When things go wrong - and it’s all good!

So I had 3 things I wanted to do yesterday:  Castle in St. Andrews, St. Andrews Cathedral ruins, and see where Reformers Patrick Hamilton and George Winart were martyred.    I did one of them and it was all good. 

I went to church (at the same church I visited on my last trip to St. Andrews) and then visited St. Salvator’s, where Patrick Hamilton was martyred.   All well and good, and with some walking around it was lunch time.   Picked up a delicious cheddar and apple slaw sandwich at Tesco, with some mango chunks and flavored water.   

Then I headed for the castle.   Upon arriving I discovered that you needed to have a pre-arrange ticket, but that you coul get one online.  No problem, I scanned the bar code.  The gentleman at the door, however, informed me that the day was fully booked (it was, after all, a beautiful Sunday during peak golf tourism season (the famous golf course on St. Andrews, the Old Course, is closed on Sunday.). So I headed my way lazily down the road, looking down on the coast there in St. Andrews.   Eventually I came to the back of the cathedral, where there is a ruin of a smaller church, which I visited, while a lovely young woman played Scottish tunes on a violin (I gave her a pound.) 

Then off to the Cathedral ruins, but. . . It is closed!   Signs warning me that there is dangerous instability in the ruins and a boatload of construction equipment were there, presumably for the buttressing of such. 

So, no castle (except exterior, and I did do a little video with the castle behind me).   I had more than four hours left before I was to meet friends at the town’s good Indian restaurant.   What to do.  

And my knees, while much better than the day before, felt like I should be a little careful with walking, and my journal was at least a day behind. So I decided to walk down to the park near the Old Course, with the overlook of the West Sands (the beach where the opening sequence of Chariots of Fire was filmed on) find a place to sit on the grass and write.   Which is exactly what I did, arriving just around 2:00.  As I arrived, music was playing, and surprise, there was a band playing.   This was the Clackmannan District Brass. They were very good, and they gave a two hour outdoor concert.  I stayed for the whole thing, writing my journal and then just enjoying the music.  What fun it was!   

After that I set off for St. Salvator’s again, which is a beautiful courtyard and had stone benches in the shade to call my granddaughter.  

And at 6 I met my friends, and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner (though we did note that the restaurant seemed to put mushrooms in everything.   I thought they were yummy, but they are not all that common in Indian cooking.   I guess they are a little exotic from that point of view. 

Dear God, thank you for the things that go wrong that help us see in new ways and change things we are reluctant to change.  The little and the big things, God, amen.