Living Deliberately

11^th March is Hercules day. Is it the first actual day of spring? It’s certainly beautiful outside, the sun is shining and there is more sand on the pavements than snow. The sky is blue and the clouds are few and wispy. What a day for plans. A day for the future, for expectation and possibility. These are exciting, I need the drive. I need to return to normal after a week of binge eating, little exercise, no jiu-jitsu and no sleep.

These are all connected of course, we figured that out a long time ago. Diet + attitude = mental and physical toughness, dogged determination, if one goes, they all do. First it was sleep after BB being ill, these thing happen, I’m not complaining. Next was the diet. Suddenly all the biscuits in the world aren’t enough, and most of them are in my staff room. Healthy teas make way for pizza and chips, if any tea at all. I’m not sure which is worse, which leads to the full energy sap of doing nothing, achieving nothing, exercising nothing except my eyelid muscles. Spring is not a time for this, for laziness. It is a time of exuberance and spirit, a willingness to try new things or to get back to old ones. Bring on Spring!

‘Summer clenches hands with summer under the snow’. Snow here today, but the sky is blue and bright and beautiful. The snow is minimal, light and cold but hasn’t seemed to frost at all, which can be the dangerous bit driving in the morning. I don’t think we’re going to get much of this snow coming from the Arctic, it’s been a bit of a damp squib, with most areas barely able to make a snowball and hardly worth posting a picture of.

Still snow always enhances the beauty of the landscape, even a small amount. The Pentlands will look braw from K’s playground today, standing out amidst that solid blue background and it’s a shame we can’t get up them rather than look at them from a distance.

Speaking of that I really must see about getting new boots. All my footwear are in poor shape just now. The soles of my walking boots are falling off and held together with shoe goo. The same stuff filled my wellies for ages and stopping parts of them from falling off. Barely. My outdoor shoes smell, though structurally they are probably in the best shape. Even my trainers are a bit flat at the moment. Poor feet, if only you had something good to walk in and something good to walk on.

Hard frost on the ground today, snow sits on it like icing sugar on a sponge cake. I feel renewed, more energetic than yesterday and certainly more useful than last night which was one of the most useless nights in human history. My headache was so bad I lay on the couch after the girls were asleep and only moved to walk the dog about two hours later. I dozed and watched documentaries on chess, which is probably enough to put anyone to sleep, and retired at the usual time. The walk in the cold night air was invigorating, the painkillers kicked in and I went to bed feeling better than I had all day.

Needless to say, I am a bit hungover today but far better than last night so it’s a win. I might even get a workout in if I have the energy. The hills are encrusted with snow, the ground is hard to walk on, it’s -2˚C currently and set to get not far above that throughout the day. And that’s ok with me. This last frost and winter like conditions are good for renewal and that will make the spring seem all the more worthwhile when it finally comes around. For spring is the time of energy and plans, renewed vigour and renewed life. Things may still be dead at the moment, but soon…

Nature cannot recede. It cannot get worse. It only improves upon itself year after year, and it is us humans, in our attempts to contain nature that block it from doing so and reaching its full potential. Nature cannot recede. It never says no, can never be not bothered. What a wonderful metaphor for the human spirit, and even our day to day lives. Nature can be used like an inspirational quote. Can’t be bothered going to the gym? What would nature do? WWND? No time to relax, rest or sleep. WWND?

The weeds, plants and trees will always try to crack through our pavements. Damp will always find ways to penetrate your home. Moss or clover will always attack your manicured lawn with a fervour bordering on the religious. A green ISIS. Animals will always find a way to survive until they drop down dead of hunger, thirst of exhaustion. How many humans in this western end of Christendom can say that? The spider will always gain access to your garage. The rocks will always fall down the mountain, the waves will always roar up the shore.

What is it about that word ‘wild’ that attracts us? If people were striving for it in the 1800s when parts of the world, and a lot of America, were wild and unclaimed, Scotland itself was probably all but divided up by then, and the free man had nothing except his wildness. The appeal today surely is there are very few of these areas available or that the lifestyle is a fantasy. An idyllic rural life is very appealing when you are in your own centrally heated home where the gas cooker works and the kettle takes minutes.

The reality of the wild would be boiling water for ages or the endless collecting and chopping of wood to heat the home and cook the food. Then doing that again. Living and knowing the seasons, growing rotating, and cultivating. No lie-ins or you might die. Hard fucking work that no one is really accustomed to nowadays, except for the few, or pockets of communities. This extends to our entertainment as well, the appeal of the bad guy in films and books, in games. It’s far more fun to be the villain. The word ‘tame’ as an opposite to ‘wild’ equates to dull as HDT says. Boring, and no one wants to think they lead a boring life, or even admit it.

As each man’s experience of the world differs, each man should experience as much of the world as he possibly can, in order to balance his thoughts, develop empathy and even to set future goals. How can we achieve when we do not know what we need to improve on? How much do we know about ourselves if we’ve never been in a fight, asks Tyler Durden, this can be turned into how well do you know yourself when you are never really challenged? Science can teach us a lot, but how can we really ‘feel’ this, and to feel is to know. No?

A long time ago now, 1996 or 97 maybe, I learned this word empirical, to rely on observation and experience. The Sistine Chapel quote from Good Will Hunting comes to mind also. I feel like a bit of a twat sometimes saying ‘I’ve been there’, or ‘I’ve done that’ or ‘I used to do that’ in normal conversation, why should I? It’s all true. Why would anyone not want to say that? Just because my experiences have changed now to caravan parks and Disneyland doesn’t make it any less worthwhile, or my previous ones from being obsolete. I’ve still been to China. And I know what the Sistine Chapel smells like. And I know how Kazakhstan feels, which is more than a thousand books can teach. But in saying that, I fucking love books and often dream of huge book shops and labyrinth libraries.

‘I want to stay and hear the bluebirds once more’. And don’t we all. What a wonderful way to put it as well. Yes we want to continue to have new and varied and exciting experiences, though maybe less as we age; we want to see our children grow up and have these things for themselves. We’d like to see our own grandchildren and spend time with them. We like to have plans and realise them.

Is hearing the mundane, the everyday things just as important when you reach the end of your life. I hope when I’m 120 and M is 80 that I can still enjoy her company as much as I do now. Imagine as we wait for her younger sister to come round and remind us about our trip to Disneyland or the time I ripped my breeks on that mountain in the snow and how much we laughed. I hope I am aware and awake enough to appreciate the birdsong in the morning just as much, or the taste of my coffee, or the crisp feel of the winter grass under my feet, or the smell of the rain in the air. It is these little things that keep us alive.

Nature is perfect in her details. I felt that this morning when I said to BB to turn off the light in the bathroom and she said its summer. The sunlight was pouring through the little window more than it has for ages and I was not used to seeing it, especially as I was trying my best to keep my eyes closed. But it was nice, nice to see if not nice to be awake on the only chance of a long lie of the week.

The detail was all over today as well (it’s about 4:30pm), from the tiny glass on the beach to the waves coming over the rocks and soaking those stupid lassies from the knees down. That’s them wet for the day in their jeans and Chuck Taylors. Let’s ignore the signs the tide is giving us and stand here for ages for our Insta photo shoot. The way the girls play with the two Ms at sword fights is incredible, I love it, ganging up on the adults and being ‘Team Kids’ the way it should be, the way nature intended it to be. And everything if full of life as the grass once again grows, daisies and the dandelions won’t be far behind, though next week it is to snow again, deliberate action again, everything perfect, everything intended and nothing rough-hewn from the rock of the earth.

Nice little Scottish analogy from HDT today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word ‘macadamised’ used in print before but I suppose it would’ve been a fairly new phenomenon in 1863. I wonder what his take on the civil war would’ve been given the date here and his unconcern for trivialities. A copy of his real journal would no doubt reveal this. He’s right about the bread and circuses of course. Today I’d say more so than in the 1860s. Panem circenses credulous descent.

Triviality is everywhere and the focus on the long game, the bigger picture, is as short as our attention span. I do worry about this. If I can’t even leave my phone alone while watching a movie or reading a book, what chance has humanity got? What of the children for whom this is now the new norm, the example? I see it every day. I see it in my work and in my children. It is not their faults of course, it is the driver of society, a technocratic state in which we are all enslaved, and HDT would no doubt be appalled at the state of the world right now. Our addiction to information every three seconds, but it is more than that, it is the quality of the information too, for 99.99% of it is triviality.

