Contrary to common opinion, I do not spend my Scottish days traveling and exploring these foreign lands. Quite the opposite, really. Like most research students, the majority of my day is spent indoors and immobile, reading and studying, reading and studying. There are short intermissions here and there for trips to the loo or refilling my water bottle, and sometimes quick walks to the library or tutoring sessions. Mostly, though, I just sit, and sit, and sit.
I do, however, try to get in a good 4-mile walk every day, for the sake of both exercise and (as we creep toward the winter solstice) my ever decreasing levels of Vitamin D; and since moving to the other edge of town, I’ve discovered the St Andrews countryside just out my back door. Well, maybe not just out my back door, but no further than half a mile out my back door. Or front door. Or side door. Or whatever.
So, nothing special, but here’s the St Andrews’ countryside that I walk on the weekends. (I have another route for weekdays, which is almost as magnificent.) It’s a small taste of home. There are no gravel roads, but there are hay fields and horses and beautiful autumn colors, and sometimes good looking chaps in their muddy tractors that give me a Scottish farmer’s wave as they pass.
The beech shrubs are beautiful this time of year.
The sunrise walk…
Once at the top of one of the hills, I overlook all of St Andrews. In the picture below is the Duke’s Golf Course, above the whole of St Andrews being enveloped in the sunlight of a new day.
Come and take a walk with me!
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