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Observing the world all around
Looking up. Looking around Observing the world all around without a smartphone Without a mobile phone Being one with the Nature underneath the castle breathing in the world participating with the actuality All is good Fortresses have always occupied hills...
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Mushroom hunting in Scotland
Mushroom Hunting I remember one early autumn walking the Trotternish ridge on the Isle of Skye with four of my friends. We were delighted to find small creamy coloured fungi with brown nipples and a matching brown skirt. Dark gills with stems that turned...
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the black walnut
The easily worked, close-grained wood of the black walnut has long been prized by furniture- and cabinetmakers for its attractive color and exceptional durability. Its logs are in such demand for veneer that “walnut rustlers” have made off with trees...
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Salmon
Salmon , also known as salmonids, are anadromous fish renowned for their unique life cycle and precise migrations: They are born in fresh water, spend much of adulthood in the open ocean, and return to the same stream to spawn. Salmon found along the...
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Britbox or Netflix?
What Britbox is supposed to supply is content to foreign-based viewers/customers. But the content is often years old or not what that huge potential audience wants. Did anyone ask them? Perhaps some market research? I am a member of that audience and...
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To take a bicycle onto a train?
In order to take a bike on a Cross Country train e.g. Penzance-Edinburgh you need to reserve one of two reservable spaces on it, or face the very real possibility of not being able to bring your bike at all - either you get lucky with the one remaining...
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Peace, universal love, respect for the natural world…
Peace, universal love, respect for the natural world… Francis of Assisi the “first environmentalist”, is the sort of saint whose teachings even the most ardent secularist couldn’t object to. His celebration of simplicity and rejection of material possessions...
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What? There is No Official Scottish Bird!!!
Although there is no official Scottish national bird, many Scots would like there to be one, and have tried to make themselves heard. There are a few Scottish birds which could fit the bill, but ballots, petitions and research show that the stunning Golden...
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Some pertinent advice for winter.
) Types of cold ... I was in inland Russia in -35C with no wind and as long as everything was covered, it was almost pleasant in the sunshine. But 5C in Beijing I was frozen to the core because it was so damp. Lesson : Don't be put into a negative frame...
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A shout for the Lyme disease.
It's time to start shouting at people about Lyme disease. Lyme disease is a lot more common than many people realise. It is particularly dreadful when it strikes the young, children, or people in their prime. A mother with toddlers who is struggling with...
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Do we really need food-energy supplements?
Unless you are planning on running/cycling/walking for OVER two or three hours - you don't need food/energy supplements. Mostly because by the time they are in your system you will have finished. Generally you need eat a good hour or two BEFORE you exercise....
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The Fall of the Facebook Empire
Zuckerberg infamously once stated of Facebook users that they were "idiots" for freely giving his company vast amounts of their personal details/data. He became a billionaire selling said information on to other businesses. The platform he created bears...
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Planting trees to save the planet
Planting trees to save the planet If you buy in trees, do so from a reputable nursery. It is best to plant trees with UK provenance. If you are planting more than one of the same species, buy from separate suppliers, genetic diversity is key to surviving...
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Children to learn to the optimum
If you want children to learn to the optimum, then you have to mix formal learning with play. The current, and former, governments believe that if you keep a child's nose to the grindstone hour after hour, then they will learn more than if you have them...
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Geese Return to Scotland
Return to Scotland of the Geese Up here on an island in scotland’s north there arrival for me signals the portent of winter, darker days, wild storms and seas, the sun lower in the sky, each day casting longer fingers of shadows, when they leave they...
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The problem with remote working
The real problem with remote working driving a rush to the country is the disparity in house prices and incomes. If city dwellers can pay over the odds for a rural house whilst trousering big capital gains and keeping their city income, nobody in a rural...
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A lovely place to discover in Cambridge.
The Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge. On the top floor of an unexciting-looking 1980s office building in a part of the city rarely visited by tourists, with very little signage pointing the way there or telling you you've arrived. When you...
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What is there to wear today?
What to wear in the garden In this weather, several layers on top - T shirts under something warmer and a cotton jacket that I found in a charity shop. A pair of synthetic trousers (the kind of fabric that's made from recycled plastic bags) with a fairly...
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Rock Doves persecuted by Peregrines
Some closely related species seem much more accepting of people, up here Greylags will wander away from you, head sideways with a wary eye just in case, Barnacles, at the mere sight of the top of a human head 200 hundred yards away will jump up as one...
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In Scotland - Culbin is an eerie place
Culbin is an eerie place at times, wandering through silent lichen-clad pine forest planted over the dunes, some of which are sizeable (the largest about 35m high), and in other places across beach-stones, now a forest floor. You have to keep your directional...
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Food for the lockdown
Food for the lockdown Buckwheat groats. You should stock up on buckwheat groats. If you want to survive war, pandemic, brexit or end of the world you should always have plenty of buckwheat stocked up. That's what people cleaned shelves of in spring in...
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Problems outsourcing to a private company,
The problem with outsourcing to a private company, is not the outsourcing per se , but rather the ability and the knowledge of those doing the outsourcing. This is critical, because any company for hire will do only exactly what it has been told to do....
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A strong-willed, intelligent unscrupulous Cat
Cats may not waste much time imagining the future they would prefer and trying to shape it that way. But they are great opportunists, extremely adept at shaping the present how they prefer. There is perhaps a lesson there for us to emulate. Some years...
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Rabbits in the garden
I have just planted lots of tulips in containers. I was so grateful for them this year in the lockdown. I’ve also planted some tiny irises. My main challenge is to make sure that rabbits don’t dig them up (the rabbits also provided lots of entertainment...
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Northern Ireland
Catholic Church in Northern Ireland is deeply unhappy at how the Executive shut churches as Advent starts. Archbishop Eamon Martin says: "I cannot understand how a person may still go to an off-licence to buy alcohol but might not be permitted to visit...