Tag: Last Wolf

“So we saunter toward the Holy land; till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shone into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in Autumn.”

With that, HDT brings our year to a close. 2023, a year of great tragedy and triumph. From BB’s leg to a gold medal, from Disneyland in February to Dalavich in December, to everything in-between, at work and at home.

The result of this journal, its initial aim to get me writing more on nature and the natural process, may have been achieved. I don’t feel any more connected to nature on this last day of the year at half past six in the morning in my cabin with a cup of coffee and a fire already going. I do however feel more connected with myself and that can only be encouraging. More importantly is that I feel more connected with my beautiful family, with whom I am truly grateful for every single second I spend with them. There is nowhere else I’d rather be and no one else I’d rather be with either. And that is the sign of a successful year.

Live deliberately,

Barry

Once again our journey west was hampered by the weather. It doesn’t seem to matter when we travel during winter, there is always something. This year it was the snow dump that happened an hour or two before we left. We should have left earlier. We waited too late so the snow had already been, settled and then proceeded to do its damage on the roads. We also hadn’t done the shopping the day before, another rookie mistake. Why we were so complacent I don’t know. Maybe just getting too used to it.

The road that rises form just outside Kilmahog was our undoing as traffic as it backed up from where it rises up the hill by the river. We were stopped mainly at that house at the bad corner. The road is slippy with packed snow and I assume that’s why we were stuck. No cars crashed, no reliving an accident thankfully. Slow moving until our pit stop at Tyndrum and then the road was clear all the way with barely any snow from the turn off, which although not as picturesque, was a great relief. Anxiety headache to end the year!

29/12/23

Last night was mad. For about five seconds there was mental hail, then lightning, then thunder, then nothing, for ages. Then it rained heavy but not for long. It was crazy. No wonder there is so many flash floods. A lot up M’s way in Angus, but then that village does sit in a kind of big ditch, low down, high fields on either side and a big fucking river running right through it. Blame the beavers. I need to read that book I have about beavers actually.

Christmas tree away this morning which is why I’m a bit later writing in here. It’s about half past ten. A big job done but it does open up that question again of whether it’s worth getting a real tree year after year. Id save £60 or so by getting a fake one. But that tree is specifically grown to be sold. It’s going to be cut down anyway and am I not as well enjoying it as anyone else. I take a lot of enjoyment out of a real tree and this one did look particularly beautiful. Having some scentless Chinese made piece of shit doesn’t fill me with as much festive cheer and good spirit as a real Nordmann fir does. And it doesn’t smell. A plastic tree is representative of the fake commercial aspect of Christmas and about as inauthentic as you can get.

Keep to the hours of the universe; the rise and set of the sun, the coming of the clouds, the increase in breeze and wind, the downpour of rain and snow, the clarity of the night sky, the noise of the thunderstorm and the sea. Ally ourselves with these things and we will be closer to nature a thousand fold. Forget the trappings of the working world, who is online and who is not, the noise of the traffic, the build-up of people and vehicles. Let’s run our lives through the variants of the seasons, and the daily unticking clock of nature herself.

Easier said than done in this day of course. Like it or not I still need to be in work by 8:30, not the fully risen sun. The clanging of the school bell might have existed in the 19^th century but now many schools do not even have a bell. Cold this morning, a cold wind, everything is soggy after the rain yesterday and the dog’s feet are muddy. Rain on the window now too. Quite shit, though a nice sunrise, which made it look like it was going to be a better day.

I walked down to the harbour at Cellardyke today during the storm. It was magnificent. The waves were tearing over the harbour wall, just like the ones we used to run under. I did not go anywhere near it today, I had the dog to think about! The foam was mad, dirty bubbles floating up after exploding out of the sea and landing on my car at the top of the hill and in mum’s garden. I haven’t seen that for so long. It was refreshing and good to be battered by the elements.

It was also odd getting wet but it not raining. Continual wet air, wet sea spray, salt water in the atmosphere as the white horses thundered into the old harbour wall again and again. Would be interesting to do the coastal walk tomorrow to see what’s been blown up and washed ashore. Wood, metal, boat parts, treasure, creels, rope, ambergris, and all sorts of plastic junk. Or maybe just a plethora of stones and rocks needing to go back to the beach. “Exercise or civic duty?” it’s a good question. Had I waited an hour I might even have seen the otters!

Observations make a chain in our lives. This is true, and once we train ourselves to look for connections, we can read things better and therefore make better decisions for ourselves. If power truly is the ability to make connections, the links between money, people, resources, timing, these must all have been made by individuals looking for connections at some point in their lives. Is that something powerful individuals all have in common, that they can take the observations in their lives from the books they read, they music they listen to, the people they know, or meet, or employ or use, and connect this knowledge into their successful lifestyle.

I wonder if this is how these people are more aware of this and how these links or chains work, or at least how to make them work for them. Power is not an aim for me, especially after reading that book! Never has been one, strength aye, power over my life maybe, if it can mean that. Power over others, absolutely not. But it is interesting to look at connections and perhaps that is what I am missing. I can notice how one thing has a good influence upon my life but maybe not many. I’m very careful about what I consume culturally these days as I see this having a link, if not immediately then definitely down the line in an as yet unknown future.

An interesting and timely thought for the day. I’m writing this at night; obviously this morning was taken up by far more exciting things than writing in one’s journal. Santa and presents, chocolate and Christmas. I’ve eaten like a pig but then no more so than is usual the last few days. This has to end soon and I know it will.

Pursuing ones dreams through the sheer pursuit of it is admirable. Is it paying off yet? Not really. Will it ever? Who knows? Here we are, nearly completed this book, ten minutes or so a day and a notebook and a half in. has it got me writing more about nature? Has it turned into a weather report? One thing it has done is got me thinking more about nature. The dream was to write, to be a writer and I have managed this in between doing what I actually do to pay the bills. Am I a writer now, was I before? I get paid, albeit pennies, through website subs, does that make me a writer? I’m about to publish a magazine 80% or so was written by me. Is that it? Is it all these things? And if I continually, doggedly pursue this further, or continually and constantly where then will that lead me to this time next year? The imagination is there. The castles in the air are built, these are the foundations.

Imagine if we were employed by such endeavours as watching the seasons. Wouldn’t that be amazing, to make a living from tracing the process of growth through spring and death in winter. Imagine being paid to sit and observe like a stop motion camera, slowly and silently observing, and waiting. Yeah it would be boring wouldn’t it. Especially with our modern attention span. I would probably get ten minutes into day one, watching the cherry tree in the back garden for example before I checked my phone. Then what would I be observing, nothing but all the shite of the day on the internet where nothing is special and nothing is awesome.

Humans are not the same as we were in HDT’s day, and people whose jobs do involve an element of that will most likely have a high powered GoPro or similar. Then they’ll need to record what they saw either by writing it into a laptop or maybe a dreaded spreadsheet. I’d like to meet Crumley, I’d like to follow him about for a day and see what he does and how he does it; how he always seems to get something to write about. Even on driech days like today. We share the same weather. Hope the big man makes it in ok tonight.

It is quite an indescribable feeling to be on holiday. I wonder if other professions feel this way on the first day of one, or if it is unique to those who work within education. Obviously everyone enjoys being on holiday and would presumably prefer it, at least in the short term, but I do not know if others feel that sense of relief, weight burden and general overall exhaustion that comes from teaching and its related jobs. Does a university professor get the same feeling or is it reserved for those who work with young people? Although I don’t work secondary, guaranteed they feel it too.

I’ve been doing this a long time now. 14 years teaching. A year of uni and placements. 4-5 years of support assistant work previous to that in numerous places. Not a bad resume I suppose. And yesterday, no it was Thursday, my SLT ok’d me to apply to Forest School training in April. I am elated. It’s just the beginning level so I won’t be a leader or anything but it’s a start and I can’t wait. That’s the coolest thing to happen for ages and once again this positive shift is all down to my wife. BMLK. I should get it tattooed on my knuckles.

Any man who has no children, has not himself felt a full range of emotions possible for a human being. The first thing it does is vanquish selfishness and a ‘me first’ mentality. No longer are you the centre of the world, your needs are not even secondary, they are third. Less so, if you have more children, for the child eats first, then the mother, then you. This is a good thing for a man; to feel humble, to feel love that goes beyond all romantic leanings of the word, to a much purer place, unencumbered by the things only romantic relationships can bring. These new emotions, from the first holding of your new-born child, continue throughout their lives as you feel a new sense of pride.

Pride, where did that one come from? The average adult male probably hasn’t felt pride in a long time and pride in your children is one of the best feelings to get. From performances to managing school, to learning new skills to actual awards, whatever it is, it is never felt by the childless. Also the feeling of utter uselessness when your child is sick, ill or an accident happens. You are at the mercy of whatever higher power you choose to believe in, or the current medical climate, which despite what the news says, is the best it’s ever been. Have children and experience life at its fullest.

We are all critics. We cannot help ourselves. I do it, you do it; we are all very judgemental of others, what they do, what they wear. We offer our ‘what they should do’ advice so freely that we forget to look at ‘what we should do’ for ourselves. What we should do is shut the fuck up about other people and concentrate on blocking that critical voice we all have. Being human is a difficult task. The bookshelves help with that, forcing us to take a long and cold and hard look inwards at ourselves and our place in the world. ‘I am my own harshest critic’. What shite.

Windy as all hell last night so it’s a good things were not out in the woods today. Tomorrow we should be so I hope it doesn’t continue. Rain is miserable at times, but safe and we can put up with that. Wind is dangerous as we saw that tree falling down that day which was an eye-opener. Dramatic and cool. Nothing but Christmas stuff today, and games. Mince pies and good cheer. Panto done yesterday, phew! I’m itching to get to Dalavich this year, fire, whisky and my new Edgar Allan Poe collection, it’s gonna be great.

The more I read about birdwatching, the more appealing it is. That makes sense I suppose. I am particularly interested in the buzzards, owls, kestrels and sparrow hawks I must admit. The few occasions where I have seen one close up, such as when I first walked to that drovers cottage, got lost and surprised one sitting on a fence post that flew off right in front of me, or when we sat upon the Law watching one soar and hunt for about half an hour, both these experiences were great. Unforgettable even, and way cooler than seeing them from a car window passing on my way to work, which I suppose is cool in a way. We watched a sparrow hawk on top of Cockleroy once for ages.

