It's hard to believe that in July it will be 31 years since I graduated from St Andrews. I hadn't even revisited it since the early 1980s so it was kind of a weird emotional experience and evoked a lot of memories and made me mourn for my lost youth.

We began by visiting the ruins of the Cathedral.



This plaque wasn't there when I was a student and appears to have been decorated with some student graffiti. That's not a new phenomenon as the windows of my college were scratched with the graffiti of earlier generations to mine.



These canon stand atop the harbour. Weird thing is that I don't remember them so either my memory is at fault or they have arrived since my day. The former is of course always possible!



The pier. The tradition of the Sunday morning pier walk returned to my mind. We were a day early alas and it was very cold and windy so I didn't do my own per walk. I will return in the summer and do it then.



Mum with the pier in the background. There are a lot of kilted photos of me in her camera that I need to extract!



The Castle of St Andrews, also a ruin but full of romantic history and sometimes violent history also.



St Rule's tower. St Rule was also known as St Regulus. It can be climbed and provides a fantastic view of St Andrews and the surrounding countryside. When I was a student it was free, now you have to pay since the cathedral was taken over by Historic Scotland. Entrance to Edinburgh Castle also used to be free (apart from the museums) until they took that over. I will climb it again on my next visit.



Artistic view of North St and the tower of St Salvator's college chapel. The tradition was that the pier walk procession would start from there after Sunday morning chapel.



More to come!