The signs are there, peeking through fence posts and pockets of woodland if you know where to look. At roadsides, at paths, patches in trees and through old stone walls, moss covered and crumbling. The bird song fills the air at certain points of the day, such as now, and makes for a cheerier disposition for anyone. I do not think I would like to live in a place where you could not hear church bells announce the hour or the birdsong is not predominant to the human noise in the morning. The racket we as a species must make to the animal world. It must be appalling.

But these signs of spring are not fully there yet. We are into March now and the ground is still wet and muddy, the sky thick with cloud, the rain complete. Its light, but it’s not bright. There is no sun. We’d need to go high up on the EasyJet to Paris to see it today. Bleak, wet, muddy, so many months of our year look like this. The small things, the reminders we need to look for closely in the hope the weather will eventually change and our moods will be lifted. The buds on the tree, the snowdrops in the woods, the birdsong in the air. The change in temperature? Not likely, bloody freezing the last few days!

And as if by magic here is another passage that corresponds with my earlier writing. “How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is among us.” I couldn’t agree more Henry. And this is even worse in this century than in Thoreau’s’. He wrote that in 1862! Imagine the beautiful vistas he must have seen compared to our modern monstrosities. Land carpet bombed by industry, factories, retail outlets, piss poor housing, even the expensive ones that are not made to last. Will my house be as standing as some of the old ones in this village in 100/200/300 years?

We take up space everywhere. Rip up hedgerows and woodland, build over fields, and divert waterways to suit our needs. Badger sets are meant to be police protected but they are filled in to make way for the human beast. The human fiend, that pretends to care for the natural world but has no interest in it whatsoever. Gone off on a bit of tangent/rant here, forgetting that the original point of the Greek word for the world means cosmos. Beauty or Order. And this in a nutshell is the main tenet of Last Wolf.

In December 2022 I came to the end of a year of directed journal writing. It had become a habit I didn’t want to lose but was unsure of where to take it next. I decided to try and focus my writing away from ‘me’ and force myself to write more about nature and the outdoors. How I was going to do this was a problem, without the content merely recalling my walk that morning or discussing the weather.

Within the last few days of 2022 I came upon the book The Daily Thoreau, a perfect collection of daily quotes from the man behind the phrase Live Deliberately. You can read more about his influence on Last Wolf here. https://lastwolf.co.uk/walden-or-life-in-the-woods/

I began my 2023 journal using these quotes as a springboard for my own thoughts. Sometimes I mention his words specifically, a lot of the time I don’t. Sometimes I don’t understand what he’s on about and others it’s just me rambling. A lot of it mentions the weather and dog walks, but remember, the vast majority was written very early in the morning so probably won’t make much sense anyway. It is presented as un-edited as possible.

Live Deliberately,

Barry

Akin to something I was writing about yesterday, there is more magic, or things unknown in the heavens and the earth than we can ever know within our philosophy. We can try. The attainment of knowledge is a golden thing, aspirational for anyone and everyone. The gold is out there to be found, I suppose most people maybe look for it in the wrong places. The classics can’t be beat, but they do go out of style. And they can be built on. Turning the head towards the heavens and recognising that beauty, majesty and scale of the cosmos makes your social questions, whatever they are, seem very insignificant indeed.

There is more revelation in the sun rising up above the trees, or the swan skittering across the water to land perfectly as it intended. The dew on the grass of a morning. The explosions in the night sky, the fact that we are powered by a giant fireball battery that is miles away. Millions of miles away. What knowledge should I carve that is not these kinds of experiences? I notice my footprints in the sand and in the forest floor. I feel the trees. I hear them. We search for sympathy with intelligence, and not necessarily the pursuit of knowledge. Curiosity with a purpose.

This is actually pretty mad to think that the media was the same in 1863 as it is now. I agree that one newspaper a week is enough. I wish I had the time to read the paper but even on a strike day I doubt I’ll have the time. But anyway I don’t want to. Even in reading a localised paper, as no doubt HDT was, you might not recognise your own local area. Stories of crime and the political meanderings that make the national news hardly looks like what is outside our own windows. I’ve had enough of the media, from all sides and of all kinds.

Social media as a source of news is not a source of news. It is opinion and usually the opinion of one person, or I suppose, many if you go to the comments, which can sometimes be more informative, or hilarious. More and more we see accounts that are controlled and the same is true of the print media whose owners and positions dictate what goes in based on what sells. Or their opinion; which is the true nature of media. We tell you what to think based on the biggest dramatic story we can concoct, even if it’s not true. I’ve had too much. I need to get away from it more.

I’ve written about water before. I think I may have a post on it coming soon. Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink said Coleridge, but it is true that water is life, the life blood, and you can see why the search for it on other planets is the obvious thing to do. Or signs of it. A plant droops, you give it water, it lifts itself up confidently to live another day.

Humans are exactly the same, sluggish and bleary eyed, mornings are turned around after that first glass of the day, and many more should be consumed after it. I’d argue it does more for you than a morning coffee does. I try to be well hydrated. Part of the problem I used to have with hangovers was the lack of hydration, now I drink water almost constantly. It’s difficult, especially in company to stop drinking so much and be more polite. But it is healthy no? Why should it feel so weird, especially in the summer? Hydration or dehydration, water is strength, water is life. We are beholden to it to live and it can kill us in an instant. The power of rivers, floods, tides and currents is unfathomable. Unstoppable and the depths of the seas and oceans unimaginable. Terrifying, truly, but necessary.

People bang on about eating a lot; what we need to eat or not eat, when we need to eat etc, but the one thing that does not come up as often is how much growing we do in our sleep. If you’re lying down for 7-8 hours a night, resting, what is your body doing but recuperating or recharging. Processing, making use of all these foods and nutrients or otherwise that we have put in there. It’s like a factory that hasn’t shut down. Its open 24 hours a day and major growth happens when sleeping.

We have actually woken up some mornings convinced that our children are taller than when they went to bed. And if we noticed it, guaranteed it’s a thing other parents have noticed too. Perhaps it’s just more obvious in children who have still to grow, but our bodies don’t stop changing, digesting and processing just because we stopped growing up. Some people gain weight considerably as they age, others, especially older demographics may lose it. Either way to think that we do not change, or that we cannot influence it is wrong, and the majority of this is done when our eyes are closed and it’s so dark we don’t even notice it.

Meaning that one must let the vines grow as they will around ones abode to fully be naturalised? Probably true, though I don’t fancy a tree growing out through the middle of my floor. What I think he might be getting at here is a rewild your soul kind of idea. Let the vines grow where they may, yes be spiritual about it but also natural in an older, ancestral hunter-gatherer sense. Live within your means and with what nature provides. Live in a cave or a shelter made from mud, grass and the trees of the forest. Of course this is nigh on impossible to achieve, though far more plausible in 1849 than now.

A man doing that now would be deemed a hazard, or a charity case, but what if he is the happy one? What if he may prefer living out in the woods in a tent? You take pity on him assuming he has lost his home or his family in some way and you leave meals or gifts for him. He may have chosen this way of life entirely by himself. Where you see sadness and failure, he may see happiness in waking to hear the bird song and falling asleep to the sound if the wind in the trees. Who are we to say what is preferable?

The metaphor here is the rain which must have come down a bit last night as it looked crap outside at 6:30am, but now nearly an hour later it looks no bad; the sun is peeking through the clouds, it’s still. But just as the rain turns the grass green, greener, greenest so does thoughts that affect our moods, and this lightens our prospects for the day. We are what we are. We are what we think, and if that is always ugly unhappy thoughts then we are destined to live in an ugly unhappy world.

Whereas if we can continue to see the beauty in everyday life, from grand vistas, the hugest of views, to the tiny fragments, the specks of dust falling on the glass, we shall be in a much better position both in our minds and out of it. The more art, whether its classical painting, modernist sculpture, highbrow literature or trashy pulp detective novels, we can appreciate, the better. It is not in the eye of the beholder, it is the eye of everyone, maybe they just don’t know it yet, or see it the way they should. My thoughts today will remain positive, appreciative and thankful for the beauty of life itself. What else can I do?

Not cultivating man entirely, are we talking barbarism here? Or is it barbarianism? Has HDT touched on ideas that Howard would encompass so vividly in the character of Conan? This is the only law of man, the preferable state, and does every/any man still have this within him? Perhaps today’s youth are misguided in the anger they feel, their dramatic reactions, a reaction yes, evolutionarily speaking, to not being able to react in their latent barbarian self. The unknown primal factor no one talks about.

