Bog Myrtle & Peat

I said Bite saw and Let’s see what you can do. The engine roared and the woodslot deepened in its log. Forty trees had bunched together in the storm. Standing still, they lay like the ribs of a tepee, and most could be ignored. But a few hung together above the sheep shed roof with… Continue reading

There was a dog fox dead on the roadside verge. It was neatly dressed and crisp with its body calm in the morning, so cleanly killed you’d wonder it was dead at all.  I saw the corpse as I went to town and I marked it. But when I came back, there was a blue… Continue reading

I’ve sometimes made an attempt on this blog to write-up a few books I read and enjoyed in the preceding year. Since I read more than ever before in 2021, it made sense to set down five of my favourites in nothing like an order of preference. Even as I brought this list together, I… Continue reading

I’d never seen mistletoe in Scotland. As a symbol of Christmas, I’d reckoned it was something like Myrrh; metaphorical and thrice removed from anything you’d ever hold in your hand. My handbook says that it grows here, but the first time I noticed the plant for sure was in Somerset. That’s hardly “here”. In fact… Continue reading

From A Boy’s Will, 1913 Continue reading

The cows have had the hay, and now it’s time for black-wrapped silage and the curse of heavy machinery. I mistake the seasons. When the bales are stacked in July, I stand in the sunlit field and conjure up an image of the winter. I imagine myself walking easily in the snow with a bale… Continue reading

Dogs barked in the close and the stackyard. He swore at them, then he let himself in to yell A Good New Year to the almost empty house. By the time I came to find him, his jacket hung on a chairback and a lump of coal had been dumped on the stool at the… Continue reading

I find it helpful to tell myself that nobody reads this blog. If I worried too much about reaching an audience or following figures, I’d start to break from my own line and the cart would be set before the horse. I’m also aware that if I became fixated on publishing pitch-perfect material, I’d never… Continue reading

I made the walk on the hill’s face to the shoulder and the boulder’s lair. I worked hard at the walking; found hares for the running as the ravens rocked and roiled in the shelled-up corries below. There were sunny days, but more often the cloud came cool to my collar like a twist of… Continue reading

I spent the greatest part of this day on the roof, palming the boards and patching the damage caused by a storm. The missing slates had not fallen far from the walls, but most had burst on the back step and the yard setts. I only found six which could be reused; seven if you… Continue reading