These are interesting but I’d quite like to watch some swans in flight or the heron that lives round here through the binoculars. How excited were we when that bullfinch came into our garden? My problem with nature and bird watching is that I’ve nearly always got my best pal with me, and he scares off the wildlife when he gets out the car. Or maybe it’s me. Anyway I need to learn to sit still for long periods of time. Sit still, look, be quiet, observe. Sounds magic.

Fucking hurt my back again last night at jiu-jitsu, doing not very much so I’m very annoyed; in a lot of pain and finding twisting and bending difficult. Looking forward to a walk in the woods this morning though as it should stay dry and that’ll maybe ease my back off a wee bit. Might not get back up off the ground if I sit down.

Had a walk up Binny Craig yesterday. It’s a cool little hill, the staircase access bit is great and reminds me of the steps cut into the rock at Dunino Den. The wood on the approach is quite interesting as is the fly tipping at the access road. Nappies and all sorts of shit lying about. You can play count the tyre piles from the top of the craig too. Scumbags, but the way the rock merges from the woodland is cool and as a short introduction walk for children looking to access hills it is a belter. Short, steep and challenging for little legs in places. But interesting enough to keep them, well interested really.

Man my back hurts, might need to rest up again which is crap cause the rehab was going well. My bjj game was improving and even got back to weightlifting properly. Might need to leave the deadlifts well alone again. Stupid fragile human body.

Public speaking would be truly out of my comfort zone. If there was a major hurdle or challenge in my life it would be along those lines. Sure I’ve done it when I had to. Did a presentation to the staff at an in-service a few years ago. That was ok. I knew about 60-70% of the audience well though. Does that count? Likewise when we did presentations as part of our degree it was to our tutor group, so again I knew most people there. It would be something else to do it to a group of strangers. If I was to truly push myself it would be that as it makes me shit bricks more than any jiu-jitsu competition ever will.

The other thing that would make me shite masel would be an MMA fight. Not that I’m going to do that now at 46 but there was that opportunity 15 or so years ago. The thought still makes me pack it. I doubt I’d be allowed now even if I wanted to, and can only imagine the delight some 20 year old would get being matched against a guy that can’t kick over his ow waist height. I’ve neglected the stand up. Time dictates what I can concentrate on and its only there for the bjj. Still dark outside and its getting on, as dark at 7:30am as it is at 3:00am.

The wild, wilderness; nature writing terms that are quite Americanised. Normally I would be against such a collection of American terms in our culture. Hip hop/RnB culture can look pretty fucking stupid sometimes within our society, though I clearly love a part of that. No desire to be a part of it though. Wild would just be hills here, outdoors, nature, smaller terms for a smaller nation. It has been a long time since Scotland was truly wild, and has definitely tamed itself, or been tamed, maybe since Culloden. Where does that leave our nature writers? Endless books on Munros, shortest or quickest routes, wild swimming (otherwise known as swimming) is popular, birdwatching from a forest with a wind farm behind it, and in front of it, accessed by a hydro-electric board road.

Wild? Not one bit. Hill tracks abound yet people do still get lost here, so I’m not saying to take it lightly. The opposite in fact. We can take this for granted and still make mistakes. Weather turns quickly, that is truly wild. A nice day in Alaska can stay a nice day. Here you never know what you’re going to get. Simplistic perhaps but I’m all over the place this morning. Christmas is fast around the corner, it’s a shitty miserable day but the presents are wrapped and we’re off on The Polar Express!

It’s warm. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no that warm, but it’s still warner than it should be for the middle of December. There is a chill wind as always but the general temperature at a guess is around ten, which is mental. Have we had our winter when we got that first snow and ice-blasting storm a few weeks ago? Was that it? Jim Crumley reckons we’ll only have three seasons very soon, as winter as we remember it will all but disappear, to be replaced by pockets of storms like the one we just had. This will be a reminder of former winters. I don’t think he’s wrong in this, only that the three seasons will then merge into the homogenous, grey and cool, wet and wind that we know as Scottish weather, only to brighten into a heatwave for a week in June when everyone complains about it being too hot, and then again in September.

Picture postcard Christmas Days haven’t existed in my lifetime, except from maybe 2010, but even that snow fell in November. On St Andrews Day. I wish I had this journal back then. That would have been a week worth recording. So until the next ice age comes along we’re stuck with this mild winter, blasting storms, overcast summers and a generic weather pattern that is neither here nor there. Ho-hum!

Feeling ok today. I stopped the deadlifts last night, not going for the last one in the last set. Left it at 4 not 5. I did finish the rest of the accessories bar a few squat sets, just didn’t feel like it. I pushed through the give up hump and was pleased to get as far as I did. My deadlift has dropped drastically since my injury, but I’m learning to deal with that and accept that, at 46, I’m probably in the minority that can lift over 100kg. But the point is not about strength it’s about flexibility, and agility, and though I expected to be sore this morning, I’m actually ok. Feel good in fact, sprung up from one of my floor stretches this morning.

Last night I got an excellent sleep, thank you BB, from about 10:00 till 5:45 and then had a snooze until 6:00. I needed that. I also had a shower before bed and felt refreshed, relaxed, tired and satisfied (workout, bit of writing, reading done). What a rest! And I need to recognise my body needs that more than ever and it’s ok to let go the heavy weight, occasionally relax, have a bath and listen to some Kenny G. Maybe not the latter.

I’m feeling the pull of nothingness, the drive of some sort of wilderness. I do not know what it is yet, mountain, hill, glen, forest will do. Remote and as few people as possible, no cars, no technology, that would be nice. I have spent a lot of time in cities recently, more so than usual. Glasgow, Dundee and Stirling in as many weeks and on Sunday I’ll be in Edinburgh. Perhaps that is the reason; perhaps it’s added to a feeling that is already there, that I haven’t acknowledged until now.

The trips to the woods, sometimes three times a week, have certainly helped satiate that need, but it’s true I need more. Mountain walking was always therapeutic for me, always something I felt I ‘needed’ to do, even the very first Munro we did way back whenever that was. Bjj has filled that physical gap but has none of the wildness. Speaking of that young L has a comp on Saturday and though I am obviously stoked for him, I am quite jealous and want to compete myself. Can’t afford the £90 entrance though at this late stage so will let it slide. I didn’t think I’d be physically able, but I actually feel all right. Into the new year for that and hopefully wont pile on too many kg over Yule.

I have not been ill in some time. I can’t remember, I haven’t had a day off relating to my health this year yet, hopefully not at all, touching all the wood on the table as I write. But this healthier living approach must have some pay off right. My back injury was the worst thing to happen to me since my shoulder popped in, what 2008? 2009? That I still feel the repercussions of but my back is getting better every day, now four months into the rehab and I am able to squat and deadlift, albeit with much reduced numbers and frequency. But that’s ok, now I’m properly old I need to look out for that.

45 was the age I really started to notice things going downhill in terms of ability, agility etc. now it’s a struggle to get up, every time I get up and not just some of them. I have been regimental in my morning stretching and workouts, though the latter can always be improved upon and bjj has been consistent this year, which is a first. The consistency with which I have applied to it, barring obvious lay off for holidays and child traumas are paying off both in practice of my jiu-jitsu and in overall health.

T has a new bed. It’s a big green pillow and looks really comfy. The girls used it before he did of course, using it for their gymnastics as a landing pad for forward rolls off the couch. He always takes his time over a new bed. His last bed he ignored for an entire day. Then he curled up on it one night and we put a blanket on him and I don’t think he moved till 6:00am. Last night he was upstairs as K went to bed earlier than usual. I brought his new bed up for him and I heard him rummage around on it a few times and then, again, I don’t think he moved all night. Even after I got up, he had a long lie. It took for the girls to be up and properly running around for him to finally move. He’s enjoying his comforts now he’s into middle age. Is he encroaching old age? There was a time I felt we were symbiotic, exactly the same age. Both slowing down maybe, finding the mountain a bit more of a struggle than before but still running around like a daftie and feeling youthful. Now, although I’m breaking down too, it’s far more pronounced in him and his age has accelerated beyond mine.

Perhaps we are already a civilization of brutes and in calling animals so we are doing them a dis-service. Maybe collectively animals treat each other better than we do. The bird tolerates the badger, and vice versa. Imagine if the fox in the woods shipped all the rabbits off to Rwanda. Would birds, for example, fuck another nest over, steal the food and part of its home, or would it just try to find its own. Maybe some species do this.

I suppose the big difference is currency and they have none. Food, water, shelter, above that, they need nothing. People will do desperate things if they do not have those necessities. Would the elephant being the largest, take over the entire savannah or jungle just because it could, because of its power? Force the lions or tigers into its armies and rule the area as it chooses, distributing resources as it saw fit.

The more the things that keep us human close, art centres, children’s play areas, music venues, whatever it is, the more the animals win, and I’m not talking about the elephants here, I mean the animal in man. The greed the individual or the corporation has over any future generation’s well-being or the shortsightedness of what it does to our population. Where would we be if these things were not the norm and rampant capitalism did not rule entirely?

Driving through Fife yesterday on the way to the City of Discovery I was reminded of the history of the land I was travelling. Once passed Glenrothes and off the motorways the land has a fair amount of trees on it, is rural, farmed, kept. Pretty and picturesque in places once you get passed the new builds, industrial estates, windfarms, global mega-warehouses and retail complexes of varying sizes. The amount of history, of travels, of battles, of schemes and pilgrimages on this stretch of Scotland must be huge.

But there is also a mythological impact that is all but lost. Where would we find our ancient tales of myths and legend? In the small stretches of water, by rivers, lochans and burns. In the tales of our storytellers and an oral tradition that extends beyond time. In the place names of villages, hamlets, cottages, farms, hills and forgotten woods. In a thousand years will people wonder why Amazon Way is called so? And then extend the same reverence we might over the name Queensferry, Canmore Street or Kingskettle?  Is there a lack of knowledge of history these days, or is there more? Are we more aware of it than ever? The mythical part of our land, the spaces for these tales, the connection and the whys are mostly gone.

The seed is the key; is the seed planted? For great things can grow from a tiny seed and can take many forms. The initial spark, the idea, what was the one that grew Last Wolf? The desire to have my own thing perhaps, the lack of a band at the time, the need for some sort of creative outlet even though I didn’t realise it. The seed needs nurtured of course, fed a diet of healthy things, not garbage TV or endless internet memes, constantly watered, put at the forefront of the mind, and a purpose. A desire to grow stronger and rise to be what you meant it to be, what was possible for it in all that time.