Did Stone Age people worry about such things? Did the Bronze Age? No because they were able to get on as survival was much more important. Man will always feel the need to react, to fight, to be violent, and the trick is to get it under control. We outburst in outrage over insignificant things, traffic, queues, not getting our way, ‘our’ team losing, when really it should be injustice, crime, poverty etc that we rally against. The latent barbarian has been succumbed, lying dormant on the souls of many, too obvious and visible in others.

‘I brag for humanity’. He is leading by example. He is trying here to be a living example to the rest of us, that we can live our lives without frivolity and unnecessary drama, or excessive lifestyles full of fads, expensive items and useless crap. This is a lesson in economy and in bettering oneself by making a situation simpler and our lives less cluttered. Excusing the drama out of our lives would make things much easier, less frantic.

I know this and strive to reduce the drama. Clutter on the other hand is much more difficult for me, as I, and anyone who knows me will tell you. But HDT is a leader, leading out on his own and I am here on my own. Last Wolf is my own. The only other person who has any say in it really is K and I am thankful for that. And I do not see myself as bragging for humanity, just that we are maybe two souls looking for something we know to be true, that we know is there in the outside world, and he had the courage to break away and to live life by his own rules. I am not in that position, yet maybe one day I shall be, but we continue to make small steps even if they mostly seem sideways.

Had a warning a few weeks ago that a new occupant was coming. A shift in the weather, a rise of a few degrees. Snowdrops appeared on the ground tucked away or poking through fence posts. But it went away again, only to be replaced by dark sodden clouds; wetness everywhere, which inevitably turns to muck. Dog’s paws and shoes drag it all over the place. I prefer the crisp hard winter’s morning that barely gets anything on one’s sole, but does a lot for one’s soul.

However this morning, change is in the air once more as I write. Back to writing at the same time every morning so it is easier to track. Light is coming in the window, not enough yet to comfortably write by so the lamp is still required, but it is there. Light. It’s a start. Light and the dog walkers were able to see each other this morning. The ground still muddy and damp is drying though, the birds are singing, I can hear them at the front and the back of the house, and the rabbits were still out in force earlier, breakfasting on the grass that surrounds us. Yes spring is fully on the way now, and the clothing may even get lighter yet too.

This is that harmony, that symbiosis with nature and the world that we used to have as a species but over time and, rapidly within the last 50 years, have forgotten. This goes back to what I was writing about yesterday, about living in season. I actually think we’d be a lot happier and a lot healthier too. We are animal. There is no denying this, yet collectively we seem to think we are above that. That habitats should be bulldozed over to make way for ours. Badger sets destroyed for new housing developments; this is actually a crime, but no one cares and it’s done anyway. Deer and foxes will move on without a second thought, but the principle still holds.

We do not accommodate anything. We are the bullies. We, as a species are totalitarian. A complete dictatorship. As fascist as you like to use an already overly used term. We have gone from hunter gatherer ancestry who venerated the natural world to the destruction of it completely. Nature’s iconoclasts, intent on being the sole survivors of a parched and scorched earth. Exhausted and resource less, as we think we thrive and survive.

We don’t prepare for winter like we used to. Homes are not built that way. Society does not run that way. I remember the pantry at the farm, massive and stocked up with the most amount of food I’ve ever seen. Multiple bags of hula hoops, a chest freezer the size of a couch, no doubt stuffed with the tastiest cuts. As they should be.

There is something to be said for living seasonably. Strawberries taste all the better in the summer when you haven’t spent all winter eating shitty imported ones form Spain or Morocco. Winter vegetables, turnip, parsnip, carrots, a hint of spice for the exotic that is the taste of winter. Mulled wine and port, figs and nuts. Things we used to store like squirrels. Now of course we do not need to do that. During extremes of weather the shops are only closed for a day or two, if at all. You might not get bread for the Warburton’s delivery but you can probably get locally produced rolls. And people panic buy because they can’t get stuff instantly, like at the pandemic beginning. Maybe the lesson in preparing for winter like our ancestors did is a good one. It’s not that long ago that we used to have to do this after all.

Place is not enough though. If someone were to swap places with me, they would no more see what it was like for me than think like me. They would be an observant, not a participant, for only through doing my actions in my place would that be true. And you would still be no closer to being me. Though, for arguments sake, let’s just say it was feasible, like an 80s movie, Big or Vice Versa, and no doubt many others where people swap lives. Trading Places?

What would another man see and feel if he was put directly into my place right now? What would I experience if I was put into someone else’s? Would I want to? Probably not. Would I like the body of someone younger? Maybe. But then my strength levels are pretty good right now if not my actual physical ability. Might be nice to not be sore but then who’s to say that the 24 year old has any less pain just a better way of hiding it. I certainly wouldn’t want their mind. A little bit faster, a little bit bendier, by that I mean flexibility, but these are things I can still pursue anyway. And in my shoes they would see me, busy and procrastinating at the same time. Dedicated and hiding both actually and metaphorically. Still, not swapping.

In some ways I am writing less than I have done since I started to pursue this properly. In some ways I am writing more. For instance, the journal for 2022 was in two sections, morning and evening. This was good and actually suited my lifestyle well. This one is larger and a page a day, usually morning. It adds up to more than both 2022 entries. I may not be doing a page in the A4 book every day, as I have done previously, but I am doing every other day. Usually.

The December Charge journal is random though still used. And we have that workout journal, and the daily one. Not to mention the ever present pocket notebook. That’s seven books at any one time. The girl’s book is fairly new, and I am enjoying exploring its themes so far. This is a lifelong one, as it is intended for them throughout my life. A guide, interspersed with memories and snippets of them as children. This is possibly my favourite way of writing, directly to them. At least I know I have an audience. Who else but the handful of people who read my blog really care? Would I care anyway, or like NH said, am I just going to do it regardless? That’s probably about right anyway.

If our experiences shape us, then what are the things that I have experienced that made me the man I am today? A lifetime of feeling uncomfortable and self-conscious has led me to be not as confident as I may appear to be. This is most likely the driver for the fitness regime I have, and the bjj, and the fact that I know this is almost my last chance at this given my rapidly advancing age.

What is it that makes me look for niche interests? Although heavy metal is global and has sold millions of records, it is a niche, and my interests still lie on the boundaries of it. Maybe not the deep underground anymore but certainly the extreme fringes. Even when I first started doing bjj there was only two places in Edinburgh doing it. Now there are waiting lists. That is mental. Maybe this comes from an early exposure to horror movies and its underground ideas. That there is more than what everyone else is watching. More to life than the obvious big budget shit. Give me more and make it real!

Walls. Walls keep out the cold and stop the wind. But only if supported by a roof. Walls are built to defend from elements and enemies, to keep my property mine, and not for anyone to just wander in. They defend me, but also I must defend them, so which in effect is more liberating. If a wall is a shelter, or is it in fact a barricade against the outdoors, keeping us within its four barriers, neat and compact like we are in The Cube. I refer of course to the brilliant film and not the bullshit game show.

And what of its other meaning, that of a border. The Berlin Wall, Trumps famed wall to keep out the invading Mexicans, the Great Wall. These are territorial, significant that we use the same word for our houses. What is the difference between these and our own?  They block out the outside world, they must be maintained, maybe not by garrisons and arms, but by paint, plaster and wall paper. They inhibit us from a life lived outside and they stop others from visiting who are not invited. What I would be doing right now if I didn’t have just one of these four walls?  Well it would be entirely different from the relative warmth and comfort that I am in. This page would be wet and the tape player wouldn’t be working for a start.

There is no remedy to love but to love more. Seek out new love, anyone can be your brand new love sang Lou Barlow, and of course it can be made better too. Certainly true on my part, and when you think back to what you thought love might have been previously it pales in comparison to the love we carry now. Our love, me and K I’m talking about here, was enhanced by ten million when M was born and it was already pretty fucking massive. An ironclad love, multiplied by ten million by the arrival of her and then another ten million when B was born a year and a bit later.

Conquer the failed love by creating more, different, better, and neither of us had felt anything like it, and that is still true to this day. And still will be in five years, ten years, twenty etc. Maybe I should check in on that every five years. Every multiple of five on Valentine’s Day, my journal entry will be a love-o-meter. A state of the love address. A where are we now piece. Just need to remember!

