Writing and Musings
-
Finding Treasure in 2025
Aussie Gold Hunters. Outback Opal Hunters. Gold Divers. If my tv could create a “Wrapped” of my most watched tv shows in the same way Spotify does for music, these would probably be my top 3 viewed programs of 2024. Treasure hunting has been hovering around the front of my mind all year. Conversely I’ve…
-
Ballochbuie Forest
This weekend, I was supposed to be heading south into the Scottish borderlands with a friend for a camping trip. It’s been in the diary for weeks. However, early in the week he had to pull out so I was left with a decision to make, should I continue on our prearranged plan, or should…
-
Time for Bed
If I asked you about finding the perfect pea, you’d probably think I was talking about food again. I’m not a fan of mushy peas, but petit pois are lovely when they have a bit of a crunch about them. And don’t get me started on big, fat garden peas. This pea chat isn’t related…
-
2023 in Three
Nacreous clouds are everywhere to be seen as 2023 finishes her spin cycle. And spinning is an appropriate metaphor as it feels like the year has barely started and yet it’s almost in the laundry basket, ready to hang up. Those beautiful rainbows clouds in the sky lent our local school an almost sci-fi edge.…
-
Storm Babet’s Bothy
A photo of my grandad can still be found on the wall in the restaurant area of the Cross Keys Hotel in Ettrick Bridge. What he is doing in the picture I can’t quite remember as I saw the picture about 12 years ago on a quick stop through the village. The Ettrick Valley was…
-
When can I go back to St Kilda?
What do you do when you’ve been on that “Top of my Bucket List” adventure? A trip to the St Kilda archipelago has been at the top of my adventure wish list for years. My 4am alarm call on Friday last week fired the gun on my excitement for the day ahead, while also giving…
-
“Where are you from?”
Our landscape doesn’t owe us humans anything. It has no obligations to us. Beneath our feet it’s heart beats as surely as ours. It is free. And we have, until our recent creation of climate change, lived in relative harmony. It didn’t feel like harmony as the snow blew at me from every direction, in…
-
The Rugged Country of Coire Garbhlach
According to the LearnGaelic dictionary, Garbhlach apparently means rugged country. And this was where I was heading for a bluebird weekend with some of the boys, a roam around the rough corrie and the wider expanse of Glen Feshie, one of my favourite glens. Coming from different parts of the country, we all converged on…
Challenge Kev Outdoors 