During the locked down weeks and months of 2020, I walked to this harbour often. And whenever I was here, there were always other people doing the same: standing at the sea wall, gazing out to sea, or sitting on a bench, quietly absorbing the view across the harbour.
It’s a frozen weekend here, and a strange one as I’m home alone with the lads (of course, when I’m with the lads, I’m never alone) and we won’t be able to go out anywhere. And our weekends usually revolve around walks. Regardless of the weather (more or less – we avoid wild, driving rain but that’s about it) we’ll usually be on a coastal walk somewhere.
Indeed, it’s been a minute. Not wanting to sound like a broken record writing, ‘I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post…’ but, well, I can’t. But it’s been a busy (and good) few months. I’ve started a new freelance gig – very part time, but, like anything new, I’ve spent a lot of time on it and have been really enjoying it. And given that the new gig is in social media (with a focus on Instagram), my brain has been too overloaded with words (and images) to be here too.
But I’ve missed sitting down and writing. Just writing. Not for anyone else, not for a deadline; just for the pleasure of it. So it’s time to get back here.
It feels like no time since I was writing my previous post here, but that was a few weeks ago, just before we were about to have a two week-long break. It’s a funny thing having a holiday when you don’t have work to return to. Obviously, you’re carrying the worry and all the uncertainty with you. But we had day trips and long coastal walks in the evenings. We went to Fife and Perthshire and the Trossachs. We didn’t do everything we’d planned, but that’s life when you’re feeling a bit tired and stressed, right? I thought I’d blog throughout the break, but ended up editing photos from our walks, and once I’d done that I wasn’t tempted by any more screen time. And that was fine.
When I shared this photo on Instagram, I asked: where is this? Is it France… or Fife? Anyone who knows me would know the answer pretty easily, but while this is indeed Fife – Cambo Gardens within Cambo Estate, which is one of our favourite places to visit – it could as easily be a wonderful old farmhouse in France.
There’s a lot to appreciate about spring, obviously, but, for me, these moments are the ones that shift the whole feel of a week: when it’s light enough to head down the coast on a Wednesday evening and walk at John Muir as the sun is setting. That break in the week, shaking off the sluggishness that comes with hours spent at a desk. It doesn’t have to be a midweek walk: if I could drive, this would be my default walk any day. Getting in the car, driving for half an hour, and just being here. If I could drive, I wouldn’t be at my desk this evening writing this post. I’d be back here with the lads.
Hello and welcome to Copperline. My name is Fiona Reid and this is my blog about coastal living in Scotland.