‘Oxcars’

It’s Saturday, so it must be parkrunday!

Had been looking at the weather forecast since early in the week, and it had been getting progressively worse with each passing day - rain and, above all, wind! 

As it happened the wind, though strong, was not quite as strong and was from a more southwesterly direction, so not quite the gaitstoppingly westerly that it can be on the promenade at Cramond - exposed to the elements as it is! And the rain held off till after we left.

Walking back to the car at the end of Marine Drive with a couple of other parkrunners, I spotted a perpendicular dash of white across the Firth of Forth. Like last week’s tree fungus, I’d never noticed it before! 

It is in fact a small lighthouse on a little rock, known as Oxcars, situated off Aberdour in Fife. From where I was standing, it is framed by two other islands, Cramond Island and Inchmickery. 

Oxcars Lighthouse was designed by brothers Thomas and David A Stevenson (Thomas was the father of Robert Louis Stevenson), and inaugurated in 1886. 

Originally manned by two keepers, eight years later it became the first ever lighthouse in Scotland to be automated, controlled by a clockwork timer and powered using gas holders, delivered every fortnight.