It also must be pruned. Maybe this is the area I’m lacking in. The seed, the idea transforms into a larger specimen which must be cut back continually in order to fulfil its potential, to fully grow and break out the forest with all unnecessary parts dead cut off. The dead weight needs to go so that only the healthy plant can live and thrive. Time to go and finish The Thorn issue 2. Time to fulfil that creative need and thrive.

Winter has most definitely not come unnoticed. The temperature has risen a bit though and the ground is wet rather than frozen, rain rather than snow flurries, damp not ice. It presents its own challenges living within this, especially with kids and dogs but also in that I’m outdoors three days a week at the moment. Getting a fire lit in these conditions is hard, much harder and the pupils already find sticking with anything longer than ten seconds challenging.

It’s a good lesson in not getting everything instantly though. These things are important, especially nowadays and I wonder if my parents or grandparents thought that about us. Maybe they said ‘they’ve got it easy’ whereas we say ‘they’ve got to have it instantly’. It’s a massive societal problem though for adults too, don’t think I’m just blaming children for it. Things like lighting fires in the cold or jiu-jitsu, or skateboarding, where it takes years to get to any kind of level of decent are great to build resilience and is against those very modern ideas of instant gratification, everything happening now and being good at something first time, straight away, getting it now, for no fire lights on the first strike (unless you’re Lemmy lighting a Marlboro) and no belt is given on the first class.

Well, when did I first see Gorgoroth? 2007 maybe, 2008? Probably the scariest band I’ve ever seen right. Not so anymore, I actually think I shouldn’t have gone and kept the cash to see Midnight. And not because they weren’t good, they were. Hoest from Taake is one of the best black metal frontmen around, and as a replacement for Gaahl, I’m not sure if they’d find one more suitable. He was much more violent looking on stage too.

So why did it feel so lacklustre? Because Infernus looked like Jake the Snake in corpse-paint with a massive floppy handlebar moustache? No King ov Hell either but those other guys performance was spot on. No candelabra but that doesn’t suit Hoest’s performance, full of hatred and ugliness. Is it me? Have I just seen way more black metal now and the old school are looking old and tired.

Or is this more indicative of society as a whole? Where things that were once genuinely mysterious, occult and scary are now internet memes and joke videos. Reduced to make those who don’t get it laugh at it. Someone’s art, persona, aesthetic, grown over 31 years and gone from scary to silly, from genuine to indifference in the space of half that time. It happens to everyone. Kiss and the Crüe. It happened to Mayhem, Immortal and Gorgoroth. Age catches us, every winter adds up and here we are again. I need to stop waiting for anniversary shows and hit up the new bands again that cost £10 to see. AC/DC are touring again, £100.

Had a great day outdoors yesterday. Smashing ice with stones and building a fire in the deep woods. We made it as dry as we could and succeeded. It was great fun. Even whittling sticks and a bit of exploring. Had part of the afternoon too at Beecraigs, two days in a row I’ve had a campfire now and all going well we should have one on Friday. Starting to remember why I enjoy this outdoor stuff again and trampling through the trees on frozen leaves is great fun.

Very cold this morning though, a proper black metal morning, the freezing moon, the funeral mist, icy cold black hearts. Blashyrkh out there. Seems fitting for tonight as I’m off to see Bergen’s cultyist Gorgoroth. Dubbed by me, the scariest band I’ve ever seen. No Gaahl these days but we shall see if this line up matches the old one and the black metal aesthetic of the morning. Scraping the car took ages.

We are too used to having our own way. We are too used to getting everything and anything we want, whenever we want it, and to go back to living seasonally would not be a bad thing. To go back to living locally would not be a bad thing either. No bananas this morning but you can have figs in your pudding, or porridge. Yum. Chestnuts and bramble jellies, apple crumble and pies. For that kind of limitation is weirdly a kind of freedom.

When I was vegetarian, one of the most practical reasons was I was able to skip entire aisles of the supermarket. Whole sections not even needed to be walked down, so it saved time. It narrowed my choice. Looking at a menu there would primarily be two things to choose from. Great. This suited me, less choice, less fannying about. Buying a sandwich? Ploughmans or egg, cause no one wants a cheese sandwich. That’s like eating plain crisps, pointless.

The loss of awe and wonder that we have as a result of the internet and globally connected world nonsense no one wants, which is just hidden money grabbing, has spoiled us and created a species who do nothing but want and want now, and will never be satisfied. Maybe prison time cures this.

What are the most memorable moments of my young life? They involve Kilrenny woods and armies on the Den Road. Falling off my bike. Making up games at Bankie, wearing grannies gloves for goals. The youth club trip to Pitlochry. Twice. Castle Street and Elie beaches. Jumping on the rocks, always jumping on rocks. Monikie and Templeton Woods. My dad’s boat. Chalmers kirk and that derelict house on Shore Street. These are stand out moments. And the common denominator is that none of them are in my house. All the drawings I’ve done, all the computer games I played, Scaletrix and Subbuteo, it’s the outdoor moments that stand out. Even simple memories like cars in the garden at Toll Road or across from grannies playing MASK, they were still outside. That summer, or maybe it was Easter holidays, playing in the fields and cycling all the way to the West Anster park, that was a good field for Manhunt. Now that was a game. Is it that I am inclined towards this now, just nipping up to Beecraigs and Cockleroy this morning. I don’t see this as being an accident. Could it be that my aim is to invoke and create some of these memories in my own children as well as the pupils I am responsible for? I see it as likely.

Light is in short supply at the moment as we creep up on the shortest day. Dark late in the morning and dark early in the afternoon, but it doesn’t last long. The recent cold snap has been nice. Snow in other places but not much here, just a dusting over the hard ground, but it means the temperature is still low, -4˚C or -5˚C, up to about a massive -1˚C during the day. The snow must just have missed us cause Bathgate and the north part of Livi got it. Even Burntisland had snow worth going out in but you couldn’t have even made a snowball with ours. The sky is thick with it though.

Most of the Christmas shopping is now done which is good, just a few other odd things. And Crumley’s Nature of Winter is on the way so it will be great to crack into that. A room full of too many books and I keep buying more, and I know of others that I should get. Emerson for example, no Ralph Waldo on these shelves, which needs to be remedied.

The light on my desk needed to be shifted, now it is front and centre as it is only this time (late morning) that I have some serious light coming in through the window. The desk is cleared, two pens, a knife, a lamp, some candles, small tape player, no shit, no distractions.

Let government respect be earned. I suppose it was at one point men who served in the military went into politics. Churchill was a soldier but then so was Hitler. Once this current crop of cunts die off imagine the kinds of social media dirt we will be able to get on the next generation. Best start covering your tracks now, as if that was never a thing anyway. Not no government, just a different one.

Earned the right to be there and not just by cash, degrees, family or even votes by their peers. ‘Vote for me, I’m a black belt’. Now we know that person has done something well and consistently for a long time, and hasn’t cheated. ‘Vote for me, I have a massive bench press’. Ditto. ‘Vote for me, I’m a money grabbing son of a stupidly wealthy businessman who wants to maintain family prestige and gain more power and property.’ Not quite as interesting to me, though at least in that case, it would be honest. You don’t get to be a politician unless you can choke someone your own size and weight out, and can squat over bodyweight. That would certainly make Question Time more interesting.

Will we get snow this year? 13 years ago we did. I always liked the name the Beast from the East cause it was very metal, Iron Maiden Live in Poland. But it was the most snow id ever seen in the central belt up to that point. My car was completely covered. It was crazy, it was brilliant, the shops closed they were so empty. Digital learning was in its infancy so although attempted I think I only ever had one pupil log on and share a picture. That year was fun. I ran in the woods, I explored a quarry climbing on bulldozers and diggers, worked out with frozen logs and stones. Doesn’t look like that yet but I’m hopeful for some snow at least. It does come either early or late. We don’t want any disruptions over New Year though, Dalavich approaches.

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

Cold hard frost again, braw though, dark and icy, hands frozen. Beautiful morning yesterday at Beecraigs, breaking ice and un-damming burns. St Andrews Day today, might go for a drive to Stirling and see the Bruce and maybe even Wallace himself at the castle.

Well heaven is more likely to be under our feet than over our heads, especially this morning, again with the hard frost. Im looking forward to Beecraigs this morning and crunching through some hardened leaves on the forest floor. It makes me think of the mycelium under there too. An absolute universe of life, right there coming from one mushroom. It’s incredible and a lot more tangible than stars and planets. Roots you can see. Stars, space, astronomy, too abstract to be fully of interest to me, although they are incredible also. Cool to look at, not something I could get obsessed with I don’t think.

Thick frost this morning, ground very hard and as soon as I’m finished this I’m going to have to spend a good bit of time scraping the cars. Nearly half seven and it’s still black dark with only a slither of a hint of blue, the thin blue thin on the horizon.

Hopefully will get out to the woods again this morning, which will look very cool no doubt. My guess is -3˚C. The kids are all bouncing at the moment. My own and the ones at school. Is it the beginning of Christmas that does it or the full moon last night? A study needs to be done into that. The lycanthropic effect on children’s behaviour.

Found out this morning that another one of the old guard of T’s old pals has gone. 15 years old, a good go for a lab, but that was one of his first proper pals, the original lab pack he would walk with as a pup. Such a shame and there’s been a few around here recently that have made it to old age well. I guess it’s the right decision in the end and I wonder how I’ll be when the time comes for my best pal to go as well. He’s 8 and a half the now, into the old age nearly, 50 something maybe. A touch of arthritis in his knees, some lumps in him but nothing serious. He has been a healthy dog and remains so. Me and him will get a bit of weight off as well pre-Christmas.

A dog is such a massive presence in a home it must be a giant hole when they are gone, and I don’t look forward to the day of not having one, not having him. Do I even want another dog? I just want my Thorin. It is something I know we’re all going to have to deal with in the future, but right now he’s happy and fun and able and I think he will be all of these things for some time yet. He truly is the best boy.

My hands are cold as I’m writing so it might be messier than usual. Been in for about 15 minutes with a coffee and they’ve still not warmed up! We were out at the Santa run this morning, not taking part, maybe next year, but watching. The girls really enjoyed it, seeing a hundred Santa’s running around the park. My hands are cold form pushing them on the swings whilst watching the runners. All good fun.

Towards the end of the year I am now beginning to see the balance in my life and find the space for the things I need to do. I know I must create or be creative and have numerous avenues of doing this on a limited time budget. Stupid job; but it pays the bills, although barely at the moment. And the mortgage is set to go up by £300 come January, we’ve been lucky with that due to my outstanding wife. But all that other stuff is an indulgence, the real work, the great work, lies in those two and letting them see things like today.

