Something a bit different. I go for cycles more than I do walks, and the back roads of East- and Midlothian are my usual haunts. I've explored some of the old coal mining region in a previous post. A ride on a road bike is necessarily restricted to roads, because you can't branch off onto … Continue reading Esk Valley & Moorfoots: a ride
A journal of wanderings and wonderings from the British Isles Weird Walk is the brainchild of Owen Tromans, Alex Hornsby and James Nicholls. It's only been available for a few weeks and is on a third print run already, which says something about the appetite for a slantwise look at our countryside. The introduction bears … Continue reading Zine review: ‘Weird Walk’ #1
"The stones, like the natural granite cast up from the earth by nature, defy the centuries. To stand beside them...on the heights of West Penwith...is to become...an astronaut in time. The present vanishes, centuries dissolve...here in the lichened stone is the essence of memory itself. Belief in immortality...Man's answer, from the beginning, to the challenge … Continue reading Cornwall: ancient stones
I tweeted a month or so back that I'd shoved all other writing projects aside (and that has included this blog, dear reader) because I'd started work on a Folk Horror story. This new work is now at around 9,000 words* and going well. I feel a twinge of guilt at abandoning (for now) the … Continue reading New fields, old land
We moved from Edinburgh to Peterborough in January 2000. At that point, my sole experience of the Soke had been a trip a few weeks before, to find a place to live, and as a stop on the East Coast railway line. The landscape around the town was a revelation, even when just viewed from … Continue reading The mutation of an idea
The art of Peter Lanyon - who died 53 years ago today - is, like all great art, uncompromising. For those seeking “Cornish Art”, it has none of the serenity of the calm seascapes on offer in every gallery in every tiny cove. But if you’re prepared to look beyond the initially daunting surface of … Continue reading Peter Lanyon: Liminality & Psychogeography
Driving west on the A30, it's impossible to miss the post-industrial landscapes of clay- and tin-mining country. Whatever your feelings toward them, they are impressive, and very different from each other. Clay mining - the Cornish Alps - sprawl over the area north and west of St. Austell (and give the Eden Project it's home). … Continue reading Cornwall: two landscapes
(This post is an unpublished piece I wrote over a decade ago, about the village in Fife where I grew up. A few details have since been updated, but on re-reading I can't believe I didn't mention the huge hill figure of a bear above Parkhill which was carved - the lines set alight to … Continue reading After the Factory
Into the Gyre 