Rock and roll

Fidra had an appointment late morning to have some new tyres fitted.  She is a big, heavy and fairly powerful machine and motorbike tyres are somewhere between the cutting edge of 21st century rubber technology and a complete and utter con.  I mean they have to work pretty hard but the mileage you get out of them is really quite rubbish compared with cars.  The motorbike place was new to me, a tiny, pokey outfit you'd never guess was there, and had a huge ivy hedge that the wasps were all over.  I enjoyed a cheese scone and cup of hot chocolate at a cafe while the workshop did their thing.  The new tyres have definitely improved the handling.

It was quite a nice day today, nice enough that I decided to go the long way home via some new sights.  Thus, I present – clockwise from the wasps – firstly the bandstand in Bo'ness which is right outside the town hall.  It looks like the same model as the one I visited in Strathaven, and Historic Environment Scotland confirms that it was made by the Saracen works in Glasgow.  It was built in 1902 and the railings are perhaps replacements, because there are older holes where the uprights would have been.

I still had plenty of time so I rode through the delights of Grangemouth oil refinery, a huge hotchpotch of massive cooling towers, more pipework than I've ever seen and a sort of dieselly smell everywhere, and over the old Kincardine swing bridge that doesn't swing anymore, and took the Fife coastal route through Culross.  I spotted an old red telephone box there so I need to visit again sometime to see which iron foundry made it.

Clockwise from Bo'ness is Dunfermline Park which has a very fancy bandstand.  It is a very old one, from 1888, and is also from the Saracen works; I only know this because I found the manufacturer's mark on one of the columns.  I was impressed that they went to the trouble of casting one column specially; all the others are plain.  The bandstand isn't in its original colours though.  The railings were white, but the columns were brown at railing level and light green above, and the copper roof was of course pre-verdigris.  It could do with some love though, as quite a lot of the tracery in the railings is broken.

I rode back over the Queensferry Crossing – only the second time for Fidra – and then it started raining.  New tyres on wet roads on a motorbike isn't a great combination so I had to go dead canny, like.  I picked up some doughnuts and then had tea with Mum and Dad.