Later we’ll go out and browse the Christmas stalls, go home and get some tea and then go out again for the Christmas parade. It’s always really cool and the girls will love it again, walking behind Santa with a load of torches. Ace. This is the important shit as its building the right ideas in them that this is a good community to grow up in, that its worth looking after and helping out and doing things for and taking part and all the things that keep events like this going. Showing them these things and keeping them excited for Christmas is the most important job in the world right now and everything else is secondary. If you think otherwise, well you’re wrong and missing out.

We continually think that we can eat the same way throughout the year but it is not true. Even the imported fruit right now is garbage. Zero taste, though that is something that is missing form a lot of the imported produce into this country. Why is it bananas are green and then go brown without ever being in that tasty yellow zone? We should forget about eating strawberries in winter and only use the frozen ones we’ve stored for jams etc. Strawberries should only be eaten when Cairnie farm is open and Wimbledon is on. October? Not worth it.

Had to go downstairs there and lost my train of thought. Funny how that’s enough to break it; two minutes of something else and I’ve lost where I was going with that food thing completely. Reminds me of the writer in Stand By Me at the end when the kid says ‘my dad gets like that when he’s writing’. I wonder if that was something that Stephen King’s kids said. Or if it’s even in the story as I’ve not read it. I should chase that up and read it because The Green Mile was an excellent book, and Stand By Me is an excellent movie.  

My geometry is working at the moment. Everything feeds into each other. The clean diet, albeit only for a few days after birthday gluttony, feeds the stretching and the exercise which helps the jiu-jitsu which helps the workouts. I’m back enjoying them again and look forward to them, though one the other night was just get in get out. The stretching routine in the morning I’m eager to do because it makes me feel better. Re-listening to the Power Aesthetic helps keep the mind on that and I definitely need that help. The music I’m listening to, Danzig, Rome etc. is powerful music to me so the listening is even on point as well.

And, more relevantly I’ve built an outdoor timetable so I’m out now Tuesday and Friday, awesome. Got the girls this weekend, well Saturday anyway so weather permitting we’ll go out like we did last week too. My mini-zine Re-imagined is coming along and I scanned in about ten pages last night to see what I can do with them. The leaves are all gone. Crazy wind last night and now continued so there’s no more to walk over there on the grass. Fuck knows where they all went in their thousands, but not here anymore.  

A phenomena that I’m sure HDT didn’t see coming was the now lack of that kind of thing. No wood smoke rising from chimneys, not even coal fires belching soot ash and smoke into the sky. I suppose then you always knew if someone was at home. While the idea of little pockets of homes and hearths, of families and firesides dotted around the countryside, visible from the mountain is heart-warming, a lonely image for a Christmas card, was it ever a reality?

The truth of the modern times is not as pretty a picture. For this must have been the view of man for centuries, pockets of fire, of warmth and safety, or maybe not. Now it’s the oppressive orange glow of towns, the shimmer of electric lights that are not nearly as romantic, or near as lovely to look at.

Where am I going with this? It’s not as if the world is suddenly going to revert to a nonelectrical use of power. What’s behind the fireside? Is it families reading together, perhaps aloud? And what is behind the electrical light? Is it more screens and a blue haze, everyone has their own blue aura. Where is the cheer and the feast?

Our expectations are the things that let us down the most. If we are disappointed at an outcome, or in a person even, it is because we had certain expectations that they or it did not meet. That is on us entirely, not on said outcome or person. Try to remember this when feeling a sense of disappointment at anything and see how it feels. Does it make a difference? Will it change your mood or viewpoint? Should we therefore have no expectations upon anything and therefore never feel disappointed?

Absolutely beautiful this morning, sky is colouring nicely and I saw a line of birds along the electricity pylon. The darkness of the birds against the colour of the sky reminded me of the black keys on a piano. Not that the sky was that light but the contrast was so striking. Moving dark keys, a piano like the typewriter in Naked Lunch. There’s a light orangey pink coming in from the east just now and it will be strong in five or ten minutes. A good morning to go to the woods, which is exactly what I’m doing. Shame it’s not with the girls.

A nice morning, clear, calm air, cool yet not cold. No more than a slight breeze, ground not too wet, bird song a plenty. 7:30 and it’s still dark. Yes November is a good month for being outside most of the time. Yesterday we had a great day in the woods, Dadventure Explorers. Lit a fire and had marshmallows in the deep woods. Lots of felling at Selm Muir right now and I can’t see our bit lasting that much longer, but for now we’ll enjoy it. BB fell on the leaves and M pretended to fall so she wouldn’t cry and then encouraged her up. It was magic. Then we walked along the Eternal Boggy Path of the Christmas Trees, which is now really bad since they chopped all the trees down. The replantation seems to be random too. For every part that seems managed there’s another that looks wild. Found another bit that would be good for a play in. They did well on that walk and were out for ages, which maybe helped in the excellent sleep that we all had. Well, all except for K, who still has the toothache. And we found a mushroom growing straight out a branch and M called the lone yellow tree the most beautiful thing. What an afternoon to be alive.

There is a lot to be said for staying in the same place, really knowing a place. Its streets, plants, trees, people, wildlife even. I saw more foxes living in Dalry than I see here, though I regularly see the same one.

The year is coming to an end and I suppose we do feel more contemplative during these months. It makes sense. The question of ‘what I’m going to do with this journal’ has appeared over the ‘what am I going to do next’ thought. I was meant to be going to JM’s to polish off the last few pages of the Thorn. We started doing it in January! I’ve had to postpone due to the toothache. I’m eager now to get that out and it’s not looking like it’ll be any time soon either. My planning and organising for 2024 needs to be better. It couldn’t really be any worse. It’s all my fault though, maybe I need an accountability journal. A don’t get distracted procrastination journal. Stay on target like at the end of Star Wars. Pick a thing and complete it. This magazine and demo tape has taken a year and neither are finished. This needs to be addressed.

Dark o clock, both in the morning and at night and sometimes in the afternoon too. This is a night time one, not quite bedtime yet for the girls but getting there. Struck earlier today by walking entirely on leaves, I mean there was no grass, you couldn’t see it or even feel it. It was a mattress of compacted ash and oak leaves, green and brown, soaking wet and clogged together so tight you could feel nothing underneath. A leaf carpet, and quite cool.

I’ve eaten too much shite this birthday week, only a box of Maltesers to go and all the crap is gone. It’s too easy to slide back into eating badly. Cold weather, cold bones and not enough water. 3+cups of milky coffee a day. I used to like it black; like my metal. Still it’s been a good week for me, if not for K who is emergency dentisting it tomorrow for the crazy toothache she has going on. It’s meant that the birthday night out has been cancelled but that’s ok. I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone. Horrible!

How food must have been consumed and purchased 150 years ago is quite baffling to modern brains. The ability to not go out the shop at almost any time of the day, to indulge almost any whim or fancy you may have in the moment is an almost impossible thing to resist and is most likely also a major contributor to the obesity epidemic. I find controlling the impulse to go to the shop and get something at night difficult. It’s a cycle I bet a lot of people are stuck in. our closest, five walk minutes away is open till ten, the Tesco eleven. If it closed at six or seven, the option wouldn’t even be there. A downside of the 24 hour instant gratification culture that we have created. Now, now, now. More, more, more.

It’s a trap, a trap of consumer ideals to keep us watching garbage on the telly while eating garbage, turning our bodies into exactly that. But the worst thing is, I don’t think people realise. They don’t notice the downfall of the human race and their part in it. Where was once proud upright warriors, wild hill-men and graceful ladies, there is now buckets of fat, lazy and useless, watching Love Island and eating shit.

November has to be the singularly most beautiful yet frustrating months of the year. For every autumn tree and dry pile of golden leaves there is a rainy miserable day where everything looks brown in mud and grey in tone. Today is one of those days. The sun is not expected to shine much today, let alone be visible, unlike at the start of the week where the blue was brilliant and there was barely even a cloud. The amount of rainfall this month alone has been incredible, floods everywhere.

Yesterday when filling out the mileage on the work van drivers log I wrote my birth date and not the actual date. Can’t really believe I’m 46 years old. I actually feel quite good right now too, the lower back is still sore but the physio is paying off as is the regular exercise. Jiu-jitsu is good too as was confirmed by coach last night when he mentioned my lack of stripes. I am very fortunate. I don’t believe it is luck. We make our own luck and put ourselves in fortunate positions through work and effort. I love my family, I love my home, I love my life. I think we’re thriving. Happy birthday to me.

‘The sea is a wild, rank place that has no flattery in it.’ Flattery? No manners in the sea, no airs and graces, it is relentless, all pursuing, all consuming. Determined and nothing if not consistent. Unlike me. My diet has gone a bit south again, not in terms of eating tons of pasta and bread and rice, but the odd treat here and there, the daily treat… The impulse control I had developed so well a few months ago has not entirely disappeared but it is rapidly disappearing. Like an outward tide, you can tell it’s been in, the ground is wet, left rock pools and seaweed behind in the 10+kg I’ve lost since when? March, May, something like that.

As we know consistency is key and if the handful of chips or biscuit or cake can’t be refused for at least part of the week then the festive season binge-fest will be forced to be more controlled. Having the goal of the jiu-jitsu comp helped with that massively, but it should be ongoing if only for my mind and to prove to myself that I can do it. Colder weather plays a part. I know I drink less water in the winter as it’s so fucking cold and miserable the now halfway through November. 46 tomorrow so best make the most of it.

N’s birthday today. Symbols. Why do I use them? And what do they do for me, if anything? Why do I think they are so important? A good logo, a good symbol is something you can stand behind, something you can believe in, something that can be drawn or carved or scrawled onto any surface. It is primal and has roots in secret societies, traveller’s marks, wayward markings, and pilgrim’s carvings in the rock face to guide others. When man didn’t have tools he wrote in the sand or earth. A tree becomes a cross, probably one of the most recognised powerful symbols on the planet. You see it, you feel safe, though maybe not if you’re a Satanist. Or maybe it equally turns you off.

Does wearing the LW runes make me feel more powerful? It makes me feel more like myself, which in a way is the same. I see unadorned or plain clothing the way I see ready salted crisps, fucking boring and just waiting for a bit of flavour. Why would you want your crisps to be like this, the most ordinary you can get, when there is a ton of flavours available? So I adorn my clothing and myself with symbols that I find appealing visually and makes me feel good. And no, a cross isn’t really one.

