Misty Monday

I'm writing this from our mist shrouded caravan from which we can now see some of our neighbours' pitches although earlier in the day we were pretty well engulfed. Which was actually quite nice in a sort of spooky, wintry, bonfire night  sort of feeling. Especially as we are amongst the only ones foolhardy enough to be on a caravan break in Scotland in the last few weeks of the year and have the site to ourselves. Having said that it has actually been a pretty good little vacation and shows how St Andrews is very much a year round holiday destination.

This was the sunrise that met us on our first morning at The Old Course Hotel where we spent a pleasant three nights last week having committed to a bargain break before we bought the caravan. It's a fabulous hotel and should always be the first choice for anyone thinking of staying here. It's not that the rooms are any nicer than any of the hundreds of hotel rooms available in St Andrews (although they are very good) it's just that the staff go out of their way to make sure that the guests enjoy themselves and there are always plenty of personal touches that make you feel an individual despite being one of many, many residents.

And, apart from today's fog, we've enjoyed some pretty fine late autumn Scottish weather which allowed us to try The Old Course's rooftop spa. Not bad for November on the North Sea Coast.

I've managed to find myself hundreds of acres of land to use my metal detector on but, when confronted with fields this size and only an hour or two to spare it's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack and, so far, I haven't found any fields of gold. I've got more fields than I could ever search properly in a month of detecting so I am going to have to narrow down my search criteria to those that have some sort of historic connection next time we come here.

Today we had a marathon cycle ride. Well more than a marathon as I reckon that we managed to cycle approximately thirty miles. We rode down from the caravan site into St Andrews and then along the coastal path to Leuchars and into the Tentsmuir forest  (above) which was beautiful in the autumn colours which we saw in the occasional gap in the fog. From Tentsmuir we headed into Tayport for a quick lunch before heading back to St Andrews and a quick visit to see Sarah, Duncan and Rose. We've got four or five days left here before we have to close the caravan down for the winter. We're really going to miss it.

And we are really going to miss our granddaughter Rose who will be six months old before we see her again. This retirement lark seems to be flying by.