Cliff Notes

It was altogether a different kind of day when last I took a walk along St Andrews pier. I took a photo on the occasion before this from the end of the pier looking into town that I think may be one of my all-time favourites, but alas, alack, it's on the hard-drive of my now defunct tower PC to which access is now... limited...  (Ah, the classic use of understatement that you'll only find with the British use of English!) Don't get me wrong, though; I did, of course, splash a version of it all over the book of face (and, come to think of it, there's a post further back here somewhere that has it, too), but I'm loathed to download that version because the quality won't anywhere near the original, and I think I may be a pedant about such things. (If this comes as a shock, then you're obviously new to the blog. Welcome!)

It was a different day indeed - the sun was shining, and although it was still rather on the chilly side being April in Scotland and all, the view was still breathtaking! 

Of course, my contrary self appears to find the rugged, storm-shrouded views taken from the same place to be more aesthetically pleasing, but it's good to remind the world-at-large (all four of you) that Scotland does indeed enjoy blue skies. Occasionally.

Yes, yes, those clouds in the background are rain clouds beginning to roll in from the west, but what can I say? All sun and no rain makes Scotland a dull... wait, this needs more thought...

The similarity between this walk and the one in November (not including the obvious pier stop-off) is that I gained another first, for from the pier we (my sister and I) followed the East Sands and started on the Kinkell Braes coastal walk, one on which I'd never set foot before. (Or, in the spirit of honesty, one I'd never set foot on before because it starts off with a steep climb from the shoreline up onto the cliff tops, and well... big girl, steep climbs, cliff-top pathways with rocky outcrops below felt somehow oxymoronic.)

Kinkell is marked on the map by a static caravan park, which, fair play to them, has been there for decades, but the walk itself runs for miles down the coast, and was originally part of the massive Kinkell estate to the west of St Andrews, where, even until the 19th century, you could find some remains of the chapel, hospital, castle and dovecote that were recorded to exist on the estate in the Middle Ages.

The views were stupendous, and the view of the town, East Sands, and pier, photogenic even at the worst of times (and I'd post that photo of the stormy pier here if I could get my hands on it...) changed, and didn't change with every step. This is the point where you can thank your lucky stars that my camera isn't equipped with any decent kind of zoom-lens, because I'd have happily taken the photo equivalent of a flip-book of the journey along the cliff-top, and splurged them all over this post had it been at all feasible!

Still, I'll give you one fuzzy effort, to help you realise just how lucky you truly are...:

A mile or two along the cliff, you start to notice an enormous monument-like stone jutting out from the shoreline, and careful walking down some ancient stone steps from the top of the cliff to the shoreline reveals the Maiden Rock staring out to sea in all her weathered glory.

Further on down the coast at the natural inlet called Kinkell Harbour stands the Rock and Spindle, part of an eroded volcanic plug, but we never got that far because the path that became a little too muddy and a little too close to the edge of the cliff for our Sunday afternoon walking attire. But despair ye not (because I tell you are indeed despairing), as it's on the To Be Discovered list, next time I'm home!

Muscle Amnesia

“Nic continues to mistakenly believe that, just because she studied ballet for 10 years before a knee condition stripped her of athletic ability at 13, any cardio-ballet workout will be a doddle, somehow forgetting that thirty years have passed with nary a plié nor arabesque to be seen.

#iHurt #KneesStillDontWork #UglyDucklingPuddle"

Yes, in a way it's just like riding a bicycle - once you know how to do it, you don't really forget. Muscle memory is a powerful tool in many respects, but muscle memory is not, repeat: is NOT the same as constantly putting those muscles to use over a long period of time. Anyone who's just ridden a bike for the first time in twenty years will tell you they're a bit wobbly at first, but then their subconscious and sense of balance will kick in, and they'll be pretending they're on their old BMX/Raleigh Racer in next-to-no time. Then they'll tell you the next day that they can't walk because their thigh muscles will have decided to shorten to half their original length, and that they're being haunted by the ghoulish pressure of a too-small, too-hard saddle between their cheeks, and can't actually sit down.

Yes, remembering the mechanics of how to do something you used to do a long time ago is so very much not the same as actually having done it continually over the years...

First position? Pff, please you don't have to remind me what that is!! Wait, I can't get my heels to touch because my calves are getting in the way... Hang on, let me really push them... Um, I don't remember my Achilles tendon twanging so much before, that can't be normal.

Second position grande plié. Ah, that should be fine. It's like a sumo squat without the pain. I SAID WITHOUT THE PAIN! Ah yes, my knees still don't work, but I'm sure that using my knee-supporting muscles, whichever ones they are, it'll be fine. Knees are supposed to grind and pop nowadays, aren't they? Add a port-de-bras first to fifth (holding a cardio ball) while you're dipping, and back again? Ok, but I'm not sure my core appreciates that its day off has been cancelled. There's a lot of internal moaning going on... More than usual, anyway.

Split-squats opening out into a low arabesque... I.. Oof. I seem to be too over-encumbered with booty to raise my leg more than a foot off the ground behind me.