And I’ve always thought of it as a rather wasted economy. Not a fan. I mean sometimes its ok, going out for a steak for example. That last time at Scotts was good, several whisky cocktails in too, but for the most part, it is a waste of money and a waste of my time. I would much rather refuel at 4:30 with the girls and spend the time as I would usually, in the gym or in the garage or writing in here. Or somewhere else. I am as happy with a bowl of tinned soup or a frozen lasagne as I am with a £30 meal out.

But it’s ok now and then though, and I’d much rather eat a steak than some shite ‘fill me up now’ food like Frankie and Bennies which cost the same. All or nothing. A detriment to my economy, fucks up my month and generally puts me out of sync, financially, gastronomically and physically as I feel I’m always missing something. Put on the back foot by something I didn’t want in the first place. No I’m staying in and not half going on about it here, but don’t blame me, blame HDT, he brought it up and I am at the very mercy of his own journals and meandering thoughts. Maybe get a morning to myself tomorrow and catch up on some of the big stuff. Haven’t written in here on a plane before either.

I awake, and it takes me a while to get going. If the alarm goes off and it’s a school day I am up almost instantly and brushing my teeth within about thirty seconds of my eyes opening. The morning runs like clockwork. If it happens to be a holiday or a weekend, I take ages to wake up. I like to lie and doze. I grumble and moan at the girls who get up too early. I am awake only when I enter the shower, or more likely half way through it. I am surly and short of temper.

Why then am I not like this when I am awakened so sharply by my alarm? Is 5:45 perhaps a ‘better’ time to get up? Do I perform at my best when my life is structured and organised almost to the minute? I think it is. I do my best work in the morning, up to around 11:30. If I could get those hours of quality writing in a day I’d be onto a winner and would have a book written no problem. Real life wins though and I always have to go to work. Boo! But at least I enjoy it, getting up is never a struggle; there is never dread. I’m writing this balanced on a bed in a Disneyland hotel, which is why it is so wonky and I can barely see anymore.

Interesting that HDT mentions the amelioration of the climate here, in 1852! Snow shoes left unused for generations in old garrets. Dusty and forgotten. I like the use of the word garret too as I always preferred it to loft or attic. But he’s talking here about climate change. In 1852! Quite incredible that it is recognisable this long ago, and possibly longer. I’ll need to share this with DC.

I wonder when people first started noticing this and recording it. Would make an interesting article. It’s an unfortunate problem that climate denial is a thing. That’s a lot of horseshit to me, climate change is critical. A lot of people will deny the science, but you cannot deny what you can see with your own eyes. Some of it isn’t even science, its geography. I’ve seen a change in weather in my lifetime, how much more in my children’s? No, it’s serious and I shall have to put the history of climate change into my other notebook.

Choosing not to have a mat is a lesson in economy right? A lesson I wish I could adhere to. Or do I? I mean, maybe its ok as a young man, or when camping or even when rich. No doubt HDT still had tons of his own shit back at the family mansion when he went off to live at Walden Pond. We’re probably taking more stuff for a weekend away than HDT had in his entire hut. But then he didn’t have two under five year olds did he?

I think I’ve been here before, discussing the merits of minimal living while not practising it in the slightest myself. A variety of costume changes per day is my style, like Elton John. Dog walking clothes, school clothes, workout or gym clothes; all different. At least I was able to get rid of the school teacher clothes and just amalgamated it into the Barry wardrobe, which is much more efficient. Which is another reminder to maybe ditch that shit once and for all on Vinted. I’m not likely to go for a management position any time soon! And all that stuff may or may not fit anyway. Two quid on a shirt adds up. Yes minimal living is desirable, but not practical and I like my life. I think we have it pretty good just now, despite being skint, but then I’ve always been skint. Balance, now that’s the key, and that is good.

When driving home from work, on days when I don’t pick up my daughters, I come down the dual carriageway that runs through Livingston. On a spring or summers afternoon, or indeed any clear one, you get a good expansive view of this side of the Pentlands and the land before it. It’s often remarkable to me how much of it there is, how green it is, and also how difficult it is for me to pinpoint where anything is. Surely I know these woods, fields and hills. And ok, I only really have a few seconds to take it all in as I am concentrating on driving, but it is one of my favourite parts of the journey.

What I must be looking at is the western end of Selm Muir, out across the fields where the clay pigeon road ends and eventually reaches the waterfalls. There is no stopping point really on this road for a proper view, it would be too dangerous, but I often see it with the need to explore it more. It is also striking how high up it is and the road into Livi really does go into the Almond ‘Valley’ most evidently here. Probably the reason why nana’s front door is an absolute sun trap and ours a total wind tunnel. It’s all a question of elevation, and more than a touch of nature where you might not think to look.

Go towards the sun and your shadow will fall behind you. A metaphor for progress perhaps. Timely, for what progress have I made a month and a week into 2023, and is the shadow behind or in front. Pages for another journal perhaps, but let’s just say January went well. Then I fell down a mountain and felt sore for a bit. Recovered more or less now and its back to heavy weights which, weirdly always makes me feel better.

This morning there is a wind blowing, I can hear it sitting in here and it was a chill wind when I was out earlier. Dry though, and the cloud cover made it dark, darker than usual for those grey clouds even now are covering the wanting to be blue sky. The clouds are moving swiftly and I can just see a crack of pink and orange off over the hills. To be walking into that of a morning would be fine indeed and perhaps I shall be able to give myself that pleasure one day next week. Next year of course it will all change with M at school so these random mornings will cease to be during holidays. Make the most of it now. There’s a case for school being like that from someone I’m sure. In the meantime let’s follow the sun as much as we can.

How is my relationship with the cold? Cold I kind of like. Wind chill though is fucking horrible and a different kettle of fish altogether. Cold I can deal with and almost enjoy to a certain degree. It’s nice coming in from the cold, feeling that feeling of the feeling returning to your fingers. Drinking warm coffee to heat up your innards. Only on mountains have I been so cold I can’t do up buttons, zips can be a struggle, and even putting on gloves is difficult.

It’s important not to panic of course in these situations and maybe this is one thing jiu-jitsu gives me is the ability not to panic in extreme situations. How else did I get myself out of that jam last weekend? No panic there after the initial shock had calmed down. Could I have returned to the bit I should’ve been at? Would it have made a difference? Not likely. Cold is cold but wind is horrible.   -20˚C in Kazakhstan was fine, bearable and not a breath of wind firing in from the sea there; the sea being about 1,000 miles away. Here in Scotland, ‘it’s fucking Baltic’, is a popular phrase for a reason. But when it lifts, and when it feels still, it is all the more beautiful for it. Plus it helps keep the midges away.

How much desire is there in me to build a new or alternative lifestyle? One where I rely on ‘me’ more. That would mean in terms of sourcing and producing, making and creating. The learning curve surely would be steep due to necessity. Would I really want to put my family through all that upheaval? Would I really want to do that myself, give up all this, and what we’ve worked hard to give these two? Is it worth the risk, the sacrifice? And who would we be proving that point to?

I’d like to see if we could, say live in a caravan for a year while a house is being built. I think I’d quite like the challenge of limited living like that. It would force organisation and minimalism. Everything would need to go into storage. Then after that maybe we wouldn’t want to go back and a more off grid life would be preferable. Pipe dreams, or maybe not even dreams at all. The point is yes, I am comfortable, and so is my family, and that is what I want. I would like to live surrounded by trees but I don’t want us living in a freezing shed. That is what I’m not willing to risk. This place is too unforgiving for that.

I can’t write about nature with any lyricism at all; no great metaphors or similes, no amazing analogies or descriptions. I just spent ten minutes, maybe fifteen, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee looking out to the garden. I saw a lot of birds, the little yellow tits are my favourite, but the bullfinch has come back again, which is great to see. As has the robins, who never really leave. They seem to be there year round.

I was struck there by the variety of green. The big tree is bare obviously and the others next to it but the amount of green is really quite astounding. The variety of shades is amazing, even just in the grass itself, which is quite poor. The lightness of the conifers contrast the darkness of the holly bush on the other side. The grey-green of the bush next to them stands out against the grass as its healthiest, which is at the point right in front of the bush. If there is any metaphor to be made maybe it is that it reflects society. Here is one colour in my garden, and there is so many different kinds of it; maybe we should be looking more at the nuances and celebrating them.

