"Gin ye sud come tae Ainster fair..."

Just along the Fife coast from Pittenweem is Anstruther (pronounced Ainster, as in the song.)  Technically it's two towns in one!

Unlike Pittenweem, though, the harbour (which is really in Anstruther Easter) is much less a working harbour and has a large area for pleasure craft of various sizes. It's a typical Fife town, with the kirk dominating the town when seen from the harbour wall, and pantiled shops and houses on the waterfront (including one of the best chip shops in Scotland!)
The town is also the location of the Scottish Fisheries Museum, and there are a number of historic craft dotted around the harbour as well.

Just to the west of the harbour, across the Dreel Burn, is the smaller town of Anstruther Wester.  The Dreel Burn is not much of a barrier nowadays, but the story is told of the beggarwoman (or possibly a fishwife) who carried a traveller across only to find that the traveller was King James V, roaming the country in his disguise as the "Gaberlunzie Man".  You can still cross by stepping stones, if you wish,

"every fisher laddie's dream..."

Pittenweem Jo was immortalised in the song by John Watt, and although the herring gutters have gone the harbour remains the main fishing harbour in the East Neuk.  The harbour is a classic Fife fishing harbour, extended several times in past centuries (although at least in part to cope with coal transport,) but unlike others it's clear that this is still a working harbour with the emphasis on fish.  Many towns in Fife and the Lothians rely on the "Pittenweem fish van" bringing fresh fish almost to the door, and the fish market (the large building behind the fishing boats) is still a busy place when the ships come in.

Despite its modern appearance the market building dates back over 200 years, but has been kept up to date with each new technological innovation.
The views along the coast are usually stunning.  The day we visited was quite misty, and the effects were magical.

Emerging from the mist behind the cliffs at the end of the "West Braes" are firstly the St Monans windmill, then the church at St Monans, and then more faintly the houses of Elie.  The windmill was built by the Sir John Anstruther to draw water from the sea into the salt pans - like many Fife land owning families their wealth was founded on coal and salt.  It was Sir John who paid for the extension to the harbour, on the condition that his ships had priority over other traffic.  Sir John also had a wagonway constructed to link the salt pans and the coal mines directly to the harbour.  Coal and salt production were closely linked - it took 8 tons of coal to produce a ton of salt. Production in the coal mines stopped in the early 19th century, partly due to a fire in the mine in 1794 which disrupted production, and partly due to changes in the tax regime which made salt production less economically viable.

The houses along the West Shore could almost be the epitome of the Fife fishing village - crow stepped gables, red pantiles, and outside stairs.
There's much more to Pittenweem than the harbour and the fishing, though, but that will have to wait for another day (and a different selection of photographs!)

"You might wake up some morning..."

Perhaps you need to be of a certain age to remember the song I've used for the title of this (you can find the original here (Bob Lind's "Elusive Butterfly") but it came to mind as I was trying to photograph these elusive Red Admirals at Kellie Castle.

They were feeding on a clump of Hemp Agrimony - there wasn't much else in the garden that would attract them, and although the weather was both warm and still, they were extremely nervous and reluctant to settle for any length of time.
Kellie Castle is near Pittenweem, in Fife, and is one of the jewels of the National Trust for Scotland.  Many houses of the same date were unsympathetically restored in Victorian times, but the restoration of Kellie Castle was carried out by the Lorimer family, and has preserved the best of the old whilst adding new touches. The interior has a wonderful mural by Phoebe Anna Traquair in the drawing room.  The garden is a decorative kitchen garden, with a lot of heritage (and local) varieties of fruit and vegetables, including White Melrose apples as bred by the monks at Melrose Abbey, and the produce is on sale at the castle, as well as being used in the excellent cafe. Kellie Castle is well worth a visit; it feels as if the family have just popped out and might be back at any moment, and the friendly and knowledgeable local guides add to the pleasures of the house.
We were very lucky with both the weather and the light, as this last picture demonstrates.