Sunny Weekend in St. Andrews

We only have a few weeks to go in Scotland, so we were happy to have a weekend of sunny, warmish (for Scotland at least!) weather to enjoy this past weekend. We spent Saturday close to home, strolling through town, which is bursting with spring blossoms and students who have completed their exams and are saying goodbye. In our front garden, there's a lovely tree that's in full bloom right now, and it's so stunning that people stop all the time to take photos with their cell phones. A few times, people have come into our garden, walked onto the deck and taken photos. The first time this happened, I was quite startled. I had to keep reminding myself that this is not America, and it's not considered threatening to walk onto privately owned property here.

The tree from the Lade Braes walk.

The gate to our house, with the tree in full bloom right next to it.

A view of the tree from our garden...apparently, this is the money shot people are coming into our garden to take!

While I was taking these, Leah came out of the house, and wanted to have her photo taken in front of the tree. She also wanted to TAKE the photo, and was quite upset that she couldn't do both at the same time. I tried to get her to use the "selfie" setting on my camera so she could take the photo and be in it at the same time, but she was going to have none of that! After some substantial discussion and more than a few tears, she settled on having me take the photo, but she couldn't manage to turn the tears off long enough to get a good shot!

Emma and Leah and I walked into town in the afternoon, and there was a very large and elegant wedding just ending at Holy Trinity church in the center of town when we walked past. We stopped for a bit to watch the guests emerge from the church, followed by three small flower girls wrapped in so much tulle they could barely move. Every single woman that emerged from the church was wearing a fascinator, which is a frothy concoction of feathers, ribbons and flowers, pinned at a precarious angle somewhere on their head. It was like being in a living sculpture park! We then continued on, and stopped into Janetta's for some gelato. We were fortunate to get a booth, and both girls had a wee sundae while I had tea.

Emma and Leah in the booth at Janetta's

Not sure what Emma said to her, but she sure looks mad!

John had been invited to two birthday parties for some of the kids who are in his so-called "squad"...the group of boys who walk around town together at lunch time. I ferried John and his friend Josh to the first party, in a nearby town called Newport-on-Tay, then picked them up a few hours later, brought them back to St. Andrews, the ferried them to another nearby town called Strathkinness for the second party. It was a lot of driving for UK standards, but the day was so gorgeous and warm that I didn't mind a bit. At one point, after dropping them off in Strathkinness, I took a turn on a single-track road that turned into a seasonal farm road not yet open for the season, so I had to turn around (not easy to do on a single-track road, by the way! Imagine attempting a K turn on a golf cart path and you'll know what I mean!). Halfway through the turn, I realized that the scenery was so stunning that I had to lean my phone out the car window to take a photo!

On Sunday, we had another lovely walk into town, and then had an early dinner at a restaurant in town called Forgan's. Our lovely students gave us a gift card to the restaurant at the final group dinner, before some of them left St. Andrews, and so we decided to use it for a relaxing Sunday meal. We had taken the students there on our first weekend in St. Andrews, so it was a nice gesture for them to allow us to go...and this time the kids got to come along. Though it's a nice restaurant, they do a great job of catering to kids, and there's a library in the back that seems to be set aside for those dining with kids. The restaurant has a cool, farmhouse-industrial theme with a Scottish twist, so I had a hard time concentrating on my butternut squash Wellington because I was so busy making decorating notes, and sneaking photos of the furniture that I want to recreate when we get home!

Forgan's dining room.

The entrance to the restaurant.

Anyone who has seen my dining room in Hamilton knows why I took a picture of this sign!