Bog Myrtle & Peat

Duck came to the pond on the edge of darkness. Mallard whistled overhead, and crowds of early wigeon whooped against a rising segment of moon. It was a calm night and I had never shot that place on a Saturday before. It turns out that Saturday Night’s Alright for Flighting, and the dimmity glen was raucous with the sound of shotguns. On a clear and windless night, you can hear a gun fired from a distance of more than three miles. And as the flight unfolded, I’d guess that five ponds were being shot within earshot at all points of the compass. Some were busier than others, and the churning effect of the disturbance meant that duck were unsettled late into the evening. They were antsy and confused by the shooting, and birds which found danger at one pond were looking for safety elsewhere. 

It’s normal for two dozen ducks to come to my pond, and I will only ever take two at most. But on Saturday night, a hundred came – and having taken my two, I stood back from the water to watch the others settle in peace. That moon rose above the crab apples and into the cloud, lighting the sky like a bulb in a paper lampshade. Beneath the rush and whisper of mallard, a barn owl husked from its post in the grass. Later, on the long walk home, I saw the ripple of otters in the marsh, and a reflection of Venus trembled on the movement of water. The dog moved ahead of me, and she suddenly ran barking to confront a thing she’d discovered in a gateway. I ran behind her, listening to her panic as whatever she’d found replied twice in a deep and rattling hiss. Badger, mink, fox or cat, there was a scuffle. And whatever it was tore a tiny cut on the lobe of the dog’s lip. It was already dry by the time we reached home; and then hanging ducks from a peg in the shed and oiling the gun for its cabinet, I went back to my desk.

I recently sat the panel for a discussion event in Suffolk. As the evening drew to a close, an old man came and thanked me for my contribution. He was very kind, and he wondered if I would come to speak to his local group of naturalists in London sometime. Unable to meet the cost of my travel and time, he hoped that I would be able to make something work “next time I was passing”. He was a nice man, and I would have done it for free – but I am almost never “passing” London. When I told him that, he asked me how it was possible for a writer to live so far from the capital. He was thinking in terms of all those contacts and networks associated with the city which have sometimes turned enthusiasm into financial success. I explained that I was not financially successful, but that the internet was a good way to bridge the gap between town and country. And I also said that so much goes on in Galloway that I rarely feel able to leave. That made him laugh, but I wasn’t joking. 

I find it hard to meet the inspiration which pours down across these hills. Life shines, and through practice and disposition, I’m endlessly compelled to process and feed upon moments of clarity and excitement. I’m never stuck for something to write, and this blog often serves as an overspill of things I made that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Less than a quarter of what I write is published here, and even that’s too much. Perhaps it’s of no great quality anyway, but the world falls upon me in such density and excitement that I’m forever chasing the need to feed back upon it. At the start of a normal week, I have a bullet-point list of things I’d like to write or read and explore; imagined visions of subject matter for paintings or carvings or prints. And there can be thirty or forty things on that list. By the end of the week, I’ll have delivered on five or six – and there’s a nagging trauma in the realisation that I’ll have to let the remainder slip away because new ideas are coming.

In a bid to confront this demon, I took two weeks off work and devoted the entirety of my time to writing and making peace with the golden, crushing world. I would get up at five and write until noon. Then I would do all the farm chores and tasks which are an unavoidable part of my life, snatching lunch and a walk with the dog. Then from two until ten, I’d write and paint with a pressing urgency – pushing myself forward with the challenge that I finally had the time, so I had better come up with the goods. This pattern continued for twelve days. I was indefatigably enthused by the freedom, hoping that I would finally get ahead of the weight of possibilities which hang around my imagination. I tried to kill it by kindness, indulging every whim of creativity with a surfeit of attention and care.

But it only got deeper and more cavernous. And I still didn’t meet the ambitions I set for myself. Returning from the duck flight where this self-indulgent post began, I conjured up a dozen new ideas for projects and further reading; a dozen new ideas to lie upon the two dozen old ones which I’ll never have time to develop. So now I start to wonder if anxiety and frustration are an eternal counterbalance to a creative disposition. I am not in London, networking and pushing for a better deal on my next book. Perhaps I should be, but I can’t resist a feeling that I’m precisely where I’m meant to be, scoring the occasional point against an opponent that’s trying to eat me alive.