Bog Myrtle & Peat

The match flared into a luxury of curled bark, and crackling began soon afterwards. I’m used to lighting fires which call for long and gentle coaxing, but this stove was hungry to begin. Soon there were flames which pulled at the logs I’d laid, and I started to worry the sauna would begin without me.… Continue reading

Snow which comes down into Galloway from the north has usually been exhausted by the hills of Ayrshire and Lanark. We only get the dregs from a northerly wind, and the harm has gone out of heavy pressure systems which first made landfall at Kirkwall or Stornoway. Likewise, snow which blows in from the south… Continue reading

It would be wrong to say the man was heavy. We couldn’t tell for sure, and when we pulled him out of the sea, he brought a weight of water behind him in the bag of his overalls. There was a lot to lift; a great, unhelpful slop of oilskin, and even when he’d been… Continue reading

He’s grey and brief and wholly empty. I wish I could say that he means something to me; I wish I could tell you that we share some connection. But I see nothing at all. He is blank as a tribal mask; blank as a vee sign or a sheet of bare stone. Forty yards… Continue reading

I dreamed that I was able to visit you at your home in some large manse or country house. There were laurels at the window, and the first thing you said was that blackbirds sang in the evenings from the yews. You watched me as you said it, and I recalled from your interviews that… Continue reading

Just look at Nat Hocken. Blown to pieces by the Second World War, he’s enjoying a quiet and peaceful existence as a farm labourer in the Cornish countryside. When wildlife starts to behave strangely, he’s the first to notice the change. And when birds begin to turn up dead at his doorstep, his ability to… Continue reading

As we came at last to Inishmacsaint, the engine stopped and the lough lapped loudly on the hull of the boat. Whooper swans swam before us, then with a rousing pound of effort, they rose up to fly round and away. I saw five birds climbing; two white adults and three youngsters in murky shades… Continue reading

I went to Cardiganshire in January. It was a hotly anticipated trip, because I was on a mission to catch and ring woodcock with the celebrated Welsh artist Owen Williams. The man’s caught more than two thousand woodcock in the last few years, and his ringing returns have shed new light on these strange, confusing… Continue reading

There’s no end to the pleasure of that crossing between Cairnryan and Larne. On a summer’s morning, the harbours are alive with eider ducks and black guillimots, and the sun flares on the Braes of Antrim as it does in the evening towards the Rhinns of Galloway. If it’s calm, you can see porpoises from… Continue reading

Shoot stags to your heart’s content, and dash them to the ground with your bullets. If you do it right, you’ll strike them dumb and they’ll die in all manner of mad, romantic poses. Their tongues will lol from their mouths and their windpipes fold in breath-compressing angles. It’s a blast, so let the hills… Continue reading