Bog Myrtle & Peat

A mile or so below Kirkcudbright, the Dee slops back upon itself to the pouch of a bay. It’s a great spot for curlews and shelducks, and from certain angles, it looks just as it would have done twelve hundred years ago when the Haliwerfolc nosed their way into Galloway. Fleeing from Viking raids on Continue reading

Kids drop bait for the crabs at Whitby harbour. The water’s thick and rubbery as gel, and it’s hard to see through slicks of oil and trash which float on the surface. You can’t make out what’s down at the bottom, but little polyester nets are lowered into the murk with tremendous gestures of excitement.  Continue reading

I feel for the people who are setting up the counter-campaign against a National Park in Galloway. They’re appalled by the idea of designation, but they’re on the back foot with no clear infrastructure or support to lean upon. It’s hard to oppose something which hasn’t been clearly defined, and these people are up against Continue reading

I think of Seamus Heaney on the shore and in the view to Antrim. His name is very present in the recent rasp of autumn grass and the swell of a thin green sea, but I have no claim on the man himself. I know a handful of his poems from back to front, and Continue reading

Now that National Parks are on the agenda here in Galloway, the conversation has begun to generate some momentum. The local newspaper carried reporting on progress announced by the Minister alongside a photograph of the campaign group as they celebrated the “good news”. But there’s still a great flabbiness about what it actually means – Continue reading

I fished from four fifteen until the tide slapped up into the rocks and something like dawn had broken in the east. The world itself is small enough to have bent by the time you look out to Brampton or Alston, so there was no coast or flatlands above the eastern horizon – no such Continue reading

I fall too soon into autumn each year, but to walk in the morning is to be wrapped in webs and soaked by dew to the knee. The cloud’s forever snagging on the old high ground where the grouse are throwing out small broods and the heather’s red with beetle’s fire. Fishing for bass at Continue reading

There’s an exhibition of portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn at the galleries in Kirkcudbright. It’s not my thing, but if I chose to wait for the perfect show to roll around into Galloway, I’d never leave the farm. So I went and was reminded of Raeburn’s style and substance during a period of extravagance in Continue reading

We’ve been told that Galloway is the Scottish Government’s “preferred site” for a new National Park. And with that, it seems like the deal is done – because while there will now be a consultation to gather information and assess local interest in the idea, the cart’s gone before the horse. The Government has promised Continue reading

There are curlew feathers on the English side of the Solway at Silloth. What with the wind in the west, the strandline’s ghosted with the moultings, and you could easily gather them in bundles of ten or a dozen at a time. It’s that moment in the year when the birds drop their old feathers Continue reading