The Breeze

Contents2_______________Life’s A Beach

3___________________Time or Tide4__________ Foam in Fittie

6_______________Dunnottar Castle7_______Forvie Sands

10__________Old Course Hotel14______________Autumn Fashion

20______Kate Humble24___________________Travel Tips

27____________New Zealand30_______Readers Review

32_______________Mailbag35_______________Editor’s Letter

36_______Photos of the Week

The Breeze

Life’s a beach

The Silver City with the Golden Sands. Aber-deen is Scotlands third largest city and known for its granite buildings, rowie’s, historic uni-versity and miles and miles of sandy beach-es. However, down at the east end of the har-bour, a hidden gem is waiting to be explored.

Footdee is an old fishing village, more locally re-ferred to as “Fittie.” The area has had a settlement as far back as Medieval times and the first record-ed reference to “Fittie” was in 1398. But what’s so special about it? The area mainly consists of cot-

tages which have been built in two large squares with each cottage having it’s own shed oppo-site it. Sound pretty average so far? Think again.

These are not your typical garden sheds. They rise up from the centre of the cobbled squares, looking like they’ve stood for a hundred years and could easily stand for a hundred more. Mainly built of wood, the sheds and washhouses fill the mid-dle of the squares in a bright and colourful way.

Each is painted in various cheerful colours and

decorated with objects such as driftwood , home made plaques and other unique ornaments. Shells, sea glass and pebbles rescued from the beach nearby, line the windowsils of the sheds and cot-tages. Miniature anchors and even a whole giant crab shell can also be seen adorning the square.

Ivy climbs walls and even covers the roof of a cou-ple of sheds. More plants and greenery fill up every tiny garden, each well tended to and bursting with life. On the door of one particular shed, there is a large and intricate wreath made out of green

sprigs and supple brown twigs. Woven through it are bells which jangle in the blustery sea wind.

Old style lamposts line the streets. They are much shorter than modern streetlights and fit right into their quaint setting down in Fittie. Their large glass lanterns and pointed tops add to the old fashioned feel and when strolling the streets here it feels like a village that time forgot. It’s amazing to think that such tranquility can be found less than 100 meters away one of the busiest ports in Britain.

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Nae man can tether time or tide.Robert Burns

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FOAM IN FITTIE

Normally a peaceful and unassuming place, Fittie was plunged into the headlines in Sep-tember of this year as storms battered the UK coastline with some unusual results.

Sand-filled foam was forced onto Aberdeen’s seafront by high winds. As the storms be-came even more rough, the spume began to cover everything in its path. As it reached fur-ther and further inland, it looked as though the village had been hit by an early snowstorm.

A Marine Scotland spokesman said: “Sea foam is created by the interaction of sea wa-ter movement and plant plankton residues. This foam in Footdee is likely to be due to extreme wind and rain coupled with the autumn phy-toplankton bloom and the fact the wind direc-tion is pushing the foam ashore at high tide.”

This sheer volume of foam during this natu-ral phenomenon amazed many local residents. Lindsay Gordon said: “I have lived in footdee since just before 2000, you get storms of course. You could tell by the sounds this was a serious storm, the windows were rattling. I just looked out of the window and the North Sea was ad-vancing towards us. Luckily it was just foam.”

Although many were left with a messy clean up operation, Bailey the dog seemed to be enjoying himself playing in the foam.

Dunnottar Castle

Dunnottor Castle in Stonehaven is the most spectacular of all ruined castle for-tresses. Perched on a gigantic rocky out-crop almost detached form the mainland, it is not something you are likely to forget.

Walking through the many ruined buildings - from the lodgings and the stables to the chap-el and drawing room, there is a grand yet slightly haunting satmosphere. It feels all to easy to remember some of Scotlands most clolurful past. William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots and King Charles II have all graced the castle ith their prescence. Most famous-ly though, it was at Dunnottar Castle that a small garrison held out against the might of Cromwell’s Army for eight months and saved the Scottish Crown Jewels from destruction.

The castle has also played host to Mel Gib-son starring in Hamlet and more recently was one of the inspirations behind the fam-ily castle in Disney’s animated film Brave.

The castle was once the home of the Earls Marischial, at one time one of the most pow-erful families in the land. However the last Earl Marischial was convicted of treason during the Jacobite rising of 1715 and all his estates were siezed by the government

The buildings were then left neglected until 1925 when the ruins were repaired by the 1st Vicountess Cowdray. The castle was then offi-cially open to the public and now visitors from all over the world come to visit this iconic site.

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Forvie Sands

The Sands of Forvie is the fifth largest sand-dune system in Britain. Miles and miles of towering sand dunes and undisturbed sur-face make this area of Aberdeenshire ee-rily beautiful. On a bright, clear day it can feel almost like walking on another planet.

Aswell as being admired for its beauty, the area is also extremely important for local wildlife. The reserve contains the largest breeding col-ony of Eider Duck in Britian and is an interna-tionally important site for the nesting of Terns.

Up to 5,000 birds can be seen feeding on the mussel beds in the adjoining Ythan estuary and in the summer months, and nearly 2,000 pairs of Sandwich Terns breed on the dunes. In autumn, one of the great sights are the thousands of pink

footed geese coming in to roost on Meikle Loch.

The area is designated as a special protec-tion area for wildlife conservation purposes and is managed by Scottish Natural Herritage.

The Sands of Forvie include over 24 miles of coastline, with three river esturies along the way, the River Dee, the River Don and the River Ythan.

With such beautiful sea cliffs and dunes, it is no wonder the sands are popular with dog walk-ers and others looking for a fascinating day out. There is a visitors centre open daily (April to Oc-tober) and a great number of footpaths, some are covered in decking for an easier trip and others carved into the natural landscape. This picturescue area is little known beauty spot.

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