We have so much time to consider, these days. To consider anything and everything. To develop little obsessions, healthy and unhealthy. (Note to self: consider if is there such a thing as a healthy obsession?) My best time, the time I set for considering, is when I’m outside walking and watching, looking and noticing. I’m … Continue reading Time to Consider
‘Is that so? You’re great for getting up and on the road so early, that’s still the middle of the night for me. Dark until Moffat, you say? That surprises me, either you were driving fast, or the sunrise is later than I thought it was. Yes, that’s true, I suppose it is only the … Continue reading Conversation at Breakfast
The earth is threatened with extinction and children and young people from all nations have been marching in their thousands to demand that those in power wake up and listen. What they are doing is fantastic, worthy of attention, comment and action, but sometimes I need to bypass the anxiety-inducing issues and focus on what … Continue reading A Little Bit of Heaven
We walked through hail on the Cheviots, those rolling hills that straddle the border between England and Scotland. I was on the southern side, in Northumberland, when big, fat balls of hail began to prick my cheeks like tiny needles. Starting out, it was sunny and cold with no sign of hail as we trudged … Continue reading Cheviots
Years ago I had two short-lived spells of being around horses. Both were at the same stables, high above my hometown on the Corbally Road, a name that I now think of as aptly onomatopoeic; it sounds like something you might say to a horse instead of ‘giddy up’ – ‘cor-bally!’ Sisters, B. and S., … Continue reading Kelpies
Last Wednesday was a wet one in Edinburgh. The five o’clock downpour came just in time to drench people coming home from work. I’d been inside all day and was itching to get out - time for a mental health walk. By eight o’clock, the rain was diffident, apologetic, like that rare embarrassed drunk who knows … Continue reading All Creatures Great and Small
Back in Edinburgh, I know someone who is partial to a little sculptural clipping in his garden. You know the sort of thing: clipping the privet into gently undulating waves, softening the usual straight lines and sharp angles of hedges and herbaceous borders. When I lived in York, in the North of England, the university … Continue reading Mother Earth
My Edinburgh Press 