Bog Myrtle & Peat

A stranger came to the house with two little dogs in the back of her car. I gave her something to eat, and we held a constructive conversation about the work we have in common. But she had a long drive home, and I suggested on the edge of darkness that she should walk those… Continue reading

David caught a perch on the Black Water of Dee, and Daddy didn’t. That’s how my son remembers the night in September when all three of us rode in a canoe across the loch and up to the dark, secluded depths of the river. The lily pads were past their best and their seed pods… Continue reading

We sat between plastic flowers at the crematorium; seven men and a strange Minister who’d come down from Kilmarnock. When the curtains opened and the coffin was conveyed slowly out of sight, one of the undertakers pressed the buttons on a CD player behind a screen. From speakers positioned around the almost empty room, there… Continue reading

I think of Hay on Wye as a kind of paradise. It’s the world’s oldest “book town”, and the shops groan with the weight of their interesting titles. When a friend recommended a novel to me by email, I simply walked across the street and bought it, knowing that I would be able to find… Continue reading

The year’s worn well at Galrinnes, and the moor is swirling with grass as it rises away from the road. This farm was for sale in the winter, and for a while it seemed like it would be sold to foresters. Green investors have a bottomless hunger for “marginal” and “unproductive” land like this, and… Continue reading

Two weasels were fighting in the road near the hospital. By the time I stopped the car to watch, there was blood on the tarmac and the brambles were alive with warning birds. I could hardly have made myself more obvious to the animals as they fought, and my first impulse was to take a… Continue reading

Controversy was stirred on social media when an English writer stepped forward to share a problem. Having recently moved to Scotland, the man was looking to write about the hills of his newly adopted home. He’d tried to use words like dyke, burn and muir, but they felt unfamiliar in his hands; they weren’t his… Continue reading

The river Lugg is all that stands between England and Wales at Presteigne. The town lies on an outcrop of Wales which juts into Herefordshire like a fingerpoint, but it’s hard to justify the line because this river marks nothing at all – and soon the border leaves it again, following hedges and the crowns… Continue reading

People are surprised by the wisdom and memory of cows. Perhaps they expect such large, unwieldy animals to be slow or blandly-minded, and it’s true that linguistic expressions of intelligence are few and far between. If you’re unused to hearing it, the flat and monotonous “moo” sounds like a lack of insight; the full diversity… Continue reading

The pipe band played a medley of Bonnie Galloway and The Rowan Tree as they marched to the park in the rain. Teams of racing pigeons were stirred to the cloud by the sound, and the pavements were crowded with flags. Shopkeepers leaned in their doorways and kids laughed from an upstairs window as the… Continue reading