Lovely day today. A bit of wind, a bit of rain, and a day with a lovely little road trip. Our first town to stop at was Ceres. Quite a charming burg. All of the people we saw on the street were smiling and laughing together. We went on through town to locate the Hill of Tarvit estate. We saw two groups of hikers out for the surrounding hiking trails. Here are some pictures of the estate; an edwardian era home.


Some of the garden pictures..


From the estate grounds we went back into town to check out the pottery. However, the store was not open. This famous pottery recently sold a small pair of pigs to a rock star at 32,000 bps each!! I thought the pottery was rather unimpressive.



From there we continued on through beautiful countryside
Scottish Towers, and villages on the road to Falkland.

Falkland is a wonderful village. When we parked in the car park, another couple was just gettng out (it was just beginning to sprinkle) and I asked if they knew of a restaurant. They said that there was a teahouse that was an award winner..Kind Kyttock.

The Palace which will later tour

The teahouse

The Church



The flower boxes all over town


There is something (the name of which I forget) of a tradition in this town whereby when a couple are married they stencil the date of the marriage, the initials of the husband on oneside and the wife on the other. As well as other postings on the buildings as shown below:





While Dick goes to the money tree ,

we get ready to do the Falkland Palace. Of course, there are no pictures inside the palace. It is quite nice and worth a look. Much of it has been redone by the Marq. de Bute with guidance by the National Trust of Scotland. It is quite good and the antiquities which have been included certainly give you the feel of what it must have been like for Jame V and his queen, as well as the other royalty which followed for several centuries. I loved the tapistries inside which were Flemish. AND I did not know that when the royalty travelled, they picked up everything....all tapistrys, all chests,...it must have been like: Oh no, they want to travel to another castle and I have to pack all this crap and take it down those winding turret staircases. Too funny.

After the tour of the castle, we did the gift shop and then the gardens. These shots are for my daughters primarily...the lovers of gardens. (and of course, Marge)

looking out the a room to the garden and notice the checker board on the patio.

The beginning of the gardens



The water gardens

The Children's garden??

The tennis courts. OK now this is really interesting. THIS IS THE OLDEST TENNIS COURT IN THE WORLD!!! James V was married to a french princess and her sophistication included the sport of tennis. Now not only is this called Royal Tennis because it is rather a combination of racket ball and tennis because of the indoor enclosure. However it becomes even more interesting in that the royalty did not want to bend over to get the ball because of the tight garments, and so the servant would "serve the ball" thus the name of The Serve in tennis. Now there is Real Tennis which is this and was to distinguish between the later origin of Lawn Tennis. Also, Mary Queen of Scots, one of my favorites, is said to have astonished everyone by wearing britches while playing tennis. Oh my goodness...so much wonderful learning.


The orchards. Used by the locals for picnicking.

Returning to St. Andrews we did a wee stop in Leven. Me along the seashore



Cheerio again..