Whilst I don’t agree that a mention of the weather needs to make it into every journal entry, I do believe it affects our character and moods we’re in, at that particular moment. So on with the weather. A dry and calm day, cloudy, yet mild for the time of year, colourless yet spring is trying to spring forth. The signs are there, lighter mornings, longer evenings (just), but it makes a difference. It will be interesting to notice any change when we head to Paris next weekend and of course changes when we come back.

There is a big sun on the weather report for there on the week ahead so fingers crossed its ok. If the sun is shining at Disneyland what happier place would there be in the world for children of my twos age. Looking towards the rolling tundra of Norway would be my choice, or the deep Cascadian forest but hey, Disneyland is no bad. It’s definitely warmer today too. And we shall try and contain our excitement for what promises to be the busiest yet longest week in human history as we try to fit everything in to normality and the unreality that it is going to bring. Can’t wait!

This is the first morning for ages that I’ve left the house and not been all hunched over, tucked in, shivering and dying to get back. Or wet. Today feels like spring. There is no chill in the air and that was more of a breeze than a wind. No rain, no snow, no ice. The ground was dry, even the mud on the grass wasn’t too bad. The snowdrops peeked out on the mountainside the other day, is this really the start of spring?

Imbolc was yesterday, or the day before, can’t remember, but the moon was out large and yellow this morning. It is at these times of year, solstices etc. that we feel closest to our ancestors I think. Ancestor worship has never been a large part of my life though it is interesting. What is it that stops me going full on pagan? ‘A heathen conceivably but one would hope not an unenlightened one’ to quote Lord Summerisle. But these times, Imbolc included, really strikes at something ancient, something that was always there and there is an importance in the air. A change for sure. They felt it, we should feel it too. But we need reminded of it through our thumbs and digital screens.

Well if there was ever a sign to read the Vedas then that was surely it. I must get a copy if the Bhagavad Gita. Long has this been on a distant reading list in my mind and I keep putting it off for this reason; I didn’t think I’d like it. Yet it has influenced so many people I follow, or read, or admire in a way, so I can’t ignore that original text anymore. Last year it was the Stoics every day. Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, made up the mornings and evening of 2022, hereafter known as the year of the Stoic.

HDT calls the Bhagavad stupendous and cosmogonal which makes our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial. Wow! The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. Maybe my head is a bit in space at the moment, deep space. I am not interested in looking down upon earth from the moon, but from nebula, galaxies, light years away, the golden green glow of a new born star, the deadly deep dark of a dying one. Places we can never know, only imagine and theorise as we collect our water next to the seer of the Brahmin and fellow reader of the Vedas.

The gospel according to the moment is a fine idea. He who lives not in the past but in the hearing of every church bell or every cock crow is truly blessed. Now I suppose we can turn that into a social media metaphor too, for I have been more or less absent from it for a week now. And it feels good, particularly avoiding Instagram and Facebook. Ebay and Vinted have kind of replaced them as I’ve been selling a lot of items but that’s ok. Time consuming but ok. I know I’ll have to get back to using it and I do have some new content to post, but it is a bullshit world, full of fakery.

I’ve written that many times, and will again, it’s like I need to coax myself into doing it. Goad myself, trick myself even into thinking it’s doing any good. I’ll do one tonight, maybe the one of the mountain and the moon and I’ll do a t-shirts one tomorrow. The problem is that it takes you out of the moment. You’re no longer living in that moment if you’re distracted by someone’s deliberate attempt to capture your attention. Surely our work should be placed in a better environment than that? Look at me it says, choose me over all else and I’ll bend over backwards to get you to do it. For five seconds. Shite.

In December 2022 I came to the end of a year of directed journal writing. It had become a habit I didn’t want to lose but was unsure of where to take it next. I decided to try and focus my writing away from ‘me’ and force myself to write more about nature and the outdoors. How I was going to do this was a problem, without the content merely recalling my walk that morning or discussing the weather.

Within the last few days of 2022 I came upon the book The Daily Thoreau, a perfect collection of daily quotes from the man behind the phrase Live Deliberately. You can read more about his influence on Last Wolf here. https://lastwolf.co.uk/walden-or-life-in-the-woods/

I began my 2023 journal using these quotes as a springboard for my own thoughts. Sometimes I mention his words specifically, a lot of the time I don’t. Sometimes I don’t understand what he’s on about and others it’s just me rambling. A lot of it mentions the weather and dog walks, but remember, the vast majority was written very early in the morning so probably won’t make much sense anyway. It is presented as un-edited as possible.

Live Deliberately,

Barry

Ah the last day of January, and my thaw came yesterday in the form of a much needed rest. I am lucky to have today off and intend to rest as soon as I get my jobs done. My bones hurt, my body was sore, arms, shoulders, back, legs and knees, and a bath last night made me feel amazing. For three minutes. Canned BJJ for this week until my arm heals properly but everything else needs it as well. Needing a break; recuperation. January has been full on.

February will be too, so this week, we shall do our de-load workouts and take it easy before everything starts again and the madness of a holiday takes over. Can’t wait for that. Less of a thaw maybe, as I’ve felt I’ve nailed January pretty well, as best I could anyway and taking a little time off is something I need to be better at. It’s just as important. It has by no means been a slack winter, December was similar and I intend to keep the pressure going. However, I do recognise the need for rest and today, and this week, will be focussed on that. As January leaves the strength, the desire and the will returns.

Am I in harmony with the seasons? My clothes don’t change too drastically; shorts instead of breeks maybe. The wellies get used less in the summer months, though they still get a lot of use in August. I don’t wish the seasons away. I like to enjoy them for the moment they’re in. Take advantage of the dark nights for sleep and cosiness, the long summer ones being used for long walks, ideas and activity. The renewal that comes from spring, the plans for outdoor fitness, runs and exercise. The woodland photos of autumn, jackets back on as we prepare for winter once more.

All are great. All have their own nuances and ups and downs. Summer is less organised, less streamlined, whereas winter runs like clockwork, usually, until the snow and ice hit properly. And I prefer winter clothing. I like hats and jackets and gloves. Multi-layers are much more comfortable and I like walking in the dark nights when there are less people around, though we don’t go as far. We see the stars and the moon better, the dark is appealing and scary and exhilarating and almost refreshing. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s never truly dark here, and will be worse next year so better make the most of it while we can.

True, the high flying crow reveals the tone of the weather even before we step outside. Seeing birds in the wind, or even how animals behave, can give us clues to what it is like outside. I was lucky to see so much wildlife the other day. Several ptarmigan, one perched on an icy rock atop the precipice before flying off. A big mountain hare as white as the snow it was hiding in. A herd of large deer and a couple of other ptarmigan on the descent. Normally the dog chases anything off, or they smell him coming a mile away and clear out.

I knew that because those deer had made it down that way then I could, carefully, them on four legs, me on four limbs and rear end for safety. But how many times do we look out the kitchen window and see a bird battling to the wind, or soaring in a direction it intended not to go in. ‘Oooft, it’s a windy one’ I say and put an extra layer on, or tuck in t-shirts before going outside. What the hare and the ptarmigan told me I’d need to figure out but they both looked resplendent in their winter coats, so maybe that’s just a reminder to wear mine.

When is a walk a failure? That is a funny question and I can’t think of anytime a walk itself could be considered so. I have had to turn back on mountains, but when this happens I see it as less of a failure and more of a reconnaissance trip. The mountains will always be there. Do I wish I’d climbed more in my early 30s? Sure, of course. But I don’t regret it. The conquering of the mountain was maybe a failure, but the walk, the hike, the adventure, the lesson, certainly was not.

A walk will often conjure new thoughts and ideas, even on very familiar ground, but equally, often it won’t, and this is hardly a failure either. For experience never can be, and there is an argument to be made that any experience outdoors surpasses an equivalent amount of time indoors. Outside our senses are fired, we are uncomfortable (in this weather anyway), instantly more active, and more in touch with our older primal selves. This is an area I would be interested in tackling more; how does one realise our inner ancestor, our dormant caveman? Is it possible? Is it easy? I don’t know. Maybe a walk is just the thing to bring that idea out.

