Day out at Culross and other places

 Will split this into more than one post...there is so much to see!

I sold two small boxes of vintage bike bits to our Dundee friend...the one with the same initials as Pirate, VP!!  Our midway meeting point was Culross in Fife we met at a cafe by the palace...and chatted for two hours!! Then he went on a bike ride from there as there is a really good shared path along the coast, and I headed for the Palace. It is a sixteenth century house, with a seventeenth century extension....they did end up with eight children and I think moved to another house there..but kept this for business...as the owner extended the coal mines, used the coal to evaporate salt water making salt, and eventually, when the town was awarded the status of Royal Burgh by James VI, was allowed to export salt and coal and other goods...bringing back pantiles as useful ballast.

It is now maintained by the National Trust, and has been owned by them since 1932, so quite an early acquisition.

Please excuse the light quality of the photos...the light levels are low not just to give you a feel of how it would have been, but to conserve things, especially fabrics and paintings..mainly the walls and ceilings.

I wandered around the house and garden for well over an hour....and could have stayed longer...then had a little stroll around the cobbled streets. I didn't stop to draw as it was a little chilly and damp.

On tho Kincardine where part of the 1930s bridge used to swing open...but only until 1969 ...that is also an old port town...I missed the café..and was too early for the chip shop (worth a visit if you are there after 4pm....) but the bakery was open!!

Heading for home the motorway got busier...and slower.....so I turned off and cut across country along the foot of the Campsite Fells to the best wheel builder out..Big Al at Wheelcraft..at Milton of Campsie...I did need handlebar tape....but I accepted a good cup of coffee and we chatted as he worked.

No point dashing back through Glasgow at rush hour.....and we both enjoyed the discussion! 

I left there just before 6....it is an easy route down to the Clyde Tunnel, one we have done many times on the way home from there! Then across to Ibrox Park, the home of Rangers football club, and across to the M77...three junctions and I'm off again...hitting the reduced items in Waitrose this time....cancelled out by the purchase of the latest Terry Pratchett book..The Lost Stories written under a pseudonym in the 70s and 80s.....

And back home on normal roads, now in the dark.

The coffee made sure I was awake for the drive.....I was still well awake for nany hours.....and I fell jet lagged today!!

But it was very nice coffee Indeed.....