Iteration means a repetition of the same process, so can this journal be regarded as that? As we near the end of it I need to know what to do with it. Perhaps, my main thought, is to take some of them, the more lucid and relevant ones anyway, and turn them into short blog posts. Or maybe a book. Does that make sense? Dare I even go down that route of making a journal public and published? It would be fine though as it would never sell anyway and I could do it through Amazon. It would probably take the same amount of time to edit it as it has to write it; a year! But that idea has obviously just come to me and requires further meditation upon how that would even work. In the meantime, what the hell else am I going to journal about?

I couldn’t believe the rain today. I used an umbrella while dropping the girls off at school for probably the first time ever, and I’m glad I did. It was horrendous. The car park and pathway leading to school was accessible only to the wellie wearers. Thankfully finished by break time and largely dried up by home time but its sets you to be wet for the day. Not great.

A good point. The traveller may be building up experiences, sights, wonders, but the naturalist needs to be in the same place. He must know the same area in and out, every nook and cranny in every season of the year. These are not fleeting glances or one off moons and night skies. The trees must be viewed when fully leaved and when empty of them. The footprints viewed in the snow or in the summer grasses. So much is given over being in different places and seeing the world, learning through doing, all very sound and salient points, but is this at the expense of learning about one place in particular? About truly knowing something, and therefore on the journey to mastery?

What a morning though. Up at seven, fairly rested, and the girls playing in a good mood. Pancakes and maple syrup followed by a walk on the crispy orange leaves down the path to the trees with everyone. Picking up leaves that are bigger than our faces and enjoying frosty autumnal November. Sunny, clear and colourful, beautiful. And I’m sure most places would be at that time, in that light on a Sunday morning. Open our eyes, the world isn’t always on someone else’s doorstep.

Money? Aye I’d take some for sure. The pecuniary world is always been the one that has evaded me. I was doing no bad there, the things I’d implemented, stashing cash, various apps working for me ensured I was in the red every month. Then the price of everything went up and I went back to hitting the unplanned overdraft and having nothing as a back-up. And the mortgage is set to go up by a few hundred now as well. Money is a thing I don’t write about often, probably because it doesn’t interest me. Maybe it should though for that reason.

I just checked my lottery numbers there, none again. This was something I never did before, never, not even once. I do now because I do want something else for my family. Something more. But more than anything I’d just buy them time with us, particularly time for the girls to spend with their mum. That’s what I’d buy because of the three things HDT refuses here (love, money, fame), I’d take love out of all of them any day of the week.

I have stepped further and further away from politics and news throughout the last few years. Although I do feel less aware of what’s going on in the world you can still keep up with main stories even when not paying attention. Therefore the Ukraine invasion, Israel/Palestine thing has not gone entirely unnoticed. However un-concerning myself with such events that I cannot alter one bit has been great for me and I feel like I have benefitted from a non-doom scenario newsfeed. I see some things, but not enough to keep me angry on a regular basis, daily, if not many times a day. The easiest answer to this was to ignore it.

Local, national politics I had to step back from so now I know next to nothing about it. It’s unfortunate here that we have three levels to politics, local, national and UK wide and it’s the former as well as the latter that the fuelling of the anger fires. And although I am obviously an independence supporter I feel further away from the mainstream of that. The bickering and the arguing is exhausting and it’s just to get one over on the other team, and that’s all it boils down to. It goes on and on forever, so I choose out.

I remember learning the word empirical. It was in an introductory philosophy class, I was 18 maybe. It was in reference to what we can know, what is definite. I took it to mean you can only know what you have experienced, what your eyes and other senses have told you. Of course, the eyes can lie, they can trick you. There are plenty of stories of hunters shooting people because they saw a deer, and they’d swear it was a deer because their eyes have been trained to see deer. The eyes can lie so we have to fully experience things in order to know that they are broadly true. A great example of this is on the movie Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams says that great line about not knowing what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. This line really hit me the first time I heard it.

Where can I find similarities as I do know what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel? I have been on many a Scottish mountain in winter, which although completely different from say the Himalayas, at least I can fathom somewhat the depths of discomfort someone there would feel. I haven’t really stood on a desert, the plains of the Sahara feel completely alien, though I have obviously stood on sand. My experience is not your experience and nor should it be. But it should be experienced nonetheless.

We do not value anything that does not have a monetary value. We do not value the collecting of nuts as HDT says for the value is in the act, and then the eating, not the gain we are going to get from it. Arguably these days, the intrinsic value we get out of experiences is not monetary but related to social media. ‘I do this, I’ll get likes’ kind of thinking, which I suppose then has a monetary link to those who rely on such things for their income. I’m glad I don’t. Value the act.

A similar thing can be seen in our treatment of our art, especially our public buildings. Once we took great pride in our civic achievements, made monuments and building that stood the test of time. Now it is concrete and glass, or plastic shells that looks like shit when new and even shitter after a decade or two of Scottish weather. Our town centres all have the same partnership buildings, the same schools. There was a time when all these things were different and we looked upon them with pride. Now residents try to burn down their own schools and libraries. Where are our grand cathedrals, mighty trades halls or decorative buildings? Make the world look like shit, we’ll all feel like shit. Value the art.  

Whoever was setting off fireworks this morning at ten past six is an absolute bell-end. Who even thinks that’s a good idea? One big one went off right at the end of our dog walk too, though at least he’d been out and toileted as he just wanted to go back indoors after that. That was just after seven. That’s not even a kid on the way to school yet. Idiots.

It’s weirdly light outside just now with the clocks changing, I remember that from last year too. I can see the birds more freely as there is less leaves on the trees. I need to find my binoculars, I don’t know where they are. Oh for a day just to sit and write, I’d like that today, a very quiet, chilled day with nothing but pens and incense and coffee for company.

This morning I stood on a patch of grass that had no grass on it. It was completely covered by the leaves of the ash tree that stood above it. Entirely, a blanket of green and yellow matching leaves, each with its partner. A cool thing about ash; each leaf has its family and an opposite sibling or partner. A reminder at how nature is more than fine at providing for itself and the food it provides for everything around it.

Voting is important, I’d always encourage people to do it. What are we without it? You don’t vote, you’ve taken away your right to an opinion if you can’t even be arsed to go and do that once every five years or whatever it is. I get the disinterest though. It does seem pointless, especially when you’re up against the kinds of odds we here in Scotland are. But it’s important to retain your voice even if it seems you are sometimes speaking to no one. The thing is, the country is a mess, society is in a fucking terrible state, and people make the mistake of thinking politics or government is going to change it. It is not.

Individualism is. Once people get off their arse and realise that it is on them to be happy, or comfortable, or wealthier, then a happier place the world will be. We should not and cannot put our faith in leaders to do this for us.

Tribalism is. Despite what the globalist tell us, small communities will thrive. Every revamped technology has a reaction against it and the people promoting this will not be the ones to survive it. The strong will be, for they are strong already, and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure I have strong offspring.

The scarlet oak. You have to be willing to see the scarlet oak in order for it to be seen. One man may see just a tree, and this is true of all landscape. I would be mightily impressed with a view of the Sierras, or Uluru, or Victoria Falls or some other, any other natural phenomenon or beautiful scene I had not witnessed before. Yet no doubt the delivery driver goes past these things without a second glance. He is used to them and does not notice even such an extreme example of natural beauty. How can a lowly tree fare then, or a simple hill in bonnie Scotland?

The answer is to look inward at how we look, how we perceive the things around us and what we can do to change our attitudes to the natural world. For in a child’s view the world is fascinating. And it’s not just the big stuff, it’s the immediate. The leaf on the ground, the tree they are standing next to, the stick in their hand. Having children has been a huge learning curve for me. M plays this game at school called ‘The Interesting Game’. She made it up, and it involves finding something interesting in the playground then collecting them all together. Adults would struggle with that game. I think its genius.

This town, like many others at this time, is victim to the developers. What are a load of bushes to the profits of several millions for a large global company? I heard that it was Tesco that owned the field where the horses used to be. What are a bunch of bushes to that faceless entity, when they are so much to others? A source of food, of play, of enjoyment, maybe even a source of fuel eventually. Just to pull it up for some manmade sculpted tended useless shit. These areas are shut off, thorny and as inaccessible as they are inedible. And counterproductive to the raspberry and bramble bushes that once stood there.

When our path was made they pulled trees, then re-planted them, then pulled them again and had to re-plant. The remaining bushes are bare for winter now, a stub of what they were having been cut back considerably. It seems we are only allowed to enjoy them at their fullest and then they are stripped of their dignity for the rest of the year. Everything is sanitised, everything is safe. Nothing is scared, nothing is left.

I wrote something once, I think it was contained in the blog post ‘Posthuman’, about how nature, scenery, landscape is given a different spin when you put a human element into it. Almost nothing is pure and untouched wilderness nowadays. There is precious little of that on the planet left, maybe only in places like middle Russia, northern china, Australia, Canada, Argentina etc.

Here, despite the lack of actual roads connecting the Highlands, there is always hydroelectric roads and forestry tracks. We are never far away from that. How much is a wood scene enhanced by an old stone wall, signs of bygone days; no modernity though, that sucks. The road going through Glencoe gives a sense of scale to the glen from the mountaintops. The windfarms a sense of distance, or one of size if you’re closer.

These monstrosities do need to be capped thought. There are a lot of them now and if these big renewable energy companies are as environmentally friendly as their public face they wouldn’t be big energy corporations. They are not interested in protecting anything, merely putting out another industry for theirs. An industry that provides less workforce. Another issue but we’ll leave it here with the abandoned doocots, cow sheds and yes, homes from the land as an image, adding only to the beauty of outdoor scenes and enhancing nature’s capabilities in showing us awe and the sublime.

Halloween is gone and it was good. It remained dry and cold which is good and the kids all really enjoyed it. Some kids are assholes with no manners, no realisation or spatial boundaries, but it’s not their fault if their adult isn’t there. Or that they allow them to do it because they have none of those qualities themselves. So that sentence should read, some people are assholes etc etc.

It’s wet again though, back to being dreich and soaking. The leaves are still on one of the oaks but that’s it. Running late today, so need to go. These smoothies in the morning is playing havoc with my preparation time. Might need to get up earlier.

Halloween. Finally. I am actually not as into it as people might think. It seems far too Americanised and the idea of guising even as a kid did not appeal to me at all. Halloweening with my own children is a bit more fun, but if they said they didn’t want to go guising id be ok with that. I like watching old horror movies. I like the change in the season and I like the recognition of this. It’s not quite winter but its heading that way. I like the idea of effigies and idols, and decorating homes and burning and sacrifice but Halloween parties and plastic crap shit on ancient traditions and make a mockery of it. Therefore I do not like Hallowwen, I much prefer Samhain. Apart from the carving of neeps, that shit is hard. Make Halloween weird again.