Does the flower look better in the nosegay than in the meadow where we had to wet our feet to get to it? It’s a wonderful analogy from HDT and a different way of thinking about what is happening here. We are nearly a month in, me and my journal and I had hoped to have more nature writing, which I do, with the possibility to turn it into larger pieces. This part hasn’t happened. Maybe only one or two could be considered thusly. But that’s not a bad thing it itself and if the journal turns out to be more about me and my thoughts and how they are ‘living deliberately’ then that is ok.

Maybe they are meant to be journal entries only. They belong in here. Short, and not deliberately or unnaturally extended. A journal is a collection of unedited moments after all is it not, and therefore work better as the flowers in the meadow. This is the period of me getting my feet wet.

I noticed my eyesight going last year at 44. I would struggle to see some small print, pushing things away and bringing them forward to try to read, say, the medicine bottle. Even when wood burning I’d notice it’s easier with my glasses on. When I asked the optician about this he said “That’s old age mate”, and he was right. It’s not gotten any worse but it’s not gotten any better. It’s not going to and I need to accept that. And I ended up having to get glasses. Extra glasses! Glasses to put on top of my contact lenses. This sounds mental but it’s true, and it does work, even with my £1 Asda glasses.

But, and this is a big but, I don’t feel older. I feel better. I’m moving more, stronger, which suits me now at this age. Most men get fatter as they get older not stronger. Bigger yes but weaker. I’m not looking at competing under 70kg anymore which after weighing myself this morning I’m 87.5kg and that’s after two sessions of bjj this week and feeling pretty dehydrated. So my old maxim of ‘I’m not getting older, I’m getting better’ still reigns true and I hope I can continue this. There is no reason why I can’t do jiu-jitsu at 70, 80 or 90 and if I want to, I will. Maybe I’ll move onto something else by 90.

Yes the trees are being cut rapidly. Here there are little woods, patches of trees dotted around. There are no real forests. Parks, national or private but no random unmanaged forests. We even have forests that have no trees. Can you believe that? Deer forests, ironically called because there is not a single tree in it as the deer eat them all. The older I get the more I want to live around trees. Have I lost the lure of the sea? I lived next to it for half my life but I’ve proved I don’t ‘need’ to be near it, and though I do miss it, I don’t think it’s something I yearn for. And anyway I can always go to Anster for a night walk along the shore if I want.

Now I have a yearning to live with trees, to live among them. To use them and live with them, watching them, observing trees and their habits. Do I even want to work with them? That I’m not sure of as it would probably involve cutting them down at some point. But a cabin in a clearing surrounded by trees sounds like heaven to me right now. I wonder where this has come from and if it’s a by-product of not being particularly active in the woods of late. No games, no walks, no camping. Maybe it will pass, maybe it won’t. And maybe we’ll move to Tomich after all.  

What is a winter without snow and ice at this latitude? I tend to agree. It feels abnormal when the snow doesn’t arrive and not like winter at all. There is little left but mud and wet and dead leaves congealed together like old spinach at the bottom of the packet, all wet and useless. But this morning was fine and now, a Tuesday morning, a bit later than usual, it is light. Is the winter gone or will we get more snow and icy winds into February? It’s not unheard of and probably likely. We’ve had snow and ice as late as the end of March.

This morning the ground was soft and muddy in places though the grass is fine and clean in others. The dog isn’t too bad, being a good sign of how muddy it is, and he’s sitting at my feet now after two walks this morning. The rain has not come though the dampness has and it’s not churned up so much of the mud. Bad news from the estate as one of his pals had to put down on Sunday. He’s been struggling for a while and just because it’s the best thing to do, doesn’t make it any less heart breaking. He was a good boy, and a reminder for me of everyone’s mortality.

This resonates with how industrious our house is these days, how regimented our timings are for getting the girls to nursery, making tea etc. And also how busy the weekends are. The amount of stuff we get done is sometimes incredible. Two weeks ago we had a mattress on the floor. Now we have a brand new bedroom but I can’t let this week go by without mentioning M’s orange belt grading.

After the meltdown she had before at the last one, I knew she would do it this time, but it was how she did it. She asked to go on the mats early and sit with the others she didn’t know. But the best bit was when she sat down, turned around at me and gave me a knowing wink. An ‘I got this dad’ look, full of confidence, and she was amazing. Listening, focused, commended by Mr K for her moves and for paying attention. I was near brought to tears. Pride? Absolutely. I love that these two do Taekwondo, and I hope they continue it. I won’t push them if they don’t want to one day but they both have the ability and the interest to be very good at it. And of course going to Tony Macaroni’s afterwards helped. Notice how I write about this rather than the Heilung show!

And connected to the light is the silence. We used to get that on the farm road at night and sometimes even in the day for pockets of time. Houses will surround it soon and the silence will disappear. There is always the odd idiot in a high powered car or a motorbike on the A road but mostly the traffic noise is minimal especially late at night. We can here the freight trains though. With more homes comes more noise. Not music for no one seems to listen to music anymore let alone play instruments.

Or maybe the homes may be silent. Lost in an inner blue haze of devices or the green hue if the football is on. Doors slam, cars start, garages are opened, kids kick balls or bounce or trampolines. Neighbours talk or couples quarrel. People stand outside their front door and smoke honking weed for everyone else to smell. No the quiet is gone. The sound of nothing. The sound of the wind in the trees and bushes, the sound of the fields, small fish appear in the pond and disappear. A badger moves, a fox silent, a rabbit tears across a field. The sound of humanity overtakes everything.

Not here. The night is blacker than black here. As black as priest’s socks, the only true black. All others are just very very very dark blue. But the night sky at this time of year holds little blue. Is it a northern thing? Because we are in the central belt we forget that compared to the rest of the UK, even Europe, we are quite far north. Light pollution here is rubbish and about to become worse when this scheme next to us illuminates my night sky even more. Gone are my dark walks along the farm path gazing at the stars, for both sides of the road will now be lit by homes. The old path up to the main road will eventually be tarmacked itself, instead of the dusty clay, full of holes path it currently is.

Or was, as that way has been blocked for a few months now. We are losing our night sky. People never have a nice thing to say about North Korea, but if you can say one thing it is that they’ll have a better view of the night sky than most countries, and their addition to the light pollution of the world is virtually zero. Bring on the stars.

Dual purpose. The research, the practice, the everyday chore then becomes the novel. Eventually the book is written, eventually the work gets done. What is this for then? Am I hoping for blog post inspiration from this? Partly. And hoping to engage with nature writing in a small way, thinking about being outdoors even if not being in it. For the world is busy just now. In a creative way, one journal, once a day if I’m lucky and get a page complete before ‘Daaaaad’ is shouted somewhere and someone else is crying. It’s already happened three times in half a page.

But yesterday I picked up the creative writing book and wrote in it for the first time since the end of November. I wrote a story, one page, fast. It just came out but could be developed into a longer one for sure. The influence of Salem’s Lot (nearly finished) perhaps or maybe I’ve got the journaling right for now. Either way I’m scribbling as those two downstairs become more agitated…but not now as this is later. When will this story be written, I know not. Maybe that weekend K is away and I can knuckle down on it and write. Build now, create later.

19/1/23

I sometimes think that if I was given an axe and a pile of wood and a sunny winter’s day to chop it all there would be no finer, no more pleasing work to be done in the world. If this was to see the family through the winter all the more so. What do we get out of this? The physical effort, the exhilaration of constant movement, the exercise; shoulders round, legs strong, core tight, our belts needing another hole in it.

The fact that it is mostly an outdoor activity, feet in the snow, anchored in our boots and woollen socks, the snow slowly melting around us as the sun climbs higher in the day, shining its warmth upon us as we take first our jacket off and then maybe another outer layer eventually.

The sweat builds. The hands become calloused and blister if they are not already. Maybe they burst and bleed and the axe handle becomes a mix of wood and dirt and blood. But surely to top all this is the feeling of satisfaction that it gives, to go from nothing, nothing to the fuel that keeps ones family warm for another day, week, month, year, whatever. That has to be the most pleasing part of a most pleasing task.

18/1/23

Don’t know about the blue shadows today but the snow is certainly melting. Packing hard now underneath on the pavements and grass, which unless there is rain will be around for a bit longer. No gritters out on the path in the last three days which is unusual by this time and it took them until Monday to get all the main roads done. As usual, the estates are the worst. No new snow fall and no rain and this will all just harden solid as there won’t be enough sun to melt it. Probably true of the whole of January.