I cracked open an old book of Haydn sonatas the other week, not having looked at it for years. Possibly even fifteen years. It lives sandwiched between my vocal scores, with some other piano music from That Time Before Singing, but I spotted the blue ABRSM cover and was overcome by a fit of nostalgia, opened it at an old favourite and sat down to play. Needless to say my actual piano technique has been shot to hell after being neglected for so long, but even though I stumbled a bit, my fingers, on the whole, remembered where to go. After a decade and a half! Then I felt my tendons in my lower arms twitch, and after half an hour of pretending to be Maria João Pires I had to close the book, and gingerly wrap my wrists in the elastic supports I have to use after a particularly long session typing up my thoughts on to my computer.

So yes, that cerebral muscle memory can be a double-edged sword, but practise, as they say, makes perfect less pain. Then again, practise also gives you the ability to do something you couldn't do before, too...

I visited Sorghvliet park last week to pay homage to Spring and her ability to carpet the place in bluebells for a month every year, and actually managed to crouch to take a close-up photo; a basic human ability robbed from me in my teens. But not only did I manage a crouch without too much creaking and complaining, I also managed to get up without my knees demanding that I get on all fours before attempting that tricky Standing Upright manoeuvre as they've done in the past. 

Those afore-mentioned knee-supporting muscles with whom I'm only now becoming acquainted might come in useful, after all...

Jessica Smith, I hate you, but I love you, too.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I have a few hazy memories (supported by photographic evidence with my parents at home) of visits in the 70's to a lovely local green spot near St Andrews, called Craigtoun Park. Those early visits entailed sprawling on very typical 60's/70's folding sunbeds that could, at the least provocation, snap in half encasing your tiny self in the middle of a canvas and metal cocoon until someone with enough strength to fight the unforgiving rusty springs would come and release you from the musty dark-blue prison (we had two old loungers, but I can't for the life of me remember the colour of the other one); playing cricket with proper wooden bats, stumps and bails, and using tennis balls that, when struck well, would fly for miles; giggling with glee whilst clinging to the handles of large plastic animal kiddy rides that were basically fibreglass blobs sat atop a large and sproingy metal coil; and, if we were lucky, riding the miniature choo-choo train that chugged back and forth through the park over maybe a half mile of track.

My sister and I went back for a walk there a couple of weeks ago, and really enjoyed discovering the park again, after, oof, too many years to count. We've both been back since we were tiny, but for me one of the last times was when I was maybe ten years old or so, when my best friend's Mum worked in the office there and would get us in for free. It was during that time I discovered the boating pond and the Splash Cat pedal-boats, the Dutch Village, and Wall's Cornetto Ice Creams.

There has been a lot of change since last I visited, but, reassuringly, some things are just the same. The place where we'd set up our wooden and metal death-traps of a sunny afternoon years past is now part of the Duke's Golf Course, as is a fair part of the old park, but the train still runs around its length of track, although now sheathed in places by a health-and-safety view-blighting fence, and the Dutch Village set picturesquely on the boating pond looks just the same, even though you can no longer walk over the bridge and wander about inside.

The park, itself part of an old estate dating back to the 17th century established by the Melvilles of Strathkinness, was a part of their burgeoning family estates that included much of the surrounding area, and there's a mention of landscaping and tree-planting from late 18th century Melville family accounts that speak of their investment in beautifying the grounds. The estate changed hands in the early 20th century, and the new owner commissioned and improved much of the park as we see it today - including the mansion, the Dutch village set on an island in two connected lakes, the Italian garden, an impressive Cypress avenue, and the Mound that was originally topped by a small stone temple.

Today the Mound is temple-less, and the mansion, which after it and the grounds were sold to Fife Council in the 40's was turned first into a maternity hospital (where myself and my little sister were born) and then an old-people's home, is now derelict, but still exudes an air of grandeur past. Although I'm told that I broke the mould when I was born (which may be true in a rather disparaging manner) I refuse to accept any responsibility for its closure. I didn't break the house. Honest. And I don't suppose I can claim anything on it retaining its air of grandeur, either...

I am lucky to come from such a beautiful part of the world (eh, I'm allowed to be biased) but I have to say that I'd have visited Craigtoun Park myself long before my sister offered to drive us there for a good old hike around the grounds, had the area around my village not have turned into such an impenetrable pedestrian-free zone. 

Craigtoun Country Park is about two and a half miles away, and St Andrews itself is three miles away by different roads, and they would make excellent long walks there and back but, alas, nowadays the grass verges alongside the roads that could once be used as walking thoroughfares are pretty much non-existent no matter what route you attempt out of the village. Add to that that you just can't depend on drivers to heed the speed limit as they career around the bendy B-roads that criss-cross the countryside to give you enough time to jump out of their way before they thunder past, blasting their horn at your very impertinence in attempting to walk roads that are no longer safe for wayfarers anyway.

One of the things I love about tramping everywhere on foot in The Hague is that I get to see so much more of the place by moving at less than fifty miles per hour, and I lament that there is so much of the beautiful countryside in which my village nestles that I doubt I'll get to see properly unless I get a car (and, yannow, actually own a driver's licence...) so I can park close enough to enjoy them without running the gauntlet of avoiding road-side ditches and oncoming vehicles by just trying to get there on foot.

But until a time of enriched wanderer care I shall continue (now that I've had my little rant) to enjoy walking through the areas of beauty to which I already have access, and be content, because let's face it - I'm not really hard done-by with what's already around me!