On a totally different note I’ve been thinking a lot recently about colour, specifically autumnal colours. The red in that bush over there is incredible with your eyes. Then you take a picture of it and it looks like shit. I then have to apply a filter that brings out the colours that I see with my eyes. My conclusion, the eyes are the best technology we have and we should use them better and more often rather than our fucking cameras.

A book came through the letterbox yesterday. Sign of the times isn’t it that it came at 7:00pm on a Sunday, but it is entitled Drawing Landscapes, a thing I have been trying to pick up and practice of late. In particular trees. I have been enjoying drawing trees in my notebook to some and no success so I’m looking forward to practising properly and using a guide. Of course loads of these things exist on YouTube but a book feels more old school and more like original ‘work’ rather than just copying off the internet.

Why bother some may ask? In this day we can AI any image we want no problem, but where’s the fun in that? Where’s the skill and the art? I’m always on the side of the artist, except for my hypocritical use of Spotify, which I fucking hate myself for. As a resource it is excellent, as much as it is contributing to the death of humanity and only getting worse as it pays it artists less and less. The dichotomy of the modern world. My generation is the last great one, now it’s all a bunch of wide eyed screen addicts, fame seekers, easy way outers, lazy cunts, identity politics and people getting offended over words. Dear o dear. Anyway this book looks cool and once I hang the washing up ill have a proper look at it.

Feel a bit revived this morning. I spent the evening sitting on top of a hill with R and a Swedish candle. The weather was pish. Cloud cover blinded the view of the stars and the partial lunar eclipse. We saw the full moon peek out only once or twice. It rained, then it stopped, then it rained again all night. We stayed out until the back of ten. I was wet and cold when I got in, but it was great. I really enjoyed it, and clearly needed it.

The leaves are mostly off the trees out front now and the sycamores next door are almost bald. The ground is a lovely orange but remains soaking. If it was dry it would be nice to walk in. Last night was winterfylleth, the start of winter for the Anglo-Saxons and a good band. And of course the clocks changed so we got an extra hour to lie awake from 4:40am thanks girls. But the Halloween party is here and after Tuesday it will be gone for another year and the proper countdown to Christmas is on. Dalavich is just round the corner. Hopefully we’ll get some nice days because this wetness is bollocks.

Later on today, approaching dinner time, not breakfast time as usual. I can’t get over the colours this year. Is it always this vibrant? I don’t recall seeing this many shades of bright orange so much any other year, especially here. But this year it’s truly amazing. I wondered if there is some correlation between the rainfall over the year and the colour in the leaves. What’s the word, is it chlorophyll that makes the leaves green, and the lack of it makes them go orangey brown and then die. Maybe there has actually been less storms this year and the leaves have stayed on the trees a bit longer. Either way, the sycamores, the ash, the elders, the oaks look great.

It is winterfylleth, the clocks change tonight but instead of focussing on this I want to just mention my daughters. Now both are great and do really well at their swimming and tae-kwon-do on a Saturday morning, but today BB got student of the month award for the progress she has made recently. And she deserves it. Mr G pointed out how she has returned from injury and done really well. Brought a lump to dad’s throat. That club is great, they both get M and B and I love watching them. To me, they are both inspiring. My children want me to do better.

Thoughts for outdoors, thoughts for indoors. Practices for indoors practices for outdoors. Do the two need to be mutually exclusive? This is an entirely indoor thought, why should I not do some of my thinking, or writing outside. I took time to do that once and Aüre came out of it. I found my inspiration, and maybe it’s time to visit that again.

The practice of drawing, again an entirely indoor pursuit for me but it doesn’t have to be. We used to do field studies in high school, taking those big wooden boards out of school and drawing boats. So why do I not go outside now and do some drawings? Draw trees from reality instead of pictures and maybe they’ll take on a more life-like form.

I guess the biggest need here is more than time, it’s also light. Not enough light in the day as winter, very quickly it seems, is approaching. Still haven’t made it to Perthshire this year as the weekends just shoot in, all the orange leaves will well and truly brown soon. Nice morning though, hopefully I get out in it, but the problem with that is I have to take other people’s children with me and not my own!

It has been a while since I have travelled by water and I must admit to preferring it to almost any other form of travel. The opportunities of anything seem endless, everything seems possible, especially if you are on open seas. We kayaked, when was that, earlier this year, I can’t remember, but it was on a loch and it was cool. And last summer we were on quite a few ferries. It’s been ages since I was on anything with a small board motor it seems but what a way to travel.

I think I would’ve been quite happy travelling the world as a Victorian gent, a wealthy one of course, by steam boat and steam train, hot air balloon. Planes are so impersonal, you see nothing of a place and then land in its outskirts. A ferry, now if you sail into an old harbour you’re seeing the main hub of a town straight away, the heart of it. You immediately know your bearings based on its location and centre your journey from there. You can’t be lost. I love harbours. From ports to tiny fishing harbours, I wonder where that came from. Deep sarcasm there. Waves and foam, salt air and water, out on deck, freezing but really feeling the air. Planes take all that away and recycle it into pure fakery. Gies a boat any day.

Too early for sunrises right now, still dark o’ clock and will be for at least another half hour maybe a little more. It’s up by the time we leave for school, but of course this will all change on Saturday when the clocks change and this won’t be 7:00am it will be 6:00am. It’s a strange thing this and sometimes I think we’d be better off getting rid of it and seeing just a little daylight in the morning. It might make people happier. It might not have any difference at all other than when the cows get milked.

And in terms of sunsets I’m not really seeing many of them either due to us being deep into tea, bath, bedtime routine by then. It does make the girls sleep easier, the darker nights, which is good. Last night was the best solid sleep of nearly 12 hours from both of them without a peep and me asleep by half ten, turning over only once I think before the alarm at 5:45am. Ill maybe catch a sunset on my way to bjj Monday/Wednesday but that’s probably gone now too. Anyway, birds are singing this morning and there is a fox nearby because the dog went bonkers yesterday morning and then we saw it cross our garden last night. I wonder if it hides under the cars.

A life lived in fullness, already preparing itself for becoming. A bud. A growth. A smidgen of something from a seed, like all life, it nourishes itself from its host as greedily as a new-born sucks the milk. It explodes forth quickly, with all this dormant work been done for centuries of preparation, bursting out anew every springtime, hollering ‘I am here’ and ‘you will witness me.’ For up high it stays, eye level or higher, sometimes much higher, sometimes lower, but mostly higher, in the heavens looking upwards but more importantly feeling upwards which is a thing our species could be doing with more of. Scale new heights. Look aloft. Be confident. Stand tall. Be outside, for one day what happens? We become old, we sag and droop, the happy greenness of our lives fades, slowly at first as we stop preparing and producing essential youthful nutrients. Maybe something unexpected happens, a storm, a wind, a ball, takes us from our perch early and we fall to the ground. Or we cling on till the bitter end, hanging on in vain for we know what’s coming and what is inevitable. Eventually winter comes fully. We fall. We lie with our brothers and sisters and we die, taken back to the ground from which we came, feeding the next.

Practice more humanity by being kinder to nature as a whole. I do not go out of my way to hurt people, the same should be true of a tree. I do not break the bones of my training partners as I do not wish to injure them. Likewise I do not break the branches, or even the bark or leaves from a tree, even if it would benefit me to do so. I do not kill spiders or flies and every attempt is made to put them out of the house safely when I have to. If I lived alone they could just stay. The thought of harming a ladybird…

Is this a Buddhist feeling, the latent spiritual presence inside me, the dominant force save for Odin and Thor? I quite happily eat all sorts of meat, more so now than ever if I watch my diet, which I’m not at the moment but probably should. How can I eat a chicken or a cow quite happily and would refuse to kill a ladybird? I suppose it is because its needless. There’s not even a sporting element in that to enjoy, not that I could really do that to a deer. Could I kill a cow in order to eat it, or a goat or a sheep if needed?  

I had not realised it but I do have a favourite tree. It stands to the east of my house and I have photographed it many times, many without even realising it. Its leaves are currently all over the grass and path next to it. Its shape is near perfect symmetry, trunk straight and strong. Although it has shed a lot recently, particularly the last two days, it still retains a lot of its clothed dignity. The only thing that spoils it is the view behind it is now of new houses instead of a lonely field, and no doubt very soon there will be a house right next to it. No longer will I be able to photograph this tree with just the rising sun behind it.

My beautiful ash, many morning has your sun salutations brightened my morning and enlightened my evening. You stand so straight and balanced, almost touching the ground with your lower branches, and indeed you do touch the fence. It had to be an ash didn’t it, the most metal of trees. Blackened buds, the remnants of the fire, the leftovers. But yes, you are my favourite and take up more space in my photo album than any other tree.

A lot more leaves on the ground after Storm Babette last night. The grass next to the house is covered in them. It’s not normally a westerly wind that blows here so it’s actually unusual to see them strewn that way. But the colours are magnificent. Even just looking out the window here I see a vibrant red on the tips of those bushes across the street. Very soon they will all be gone and it will be bare bones left. Browns, greys, coniferous greens of the same shade. It can’t be daylight saving Saturday is it? Must be next week.

Yesterday while at Beecraigs an entire tree fell down next to us. It was slow, it was noisy and it was great. What a sight to see. Relatively small compared to the size of the giant pines next to it but still sizeable enough. Lots of branches as well. Could it have crushed our den had it been positioned a bit closer? It was a wild day. Trees fall in the woods all the time. I remember the Beast from the East taking out a lot of the trees from here, or was it Storm Frank? Either way it cleared a lot of space whilst making walking difficult.

If I could see my life as a taper or a candle I wonder at what stage it would be at. Would it still be tall, or short and stubby, or mostly melted? My body feels pretty fucked at the moment so the latter would be my guess. I don’t know if it was the escapades on the minibus on Wednesday that’s made me feel like this as bjj wasn’t particularly taxing this week, or even sore. I do a good warm up for it anyway and always feel good going into it. Kicking, punching, head butting and spitting less so. My necks sore and this affects the upper body. My lower back is sore as is my left hip in a mockingly separate injury. My right foot is still stiff, my running ability zero. My kicking pathetic. And this is without a career in martial arts.