Starting to see later daylight by a minute here and there, not enough to make a huge difference yet. I wonder what the suicide rate is for the year and whether it’s higher in January than any other month. I’ll bet it is. Bleak with nothing to look forward to except a haggis and a whisky on the 25^th. I like this time of year as much as I like any. No one claims January as their favourite. Yes it’s long and its nights are dark, and of course it would be nice to be a bit warmer, but discomfort does us good. Perhaps we could do with a bit more of it.

‘A place where you can have a little conversation’. I wonder if when saying that Alcott was actually talking about conversing with another person. It’s true that being outdoors is a great conversation starter. You’re forced into it, and if the other person is receptive to it, there is no better place for one. No phones out. No, ‘I’ll just show you this’ or ‘what do you mean you haven’t seen it’…etc. No conversations based on something you’ve seen on your phone.

Big walks, big talks, and some of the best of my life. But what I’m wondering is the possibility of it being with yourself. Clear head, clear thoughts. Big walks, big ideas. A lot of mine have come from walking, whether its short dog walks around the village, long summer night walks, or extensive hikes over mountain tops and ridges, through forests and woods or coastal paths. These are the best. The only other time conversation gets better is around a fire, in the woods. I’m not even including the one in the pub in this, which some may argue can be just as good. Perhaps in the old days when we would converse around a table of pints, surrounded by foot thick stone walls, too many beams and no wi-fi.

Although scraping the car in the morning is a pain in the ass and driving to nursery and then work will be quite troublesome, I actually like mornings like this one. My fingers are still cold despite having been inside for five minutes and I need to change my socks. I love the sound of new snow, the feel of it underfoot; not so deep that it doesn’t take a huge effort, like walking on a mountain, but walking through the grass like this is great. Following the animal tracks, rabbit, dogs, something else. Too small for a deer, and I haven’t seen one up here in years. Not dog like enough for a fox either, and not a badger, maybe a giant one legged rabbit.

Snow highlights nature, shows it off. Gives it a light that even when the sun is still hours from coming up, illuminates the world all around. And it still is white and shining from the window now it’s nearly bedtime. This afternoon in the height of the sun, the orange of our fire glowed warmer and more lucent than usual. It took quickly, the wood we found dead and dry and near smokeless and perfect. Heightened my afternoon ten-fold and made the approach to the hills all the more attractive and exciting.

Standing on the meeting of two eternities. The attempt to meld the past with the future, the point we are at right now, the present moment. Am I in the moment as much as I like to think I am? Our actions immediately determine what we do as a whole. We can plan endlessly but if we do not execute the plan at the time we said we would then surely it is all pointless. Our actions should match our words. Our deeds should match our intentions. And we need to take decisive action in the moments that count, the now, in order to make a difference or make that change.

And really how many more times do we write shit like this before doing anything about it? I am a complete phoney, writing in here like some sort of internet guru, how to improve your life in twelve easy steps bullshit. Make your bed. Get a good habit pattern. I sound like a right cunt. Let’s get back to a) talking about nature, or b) talking about me, what I’m doing and how I’m implementing these changes for the better. Because if I don’t then this is in danger of being a complete waste of time. Nature was always the point, not some half assed modern feel good philosophy.

Rivus: a stream, an artificial watercourse; a channel, a conduit, a canal. A small stream of water, a brook. There’s nothing like camping next to a burn, the word missing from this definition. I wonder why I never camped up the Dreel Burn? There must be plenty places in the Nature Reserve and we spent many an evening on the bridge, or under it. That’s where we saw a UFO, though that’s another story. What I’m thinking about today is England.

Not often I can say that but yesterday the courts decided in favour of the Dartmouth landowners and camping has been banned there. Outlawed. Outrageous. The only place in England it was legal to camp wild. To have this taken away does not bode well for outdoor fans or the future of the country. At least in Scotland we are protected in some ways from landowners like that. The camping by-laws in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs remain in place, though still controversial. Maybe they were necessary, I don’t know. How it’s even policed is beyond me when they’ve cut all the rangers jobs in every council I know. Maybe mountain security should be my new job, plenty of work in England unfortunately.

The arts teach us a thousand things. And no table, chair, nor piece of cloth is made without a master making it first. The artisan, the weaver, hell even the IKEA designer is no doubt pretty amazing at it, Functional after all is an aesthetic itself and an important one too. What’s my relationship with the arts? At the moment I’d say one of appreciator rather than patron. I buy little in the way of music, though ironically I still am looking to put mine out to sell. Digital, unless the funds are going straight to the artist doesn’t count. Buying a tape on Bandcamp does. Having an Audible subscription doesn’t. Books I suppose I buy regularly.

The sad state of consumerism, we are getting increasingly stiffed by it these days. You spend the same, sometimes more, and get absolutely fuck all for it. A digital music collection is worth exactly the same as the terabyte brick it’s stored on. Good luck selling that on Ebay in 20 years. But I want to contribute, I want to create. The Thorn is my written attempt at that. It is a laborious process, albeit a very fun and rewarding one. Art takes time. Mastery takes time. My drawings come to little, but maybe I’m going about it all the wrong way.

The problem is light. The sun comes up somewhere after 8:00am and is gone by just after four. The journey to and from work is mostly in the dark. If you work in an environment where you don’t go or see outside, December, January and February can be somewhat bleak. Couple that with the weather which is dull in December, downright dreich in January and the aftermath of snow in February, we can see why s.a.d. is a thing. The dreich bit you can apply to any month. July, meant to be the opposite, can still be rainy and grey, but it does get light at around 4:00am and dark around 11:00pm or later. The further north the less light there is. The opposite of now.

I can see what HDT is saying. The odd still winter month, with no wind (rare), white snow on the ground, sun at its highest point, people sledging, is a lot like a cold summer. It is joyous. But the hours we have to play with are very short. The sun still warms, the crow still caws; if he has a voice, I have ears. And the wind still whirls outside as the rain makes it way east. It’s dark, oh so dark and about as far away from summer as you can imagine.

The pond hibernates. I like that idea, the water, the life of the are sitting underneath a foot of ice, and the same again of snow, waiting, breathing, living, still, silent, peaceful. I would quite like to get my mind into that kind of state. Perhaps I need to do some mediation on this. Things can be quite frantic here, frenetic, as we try to cram a million things into a day or a morning.

Here’s an example. That first paragraph I wrote at 7:30am and had to stop due to someone shouting ‘DAAAAAAD!!!’ and now I resume at 8:30pm. But my point was about meditation and as I’ve only ever really dabbled in it whether I should try and engage with it fully. Tonight would be ab ideal time as I feel quite useless and without energy for anything. No workout tonight, no work done, just sitting relaxing (re: napping) and reading. I find proper meditation difficult, hard to engage in and difficult to let my mind anything near calm let alone the stillness of a frozen pond in the bleak midwinter. Tonight I feel tired and that my eyes would dose and meet together and stay that way for all eternity. They’re still not really over that new year virus as much as I’d like them to be.

Blowing out the cobwebs is certainly a common phrase for a reason. The wind here of a morning wakes you up like nothing else, it is chill, a sore wind that makes the temperature plummet to the minuses it wouldn’t dare to be otherwise. 5˚C but feels like -15˚C. I thought that after years of living by the sea, and then not, I’d either be used to it, or I wouldn’t feel it as much. We are nowhere near the sea here, the firth is closest but still 10 or so miles away. Alas the wind still cuts through me like an Aberdeen morning, an East Neuk night or a Beinn à Ghlo winters afternoon. Harsh. Slicing your flesh open and stinging inside, eyes watering like condensation on the inside of my window. Constant.

Yet like HDT says, there is no contagion that it can’t stop. Feel the illness blast out of you, perhaps as new ones are brought in its icy grip. Warm winds are not really a thing here. Maybe there is Gulf Stream winds on the west coast or islands, I don’t know but there is certainly none of that here. We just get the shitty stuff from the Baltic. Out of all the places I’ve lived, this street is the windiest of them all. And I don’t know the reason for that. We should grow big pines at the end of the grass.

A poet is activated by pure love. Can this be true of any other professions? A poet never ever does it for the money, it can never be, and surely even the most famous have either been only moderately well off, usually from an ordinary job. Philip Larkin stuck it out in a library in Hull. Dylan Thomas died broke… No doubt many other were teachers. I certainly don’t do teaching out of love. We had a dispute a few years ago when the management at the time wanted to include the word love into our values, our mission statement. I argued vehemently against it. I love my family, my wife, children and dog.

