maintained links run impressively for miles. What a pity we are not golfers as it is truly a golfer's paradise. It was good to see so many players out on the courses. They must bring a fortune to the area.
After our ride, which ended with a long slog up the hill to Craigtoun Meadows, we popped in to see Sarah and Rose. It's so good to be close as Rose is developing so quickly. Her latest achievement is laughing (she's got an infectious chuckle) and she is an extremely happy little girl at the moment.
I see that it was a celebration of what would have been Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday this week. I'll close with an appropriate song
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