It was a drive of over 25 minutes to reach the Kingsbarns Beach car park we were starting from and my first walk on the path was short. It was a February day of extreme winds and uneven paths, but at least the snow had melted. I was unprepared (no hat, no gloves) but my friend (a laid-back mum of two young boys) sorted it all out. The bobble hat which she rooted out of her car boot probably belonged to one of her boys, but it kept my ears warm and the gloves were on the small side but stretched enough to keep my hands cosy and best of all, she had made hot chocolate. We walked and talked and laughed when one of the lenses fell out of my glasses. We played Pooh sticks with her son and helped him build a caterpillar out of rocks on the beach. We drank the hot chocolate and ate home-made brownies sheltered behind one of the broken-down walls on the beach.
Of course the best part was the walk, sandwiched between the rough, grey, high waves and the gently flowing, bright green slopes of a perfect golf course. Admiring the brave snowdrops fighting their way through the cold ground to break out into the weak, early-spring sunshine and gale-force winds. Feeling the wind buff against my cheeks and unprotected eyes, I could squint short-sightedly at the new dry-stane dykes sitting amiably next to the ancient ones and the remnants of the old Kingsbarns harbour hinting at Fife’s past. The ships that John Duncan sent down to London full of his Fife-grown potatoes are now long gone and the stone masons who built the old dykes are just a memory but their influence in Fife’s landscape is still there. Most people walk past them (yelling at their dog to get out of the sea) or see past them (looking for the next tee on their golf round) but I like to look at them and see the skill in a perfectly shaped stone or imagine the boats tethered in the harbour. We all look at the same things and see them differently. I had looked at the Coastal Path on maps and in books and now I could see it differently too. I wanted more.
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