Not that the children we teach do not deserve love too, but school is the wrong place to look for that, and the word has no place there. I don’t even love my job. I like it. I tolerate it. I do it. It doesn’t make me unhappy and I get a lot out of it. But love? That’s a special word. And here I am writing about it while about to go back to work. I don’t mind, it had never filled me with dread the way some jobs might, I have fun. I enjoy it; maybe it even helps keep me young. So I don’t moan, I just keep doing.

Seeing the ground again after snow is great. Snow, when it eventually falls here, tends to stick around for a while. Then it turns into ice sheets when the winds pick up and freeze it. It can be like this for weeks, usually until there is significant enough rainfall to melt it, or the temperature rises to say above 5˚C for long enough to melt it as well. Usually it’s the rain that does it quickest. And though the snow is fun and beautiful initially, the ice becomes a pain in the arse, it’s so hard packed and solid.

When we do see the grass again it’s matted like it’s been combed to one side after the Sunday night hair wash. It also doesn’t tend to be very green, brown is closer, but compared to the mucky ice we’ve been walking on its practically verdant. Still it is good to see, despite the fact that it’s too waterlogged and messy to be of any use. Annoying if you’re a dog owner. I like seeing the return of daisies. M picked one this afternoon for mum, as she always does, as well as B’s favourite, the dandelion. Here they’re known as ‘pee the beds’, which turns out to be true, as being one of the first greenery to grow back after winter, people traditionally would rush out and eat them. Dandelions are a diuretic, eat too many of them and whoops!

In December 2022 I came to the end of a year of directed journal writing. It had become a habit I didn’t want to lose but was unsure of where to take it next. I decided to try and focus my writing away from ‘me’ and force myself to write more about nature and the outdoors. How I was going to do this was a problem, without the content merely recalling my walk that morning or discussing the weather.

Within the last few days of 2022 I came upon the book The Daily Thoreau, a perfect collection of daily quotes from the man behind the phrase Live Deliberately. You can read more about his influence on Last Wolf here. https://lastwolf.co.uk/walden-or-life-in-the-woods/

I began my 2023 journal using these quotes as a springboard for my own thoughts. Sometimes I mention his words specifically, a lot of the time I don’t. Sometimes I don’t understand what he’s on about and others it’s just me rambling. A lot of it mentions the weather and dog walks, but remember, the vast majority was written very early in the morning so probably won’t make much sense anyway. It is presented as un-edited as possible.

Live Deliberately,

Barry

Talking of acquaintances here, today was good and I spent it, nearly all of it, (I’m writing this at 11:00pm), in the company of my old pal JM. We were rooting about old magazines for use in the new issue of The Thorn, only two years on since the last one! What struck me most was how good, (there’s that word again!), it would be to do this full time. Imagine if that’s all we did all day, though I’d want to start at 0800 and not finish at 2100, research, cut, art, all the while listening to a ton of music, take the dog out for a good walk.

If I even had a LW store or shop Id have a room or studio out the back where we could do this shit all the time. Clothes and gear out front, all art out the back. Possibly a gym as well. Minibus and van outside for camping and impromptu mountain trips. Man I do need to make that a reality. Maybe JM can have a room to paint massive canvases in as well, hire a few shop staff so I can piss off to the woods whenever I want, and where would this wonderland be…

As if to oppose the godliness of the last few days, HDT drops in the six six six at the end of today’s section. What are we to take from that; he would’ve been a Maiden fan? Or The Omen? Doubtful, but I’m not really sure what he’s on about here whether its stars or snowflakes or both. I can see why people become fascinated with stars, alignments, constellations and the infinite possibility of space and the universe.

I don’t think that reason enough to have any bearing on human beings as such. Surely you are a product of the place and setting you were born in rather than what is pre-determined by the stars. But still it remains to be a thing and has been for centuries. Does that mean there actually is something in it, or that humans are still gullible fools who cannot understand the infinity of the universe and therefore try to find a role for themselves in it. Astrology equals human’s desire for them to be connected to the universe even if the universe does not give one flying snowflake about them.

Now that’s more like it. HDT dismisses both God and man in one sentence, followed by the rest of the paragraph about one thing, a snowflake, one single snowflake, beautifully described. And I agree completely, who can say that god made that, or man-made anything more exquisite than that single snowflake. ‘We are rained on and snowed on with gems.’

This is something I’ve said many times before on the LW blog that true beauty, proper wonder and amazement can be right in front of our faces. A snowflake one day, a leaf the next, a droplet of water to the guy whose book I read and forget the name of. We don’t need to go thousands of miles to far flung exotic destinations to find this. I always wondered why people from the UK had to go to India or Australia to ‘find themselves’ when it’s about the furthest away they could get. Why they never found themselves in France or Turkmenistan is beyond me. Maybe I’m just jealous I found myself in the most unlikely of places. Though maybe I would’ve been quicker in Kathmandu rather than West Lothian. But anyway, snowflakes are great.

Fata Viam Invenient is written on my bookshelf. The Fates Will Find a Way. I suppose that depends of you believe in fate or not. Will is a way too, can will be wild too, if one wills it, if ‘fates are wild for they will’? And why is the Almighty wild above all? The almighty is wilder than fates because he is mightier than anything?!? Not following Henry, seems a bit bollocks to me but maybe I’m a bit confused today.

Still allows me to reflect on my own spiritual viewpoint; I still think the idea of the benevolent all-creating Christian idea of god is not for me. I’m far more a fan of pantheons, whether it’s Greek, Roman, Norse, or some sort of animism. Paganism is a bit misleading as Christian traditions have replaced most of them. Your pagan ancestors are some 1500 years old. That’s a lot of great grandparents and I don’t feel particularly beholden to any of them save the ones I or my grandparents knew. Even then it would only be some of them. I could worship the moon, or the sun, or the trees or the forest, a wood, a season. I can understand that better than the Abrahamic all seeing sky god. Much better, much more interesting, and much more plausible.

Nature is a retreat from man. A world where man cannot control her. ‘He is a constraint, she is freedom’. What would HDT think of the concrete and glass and plastic world we live in now, where most of our tranquil and certainly wild spaces are taken up with ugly monstrosities man has built. The gap here is too enormous, our perspectives too different. Man has won. Man has overcome nature to an extent. What is happening now with the rainfall and the floods, forest fires and rising tides, polar caps melting and humans seriously looking at colonising the moon or fucking Mars because we’ve fucked this planet up so much. Science Fiction in HDT’s day, Welles and Verne; an abominable reality in ours that would be hilarious if it were not true.

‘She’ is nature, that I agree on, and she fights back in a deadly way. Fuck you Sainsburys, here’s a flooded store, see if I care, lighting fixtures falling in the cereal aisle. Even Amazon’s buildings will crack and burn under her might and will one day be reduced back to the forest like the one it’s named after.

Two things, one that the more time that you spend outdoors, being in nature, the better your senses get. The dominant human sense is eyesight, vision. Probably not true of, say forest animals who will rely more on smell or hearing. Imagine what HDT would have thought of the absolute racket all around him if he was alive today and Walden Pond was at the Selm Muir fishery. You can probably hear planes from there if you try hard enough, and certainly the A71. But I might try and make my olfactory sense the one to develop as a sensory aim this year. When in the woods, smell. I already try to hear more but usually have too many kids saying my name constantly or screaming.

The other thing is about God. The focus is God is all around us, revealing himself in the frosty January bush rather than the blazing one of Moses. But we all know that is nature providing the beauty here, not the design of a six day week god. And I’ve said this forever, beauty, amazement is right in front of us, at all times of the year. Dalavich looked amazing this morning. Let’s go back now.

Cold this morning and not too much wood for the fire, only big chunks and a handful of kindling for the day. Makes me glad this isn’t our sole means of fuel for our house. But it’s good, everything is colder right now and we need to toughen up economically and physically. The winter was not given to us for no purpose. It is there for us to endure, as I wonder if this conjunctivitis that I currently have was made for me to endure too.

Woke up this morning unable to see, and it was quite sore until the paracetamol kicked in. This must have been horrible for M when she had it last Halloween. We are meant to endure hardships and deal with any situations that arise; as humans we’ve had to deal with worse things than colds and manky eyes. Imagine having this on the African plains, Eurasian steppe or cold Nordic winter nights. I hope this form of journaling works, well worth an explore. Bring on 2023.