travel

New Essay Published on THE CLEARING

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‘I was left breathless by the wind – and the view – and Lewis took on a suddenly different feel: an awe-inspiring island of sense and frightening clarity; a lost world of elements; a dreamed-of place caught between sea and sky.’

A new essay on The Clearing – Little Toller Books’ online journal of Nature, Landscape and Place. 

‘Between Sea and Sky’ comes out of a research trip to Lewis back in 2022 and explores the changing land use on the islands. I met with a modern day crofter who, like many new generation crofters, is moving away from traditional crofting practices and using her land to plant native woodland instead of keeping livestock. She talked movingly about her experience relocating to and living on the islands, and of the deep connection she has found with the land. 

I had a great stay on Lewis and wrote a lot about my time there – it was a homecoming of sorts – a return – having lived in Stornoway for a while back in the mid-noughties. It’s not an easy place to live, especially as an incomer, but it’s a place I keep going back to. 

Thanks as ever to editor Jon Woolcott and to crofter Susanne Erbida for taking time to meet with me during my visit.

You can read the essay through the link below. I’d love to hear what you think of it.

Between Sea and Sky

New Writing on THE CLEARING

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‘The screeching increased, and we found the terns now hovering above our heads: dark, piercing eyes glaring down at us, the flash of razored wings folding in on themselves in a sudden flurry of air and feathers as they dove to drive us off. We stumbled on, wary of our footsteps and continually harried by the terns. Eventually we came across a half-collapsed stone dyke and ducked down behind it, leaving the mass of screaming birds behind and feeling guilty for our intrusion.’

Very happy to have some new writing back on THE CLEARING.

It stems from a trip to Orkney in the summer where I had an encounter with an arctic tern colony, and reflects on the draw of the islands and the potential negative impacts of tourism on Orkney’s wildlife.

THE CLEARING is a journal of landscape, nature and place published by Little Toller based in Dorset and edited by Jon Woolcott, author of Real Dorset.

The Flow Country

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EPISODE 2 OF THE PAPERBOATS PODCAST, WITH LINDA CRACKNELL

Episode 2 of the Paperboats podcast with author Linda Cracknell is available from today.

I talk with Linda about Scotland’s Flow Country, her book Doubling Back, and how important walking is to her writing practice.

Linda reads an extract from the new edition of Doubling Back, published by Saraband in May 2024 and a wonderful book exploring a range of diverse landscapes, places, and paths as memory.

Linda also highlights how important the peatbogs of Caithness in Sutherland – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site – are in alleviating the impacts of climate change, and how vulnerable they have been to commercial forestry practices and land misuse. She describes her time spent in the Flow Country in writing the new chapter of her book, her life-long relationship with walking, and the importance of landscape and place to her work. 

Available across all platforms and streaming now, follow and subscribe to keep up with all future episodes.

Check it out at paperboats.org

Sacred Mountain – an autumn equinox walk with BBC Radio Scotland.

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In 2022 I took a walk up everybody’s favourite hill in Aberdeebnshire to witness the autumn equinox sunrise from the summit of Mither Tap – the site of a Pictish hill fort that dominated what was, for the Picts, a sacred landscape.

I wrote an essay about the walk, exploring what the idea of a sacred landscape might mean to us today, which was published on The Clearing – Little Toller’s online journal of Nature, Landscape and Place.

Here I return to the hill as the autumn equinox approached, in the company of BBC Radio Broadcaster Helen Needham. We talk about our connection to landscape and place, and the importance of taking time out from our busy lives to pause and to reflect, and to notice the changing of the seasons.

Extracts from my essay are woven through the recording Helen made as we walked up the hill, following the Maiden Causeway – an ancient track leading to the Pictish fort on the summit of Mither Tap.

You can listen to the podcast here or click on the image above.

And you can read my essay on The Clearing here.

Archipelago 2.3

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‘I bend down and trace the outline of each foot in the cool, hardened silt. I can feel the definite impression of the man’s big toe and a ridge of sand that had been pulled up under the ball of the foot as the toes gripped the surface and he pushed his weight forward with each stride. I can feel the outline of the woman’s heel: the rounded edge and then forward into the arch.

“So how old are these prints, again?” I ask. 

“About six-thousand years old,” Burns tells me. “Just in that transition between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.”‘

From ‘Traces’ Archipelago 2.3 edited by Andrew McNeillie and James Macdonald Lockhart, published by The Clutag Press (2024), pp. 107-115.

To say I’m pleased to have writing in these pages is an understatement. I’ve been following Archipelago for years and to be in it is, well, something. All issues of the journal get archived in the Bodleian Library in Oxford so I could be sitting hidden on a library shelf for many more years, yet…

’Traces’ explores the Mesolithic landscapes of the Sefton coast with archaeologist Dr Alison Burns. We search for prehistoric footprints found in fossilised beds of ancient mud along Formby beach, reconstruct the landscapes and lives of the Mesolithic past, and consider the implications of modern day sea level rise. 

Also in these pages: 

Nicholas Allen, Alex Boyd, Julie Brook, John Bryant, Moyà Cannon, George Chamier, Claire Connolly, Tony Crowley, Gerald Dawe, Tim Ecott, Nick Groom, Kirsty Gunn, Andrew Hadfield, Howell Harris, Ben Keatinge, Angela Leighton, James Macdonald-Lockhart, Edna Longley, Michael Longley, Jamie McKendrick, Garry MacKenzie, Angus Macmillan, Robert Minhinnick, Heather O’Donoghue, Judy O’Kane, John Purser, Alan Riach, Fiona Stafford, Michael Viney, David Wheatley and Lyn Youngson. 

Very humbling company. 

You can order Archipelago direct from The Clutag Press.