So am I a melted pile of wax in a bowl? Or the taper burnt at the end, nibbling at the fingertips? But I started lifting weights again, bench and dumbbells only for now, and I’m not risking even a light squat or deadlift, and weirdly I started feeling better. I feel harder, stronger and this to me is always better. Woods today with the boys hopefully if the stormy weather doesn’t stop us.

Stormy today, apparently it’s to start later on, around tea time, but one look or listen outside will tell you it’s started already. Funny how the weather office has so much control over peoples fear. Before we just had bad weather, winter storms. Now it’s a full blown panic and everything from river defences to underground pipes, to roads, trains and bus services can’t seem to manage.

Sure, cancel your mountain ridge walk. The Aonach Eagach is no place for today. The roofers clearly can’t work and the sky dives aren’t going to happen. But putting the fear of God into people for what is going to amount to a load of wind and rain, things we’ve been dealing with in this country for centuries, is as irresponsible as not mentioning it at all. By giving these storms names are we not giving them more significance than they need? This is not Katrina. And then there is that anthropomorphising of it too, whose going to like a Katrina or a Frank now? Of course that’s flippant but let’s just get over the bad weather and just get on with it shall we. Everyone to work today. Indoors.

The best looking towns have the best kept trees. We have some here, but they have been kept to the edges. Down by the burn has some nice ones and the path leading up here I suppose. Obviously the park and the viaduct road. And over west up the path where the pylons go as well as the farm road. We have some.

However the oaks and raspberry bushes were all ripped up for new houses. The cycle path completely decimated of all life, both old and new. Old brambles, new birds, new shoots, old oaks, old roots. And besides that, the main street shows none, not a one except that one that sits outside the church. St Theresa’s has some belters but none grow on the main street at all. Presumably they were all cut down decades or centuries ago because, I suspect there would have been some, if not many, lining the streets. I could check the library.

This is a shame how the nature of trees, the beauty they bring to a developed area is usually the first thing to go. Why is that? Why is it not a rule that they have to be included? Or law, for land planners and property developers, to go around it. It makes me mad to think of this. Meanwhile people go mental planting the wrong trees in the wrong place and the wrong climate when they were already there in the first place.

Beautiful frosty morning, the coldest yet. Ice on the car, glistening white grass, orange rising sun, clouds floating westwards, but very little wind down here on the ground. Last night I saw a shooting star. It was a very clear night and I just saw it briefly on my left hand side, over the house that has the little band room in the garden. I’ve not seen one for a while, maybe not even last year but I do see them fairly often. You’ll never see a shooting star if you don’t ever look to the night sky.

By the time I was halfway to work though this morning the world had changed and a dark fog had appeared. This lasted until work which was entirely wrapped in the midst of it, and it lasted until lunchtime when it lifted and the sun finally burnt it all off and warmed the world.

What a mixed bag today’s entry has been, indeed most of them have been recently. Is it possible because I know I am nearly on my way out of this journal? The December charge is looming once again after all and with that a new system of morning or evening habits. I quite like the idea of drawing practice actually but perhaps the writing should take precedence, for this is the knot we should untie, revealing the most usefulness.

The pine forest floor is my favourite. Soft to sit on, dry for most of the year. Snow sits very little in it, just patches here and there or around the edge. It doesn’t burn well but makes up for that in natural year round shelter. Mushrooms, bushes and wildflower look amazing when growing up through it. Fungi are easy to spot. I’ve been very impressed with the mushroom communities this year. They have been plentiful, even in my front garden, and there have been some belters in the grass next to the house let alone the woods.

Hopefully now my timetable will allow me extra time in the woods on a Friday, regular time, protected even so I can indulge my needs and wants for this without having to use up other time. This is so precious, like the spice in Dune. The hours between Friday lunchtime and Sunday evening are short and tightly packed with normal and abnormal activities. Damnation one week, K out the next. Holidays, Halloween, parties, ninjas, swimming etc etc. Oh to not work, or to get paid for walking in the woods and then writing about it. £40,000 a year and twelve weeks holiday though, non-negotiable. Jiu-jitsu practice in the morning, or afternoon while kids at school. That’d be ok wouldn’t it? Best check the lottery results again and maybe I can spend more of my time lying on a pine forest floor.

Great journey down to middle England yesterday, the traffic was decent, the timing was ace, the weather fine though a bit sunny and warm for BB at parts and we arrived at our hotel at half four. Perfect timing. Spent the evening in bed reading, nodded off early, sleeping through well with only bursts of disturbance, mostly from BB waking up, M talking in her sleep or being too warm.

It’s funny how places like this don’t allow people to control their own temperature naturally anymore. Buildings here are not built for extremes of temperature so they install air conditioning to counteract it instead of the ability to open a window. Having been in a Premier Inn during the warmest day of the century with no air con I can attest to how horrible it can be. But on the flip side, it is October and were breathing in bullshit recycled air rather than simply opening a window. Is it really that tempting for humans to smoke, or jump out of it, or jump in the second floor? Are we that degraded as a species that hotels have to install fake air to combat our own shittyness? Either way, you wake up bunged up, thick throat and nose and a throbbing head if you’ve got the temperature wrong. I’d rather just have opened the window.

Very soon after moving here I was aware and attracted by the church bells. I don’t remember hearing the sounds of bells from the East Neuk churches to tell the time, but I do recall them for church sessions going in on a Sunday. I think it was 10:00am. I always like hearing church bells and when I heard them here I realised I didn’t want to ever live in a place where church bells don’t peal.

It’s a great way of counting the time with the girls. We hear eight going into school every day. I would usually hear seven though not this week, I’m still sitting in jammies although it’s nearly 8:00am. The dug is at grannies so I’ve not even been outside yet. It looks ok, breezy but not overly. I bet it will be cold. But as long as it’s dry over the weekend. Nothing natural about this one, off to Alton Towers when mum gets back from work. No fire building or bird watching this weekend. But it will be fun. Not my cup of tea but then I drink coffee and these days I have it very milky, proof that things change.

Opened the blind this morning to two fishing boats heading out to the North Sea across the front of the May. The sun was rising and the whole sea was iridescent as those two black shapes crossed it. It was a beautiful scene. As was last night when me and T walked up the old pier and looked up. Not a cloud sat in the night sky, whole nebula and galaxies visible easily. On turning the village lights twinkled in the night, the high tide still as the lights reflected.

The Earth is old, and looking at this pier, walking on it in the dark you would guess it was just as old going by its ramshackleness. The volcanoes spring forth Pangea, Gondwanaland, the dinosaurs and Cellardyke harbour. The oil rigs and ships on the Forth as well as the numerous lights on the North Berwick side are more plentiful than they used to be. I am not accustomed to that part of the view. That bit feels new. The rest, the stars, the sea, the smell, all is as familiar as home, and feels youthful to me despite its age. This is the part I miss. I didn’t see one person last night, which was exactly how I like it. Did see about 41 rabbits though.

The point of this journal was to return to nature writing. It probably started off that way, I could check, but I’m sure I’ve veered off somewhere again into writing something and just mentioning the weather. And on that a weather report. Windy as fuck last night, nearly got blown out the garage but it calmed down by dog walk time. Still blustery today so have put off the Tentsmuir trip for another day. We’re having a play day at the cousins and then grannies too which will be fun.

Mornings are dark and evenings are darker. One of the best things about this time of year though is the amount of mushrooms about. I’ve seen some belters this year and have unfortunately not had the time to go wandering in the forest and look for some more. Feels like the holiday is over already and its only Wednesday morning. And the arduous task of Alton Towers still to come. It’ll be great, they’ll get so excited and I’m looking forward to it. The rollercoasters are filling me with dread already and have been since we booked it. Oh man I hated them at 16, at 26 and now at nearly 46. I managed to avoid them for most of my adult life. Until now.

Men first, subjects after. Hard in this day and age though. I was just reading about Roger Deakin and how he bought his ruin of a house and 12 acres of moat land and woods in 1969. To buy that now would be millions. And the opportunity few and far between let alone the cash amount. Too much is snapped up by corporations, wealthy investors with no bottom line whether they’re from China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or England it doesn’t matter. It would be cool if like centuries ago whole communities would lend a hand in the raising of a new building, but that could never happen now. Too many Airbnb’s anyway. Who would want to help out some millionaire’s glass monstrosity that he was only using to make himself richer anyway?  

Is community gone? Lost in an age where people don’t actually live in places, whole cities decimated, beholden to the tourist only. Who wants to live in a city now anyway, probably why they are full of immigrants, though how they afford the rent is beyond me. We’re barely scraping by and that’s with two professional wages. Am I in my overdraft by the 10^th? Maybe. Most likely. Mild yesterday and today. Big walk with the girls yesterday too. It was great, raining now though.

A sign of a good walk is surely how immersed you are in it. And it has been ages since I have been on where I am. Usually, if its short and local the headphones are on and I’m in the middle of a triumphant metal chorus, idyllic folk enhancement mode or revolutionary period France, the Wild West, Middle Earth or the planet Arrakis depending what’s on Audible.

This has its pros and cons. Reading, or listening, to the struggle of the hobbits while going up a mountain lost in the fog was intense and emotional. Listening to Heilung or Wardruna deep in the woods is spiritually uplifting. But to truly get lost in the woods you need to be listening to absolutely nothing else, which is something I struggle with. There’s always a goal rather than just enjoyment and I need to return to the enjoyable part. This is more the way my mum walks and I never thought about this before. Yes its exercise but it’s also good fun. My walks always seem to have to have an element of achievement attached. A LW photo op, an unknown summit, an end point. The journey itself, the experience, fully immersed in it should be the important bit. Engaged, from my feet to the smell, to my brain, in everything with every sense to the task at hand; enjoyment.

Ah rain. It’s been pishing down constantly since late Friday. And even then there was only a short gap of part of the day. When it rains like this it feels like it happens all the time and that there is no let up from it. Of course that’s a lot of horseshit. Scotland just has unpredictable, changeable weather. And boy has it been hammering down this weekend. All of yesterday, all of it, absolutely tearing it down. Today too and the amount of water on the roads was incredible.

We went up to Dundee for some sparring and that bit around Perth was bad. The river banks were completely overflowing, it was impossible to tell where the river ended and the fields began. The roads were dangerous with so much surface water. Welcome to Scotland where the roads look like rivers and the fields look like swimming pools. But it won’t last, we know that. We don’t half moan about it when it happens. We moan about the sun as well though when it’s too warm so of course were going to moan when it’s wet. A strange weekend then and I hope it calms down a bit so we can at least get outside for part of this October holiday without drowning. It won’t be tomorrow.

