DATE: Tuesday 15 August, 1995
PLACE: Derculich Farm, Strathtay
WEATHER: Cool but clearing
REMARKS: Edie and Shepherd country - the kingdom of Fife.
We find Cowdenbeath, enquire at the Council and Library,
try the cemetery but find no trace of Shepherds.
Lumphinnans is a narrow strip of housing on a low ridge.
The whole area has a distinctly working-class, semi-impoverished
feel: mean streets and houses, treeless, gardenless, without
cheer and feeling deserted.
Even a leisure park on the site of an abandoned open-cast
mine is a weak attempt to ameliorate what is, to us, a nearly
god-forsaken suburban landscape.
St Andrews on the other hand is a cheerful quaint middle-class
town. Desiree and the kids try a Sea-World attraction and
the beach, while I track down a tape by Wolfstone and sample
Firkin Brewery's Dogbolter' -thick, dark, syrupy, and sweet.
The evening is a ceilidh in Aberfeldy, a charity fund-raiser
in the Black Watch Inn. It's hard to tell what appeals most
to the kids -the music and dancing, or the chance to stay
up late. We may pay tomorrow for the late night.
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