Bog Myrtle & Peat

It seems increasingly unlikely that Galloway will be designated as a National Park after all. For a start, there’s absolutely no money to pay for it. While recent headlines focussed upon cash which was taken out of conservation pots to pay for employment disputes in the public sector, government cuts have run far more deeply Continue reading

Drops of water fall from the ceiling of Istanbul’s Basilica Cistern. It’s cool and even-handed underground where the Byzantine emperor Justinian built one of several enormous water tanks for his ancient capital city. Plopping, gin-clear pools are underlit by clever modern lighting, and a walkway allows tourists to wander freely around the remains of this Continue reading

The elk has a twist in his middle so that his head and shoulders are upright but his rump is upside down. It looks like he’s fallen and he’s trying to stand up – there’s a feeling of bambi on ice, but there’s also an extra dynamism and excitement to this twisting design which suggests Continue reading

From Samarkand, the train flew east into farmed-out flatlands where the overhead wires were clipped with rollers and doves like pegs on a clothesline. Some of these rollers were ludicrous blue, but many were silhouetted black against a setting sun and the dull enormity of mountains which crowd around the rich Fergana Valley. These peaks Continue reading

Even before the river could be seen or smelt from the road, the verges were falling away and the bridge rose in a low, continuous mound. Then it lay beneath me – the Amu Darya writ-large in a swirl of chalky brown water, sprawling around a braided span of islands and counter-currents which flickered between Continue reading

After July’s announcement about a new National Park in Galloway, the situation has stumbled to a strange hiatus. People are arguing about what it all means, and nobody knows for sure if the decision has already been taken. If you judge it on the basis that the Government has committed to making a new National Continue reading

Our first approach was dank and dull in the holloway. The air was cool, and our heads overhung by splays of hazel and hart’s tongue as we walked from the car to the hill. Then breaking through into sudden sunshine, we were free to chase butterflies along the heavy, sliding slope where the chalk giant Continue reading

How to fish for bass is not the problem. They’ll take whatever’s on offer, and there’s no great art to the game that I can see. The trick is learning when and where to sling your hook, and now I find that there are certain beaches around Luce Bay where the hunters come nosing inshore Continue reading

I don’t live inside the area put forward to be “Galloway National Park”. The proposed boundary takes a loop around my house, surrounding it on three sides but avoiding Dalbeattie as if there were some kind of illness contained in the small, dwindling industrial town on the Urr. I’ve grown up and lived almost my Continue reading

Whiles at dusk as I sit in the porch with a wreckage of the summer’s grass around me, a kestrel comes to the yard. He’s a young bird of this year’s fame, and he has to wait until the swallows go to bed before he dares to approach the gaping, whitewashed sheds. The little birds Continue reading