Bog Myrtle & Peat

“Ninety five percent of people who oppose grouse shooting have never been on a grouse moor and have no first-hand experience of moorland management”.  I just made that up, but the point stands in all its provocative silliness. Listening to the latest tortured exclamations in the old debate about grouse shooting, it feels like reality Continue reading

In the midst of several writing projects, it’s been helpful to compile articles from here and combine them with new material on a different blog platform. To help straighten my thinking, I’ve set up a new page on Substack – the link is here -> https://andtheyellowale.substack.com This blog will keep running as it always did Continue reading

The sea scent’s settled on the Burren in October. Beneath the endless movement of redwings, there’s mist on the hilltops and heavy weights of water suspended from the cobwebs as the Atlantic Ocean breathes into the hills of County Clare. This is stone country, and if ancient Irish stories tell of how humans were punished Continue reading

My father’s generation believed that poetry was something to be learnt by heart. They made a virtue of recital, and it sometimes seemed that you couldn’t really claim to love words without knowing them inside-out. Ted Hughes was a particular champion of memorised verse, and while I would follow that man to the ends of Continue reading

Pembrokeshire was sloe-blue in October; cool as rowan stems and clean as a seal in the salt-grey spray. The first redwings had arrived from Scandinavia, but instead of sweeping down from the east, the birds I saw flew in from the sea towards Wales in a churn of back-currents and eddies. Perhaps they’d overshot the Continue reading

There could be a way around the current National Park controversy. Ayrshire-based social media superstar Matt Cross recently put forward an alternative location for a National Park which might oil the wheels of an increasingly uglified debate. Matt’s idea is to base a new Park entirely on the core of Galloway’s Forest Park – the Continue reading

The Kazakh steppe is too big to be held in the bowl of a human skull. It runs so far and with such confidence in every direction that it doesn’t make sense, particularly to those of us who are used to forests and lochs and the shattering interruption of sea. The steppe is only level Continue reading

A storm arrived to slow the selling lambs. Leaves were torn from the trees and rushed like shoals of birds across the fields to frighten and confuse the work of gathering. The sheep flared and broke back on the dogs, and we couldn’t hear each other swearing. Then finally penned and confined in sweet fields Continue reading

There were drinks and reminiscences at a party to mark the 132nd birthday of the poet Hugh MacDiarmid. Hosted by his surviving family and friends, the event was held in a beautiful terraced house on a leafy street in the heart of Glasgow’s West End, and I’m nothing short of immensely grateful to have been Continue reading