31 May 2020
/How are you?
A warm welcome to our newest subscribers and thanks to you all for letting me into your inbox.
We’re enjoying some wonderful sunny weather in the East Neuk this week. It has come just in time for the easing of Lockdown measures that now allow us (in Scotland) to do a little more outdoor leisure activity.
Outdoor activities
Importantly for the St Andrews area, golf courses opened on Friday, as did the brand new course, the Dumbarnie Links, near Leven. Fishing is once again an option, as is getting together outdoors with another household/other members of your family - in groups of up to eight people.
It’s a small concession, in some ways, but it feels significant and it is certainly very welcome after so many weeks of having tighter restrictions.
It’s also allowed us to take some tentative steps to re-opening the centre here at our base in the East Neuk. We’ve reviewed our products in light of the new measures and we feel that whilst we could probably safely offer fishing and birds of prey experiences, we want to move ahead cautiously and stay very definitely within the guidelines, rather than pushing them.
So, as we mentioned last week, we have introduced a brand new experience called ‘Family First’.
Since gatherings have to be outdoors, we’re offering Family First so you can get together in groups of up to 8 to enjoy a socially-distanced bird of prey experience at our centre. We’ll spend an hour with you, introducing you to the team of birds and flying them for you, not to you! It’s just £50 for up to 8 people and you can see more about the product and book it here.
Nominate a Fife keyworker
I am very thankful of the fact that my family has not needed to use the NHS during this crisis. I actually applied to be bank worker, based here in Fife, to act as a back-up driver or porter, if the need arose. It has not. I am a little disappointed not to get involved, I’ll admit, but it’s a good thing that there proved to be enough capacity in the system - of course!
However, we’ve definitely had our lockdown experience made easier by home deliveries and by fully-stocked food-shops! In recognition of all the hard work done over the past 3 months by our key-worker delivery drivers, warehouse workers and supermarket / food shop staff, we’d like to find a key-worker family that we can gift a Family First experience.
Can you help?
If you know someone based in Fife (we can’t encourage longer-distance travel just yet) who works in a food shop, a warehouse or as a delivery driver, and you’d like them to have a free Family First experience with us, can you please share my post or nominate them on our Facebook page?
Nominations close on Sunday 07 June at midnight and the experience must be taken before 01 July, 2020.
Altai’s change of gear
If you saw last week’s Live at 5 on Facebook, you’ll know that Altai, our Golden Eagle, had an anklet that was almost coming apart, so we had to change his anklets this week. I was more than a little nervous about it, because Altai is a strong bird with a long reach and his talons and beak are pretty serious weapons! However, the whole process went far easier than I could have guessed and, in the end, I managed to make the change while he was bare-headed and watching the whole thing.
Like all birds of prey used in falconry in the UK, Altai was captive-bred (in Austria) and he’s worn anklets since he was a chick. Anklets are made to measure and the pair I bought from A Clarke Falconry were perfect for my Goldie; Altai has made no effort to even nibble at them, which indicates that they are a great fit. Falconry ‘furniture’ (equipment) like this hasn’t changed much over hundreds of years but the craftsmanship of these ones really stands out. Here are some photos of the new gear, and Altai, taken when he was sitting with us yesterday evening as we enjoyed a glass of wine outside!
Speaking of wine, whilst we typically buy supplies from our local shops, we’ve also had some gorgeous whites and rosés delivered from Hard to Find Wines and I can highly recommend their service, which includes no minimum order. (This is not an ad, just appreciation!)
In this week’s Facebook Live at 5, later today, I’ll be showing you how the centre’s looking and giving you a walkthrough from the road-end to the flying field. If you’ve not yet visited us, you can see how it all looks here at Hammer Inn and, if you’ve been before, I hope you enjoy seeing it again! Let me know how you think it’s looking…
See you on Facebook at 5pm my time, or I’ll catch up with you again here next week.
Best wishes
Steve
P.S. How are you getting on with my emails? What would you like to see more or less of and should I go to an email every 2 weeks, rather than weekly? Feedback is welcome!
If you’d like to catch up with my previous email/s, you can find them all here.
Over on Instagram recently…
