Monday 17 August 2009

My World Tuesday--The Tay Bridges.

Our village lies on the peninsula, mainly consisting of Fife, between the Firth of Forth, to the south and the Firth of Tay to the north. Both of these stretches of water are now crossed by road and rail bridges. The road bridges were built in my lifetime; in fact I can remember watching the progress of the Forth Road Bridge as we crossed on the ferry to Edinburgh from the farm. I have a photograph, in 35mm slide format of the partially completed bridge and I am currently bidding on a piece of equipment to convert my hundreds of slides to digital images so maybe one day I'll be able to post this photo!

Recently I stopped on my way home from Dundee to photograph the Tay bridges. The railway bridge is the second such bridge here as disaster struck the first one on 28 December 1879, during a violent storm with the loss of 75 lives. The remnants of the pillars can still be seen alongside the replacement bridge, built in 1887.

Up until very recently, when the Scottish Nationalists came to power in the Scottish Parliament, tolls were charged on motor vehicles crossing the road bridges. Now I can cross to Dundee or south to Edinburgh without having to worry about having the correct change in my purse and having it ready to hand over at the tolls.

To read about other places in other "pairts" have a look at My World Tuesday.

1 comment:

Gail said...

That is progress!

How did you decide to show and breed dogs? I have never shown but I did have a kennel many years ago and did very well.

I am cycling and have come back to dogs. And suggestions, words of discouragement or encouragement?

With all my work, I seem to have lost the zest for life, the desire to change and grow(except sideways).

I am wondering which direction to take and was hoping you would have some great insight for me.