I remember we visited the Fortingell Yew. For some reason I don’t have a picture of it but it was many years ago now so I’d like to go back. It’s possible I couldn’t frame it properly, or that they didn’t come out well. It was a pretty grey day if I remember correctly. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t want to take any pictures. There wasn’t anyone else there, which is probably not the case now.

How many trees in the world are held prisoner, especially significant ones? Why the iron bars and prison walls? Ok, it’s an old church but still, it has iron bars surrounding it. These are not support structures, or even helpful. Then I read recently that a few years ago it produced berries. Amazing. The tree had changed sex. It is now female. How very modern. It happened in 2015, ahead of its time even, but then if it is 6000 years old it’s seen some shit come and go. So what did we humans do to our ancient prisoner? We chopped off its branches and kept it preserved somewhere to keep it safe. How very natural. What humanity. What fucking audacity. Who do we think we are?

Magnanimity is not a word I know the meaning of off the top of my head and will have to look it up. Like many words, I think I know it until asked for its actual definition. I think I know… two seconds while I consult Chambers finest combined dictionary and thesaurus… generosity of spirit, not quite what I thought maybe but there you go. Selflessness. Is this what constitutes a philosopher, a sense of selflessness? Spirit definitely, surely that is indicative of anyone who is undertaking or engaging in any kind of strenuous task or work. Spirit sees us through both good and bad times. How many times do we hear of fighters having ‘heart’? Having spirit, it’s the same thing.

We are emotionally involved to the detriment of our own being sometimes. Look at the last few weeks of K’s work for a clear example. An absolute shit show of a procedure from the top down and it’s her drive, her spirit, magnanimity, that’s kept her going and the selflessness of wanting to do the best for other people’s children to the detriment of her own life. And mental health. That’s selfless. A woman of action, of purpose. And oh such a thankless task. Windy today, hat blowing off weather, though drying quickly after all the rain the last two days. Two days of being soaked, no wonder I’m sore. Last day though.

Ok so that railroad/work metaphor is good timing, both in that I need to get the LW finger out and get some more shirts done and its coming up for a holiday which means maybe a bit more space with which to think on this, or preferably act on it. I do have the girls for the entire week so any thoughts of mountain freedom is gone haha. It’ll be cool though and I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully the weather will let up enough for us to get at least a couple of woodland walks in.

I had hoped to get up to Tentsmuir to see what that looks like now. I can’t remember the last time I was there, many, many years ago now, maybe even primary school age. The erosion has changed the shape of the dunes dramatically so it will be interesting to see.  Plus if we get it on a good day, at least a bright day, I’ll get some decent pictures to use. Also want to try that other place again near Tarbrax where that lovely little meadow was. It might be nice in the autumn. Kind of side lined with the upcoming holiday but it’s been a hell of a start to a difficult year so it’s more than welcome. Long way to Christmas yet though.

These days, I sound like a right old bastard when I use that term, (it’s not like the good old days of 1853), it seems people know more. Or think they know more maybe, bring more to the table. I’ve done this myself, piped up at jiu-jitsu when I should’ve just shut the fuck up, or when outdoors with BD or similar. Let the person doing it, do it, and keep your mouth closed seems to be a good way forward. No one likes the know-it-all anyway. No one likes that one guy who when on a tour keeps asking detailed questions as they already have such an in depth knowledge and all they’re after is to catch the tour guide out and prove them wrong. Constantly looking for holes in others game. I don’t think I do that, but I have known people who do, and have seen it many times. And they always come across like big twats.

Usually someone is bringing something they saw on Tik-Tok or read on the internet rather than anything beyond superficial, but it must be annoying for people doing jobs to have to go through shitheads like that on a daily basis. We’re constantly being told what to do, or how things are etc. by kids and were creating a country full of idiots who think they can do whatever they want. This is a bigger issue than when I started this page so I might change book and explore this further.  

Ah, I like extreme weather. And rain, at least when you’re inside, is particularly satisfying to watch when it’s absolutely pelting it down. Bouncing outside and you’re indoors, warm, with a coffee, writing in a lovely leather bound journal with a nice pen as the heavens hammer down. Of course it sucks if you’re out in it, and there is always the dog to take out, but even he’s getting to an age where he actually says ‘fuck that’ and just goes back in the house anyway. It is cool to be indoors safe and listening, and watching the rain.

I remember that time I got caught in a thunderstorm coming off a mountain in the west. How we went up mountains without the knowledge of the MWIS! As the rains came we went for the trees, but then the lightning came and we had to just keep going. I’ve been wet on a lot of mountains, soaked, but that was once where I just waded through the river because it was quicker and didn’t feel any worse off. Mental. But also fun and memorable and probably 15 years ago, which is crazy but still sticks in my memory.

I forget about sound. I’m always too drawn into the sound in my head or the music or audiobook in my ears that I forget to use them to hear what is around me. This was most striking this morning when I heard the beautiful and moving birdsong. Perfect, and a lovely still morning to enjoy it in. It’s not always like that; it usually isn’t.

Yesterday when out in a field we tried a little game to hear things at different levels. There was a bird close by, we could hear that well over to the right somewhere but it remained invisible. There was some kids in the football pitch a little further over, not too loud actually but still there. Further on, taking over for now, a car goes past on the main road, but in the distance, on the edges of our hearing, M notices it. Like a quack she says and does an impression of the soon incoming formation of geese I heard a while ago and was hoping she’d pick up on. They’re still a way off but getting closer. Then we spot them and they fly by us in their distinctive pattern. Like a triangle she says, like an arrow I reply. We watch them disappear over the trees and houses, gurgling and gawking and honking their way to join the hundreds of others no doubt on the field a mile or two south.

Ah it’s been a slovenly week, and particularly weekend. I write this at night rather than in the morning as I didn’t have time for it today. My diet has been pish and I feel shitty for it. Despite this it was a nice day. Mixed North Sea wind at St Andrews with warm sun, rain, drizzle, sun again, warmth, dullness and now (9:00pm ish) quite mild. Weird but good. The girls played well with their cousins as we searched for Scotty dogs.

I am feeling autumnal as well as fat, but I have been enjoying being back out in the woods, looking, foraging, building fires. In fact this weekend started badly with those amazing ‘smores on Friday morning, can’t let that continue. God knows what this week is going to bring but I’m hoping for at least a bit of positivity. Last week was few and far between so that’s possibly why I lost all the good eating work this weekend. Our Friday trek was good. Back on it tomorrow. Every day is another chance, another step forward.

Last week we went on a train. It was the first time both girls have been on one, though both have been on the tram, M quite a few times now. B was so excited and we had a bit of time to wait before it came, every train she watched come into the station only for it never to be ours. Eventually it came. She didn’t get the window seat but sat facing out it nonetheless, so I made them swap. She sat most of the journey with her nose pressed up against the window exclaiming ‘Look, cows!’ or ‘Oh a car!’ or ‘Where’s our house?’ and many others at regular intervals. She even liked the tunnels leading up to Waverley.

This is exactly how I like to travel, taking everything in before it all goes anyway. And how it goes. I used to spend quite a bit of time on trains, now I can barely afford it. But that was only nine quid or something for us all which is pretty good. So maybe we’ll do it again in the October holiday. Maybe BB can sit on the other side of the train and see the north side. Her attitude to that and her excitement made me dead proud of who she is. Sometimes I see so much of me in M but it was good to see that part of her little sister was definitely me.

The eye of the beholder; that’s come up before. Let’s revisit that David Hume article before he gets cancelled. There was a lot of connections in that one if I remember correctly. Edinburgh, Metallica, my walk with JM, the Slough Feg story. ‘Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them’, that’s the quote, and it’s a belter. And that is why things can be so wonderfully subjective, how one person can see the beauty while another cannot. While one person’s noise is another Beethoven. Someone’s child’s scrawl is another’s Rembrandt.

‘Turning the importance of the artwork from the artist to the viewer’. There, I just quoted myself and David Hume in the same article. What an ego! Details are necessary. Use your eyes like a child would, full of learning and wonder and new experience and hope. Let’s not forget hope. Hope can be seen as a bad thing, for too much hoping gets in the way of actual doing. Hoping you win the lottery isn’t going to make you win it. Buying the ticket might give you hope, but much better is to attain the financial leverage you need to not need to hope on the lottery. A mixed bag of thoughts today. Still windy, a strange mood, yesterday was tough. The woods call this morning, which is good.

The end of this volume, but not the end of the book. Maybe I should’ve bought a larger one to fit the year in fully, but it is what it is and I prefer these notebooks anyway. I have not seen the sunset properly for a while. The way our house sits you need to be outside or get a squint view out the kitchen window. And I’m not normally out at that time. Though last night I was. It set at 7:00pm; earlier tonight.

The rain after bjj was mad, well more during it but by the time I got to the Academy, the flooding was huge. It’s windy today again, very windy. 23mph south westerly according to my phone app but the way those tress are sitting it looks more than that. And that is the course of the day. Those new footballs are just going to take off. Got out into the woods, albeit briefly yesterday and had a wee fire. Storm be damned. If we went with the forecast you’d be too scared to leave the house, but it was just a bit of rain and not even that much. To hell with that, it’s always rained and been windy here. Always will be. Calm doon.

Overlooking is a very prescient thing and especially nowadays we are so accustomed to living in front of a screen. The world has become smaller but we have become further apart from each other. I include myself in this. If I think of my behaviour in the staffroom now, (sitting looking at my phone 80% of the time rather than interacting with my colleagues), if I did that ten years ago, I wouldn’t have a wife. No banter between me and my future soul mate and our friends at the time. No getting to know you period, no love, no wedding, no bairns. All because I sat looking at my phone instead.

I’m obviously not looking for a partner now, or even a friend, but workplace banter is important and I overlook that on a daily basis. I bet others do too. So I’m going to make more time to speak to my colleagues, even the ones who seem dead inside. Maybe I’ll learn something. How often do we look at a view for example and see the mountain in the distance but not the land that lies before it. I do this all the time. I feel a time of change is at hand, though I’m not sure of what. As we come to the end of this book, but not the project, maybe it’s just the timing. Maybe it starts, maybe it ends, maybe it changes. I’m not sure yet.

Aren’t we all just food for worms? Which truly makes us one with the earth. We shall all return to it one day whether it is in the form of ash blowing in the wind and evaporating, or in the slowly melting process of decay that comes from our flesh shrivelling and eventually falling away to the earth in the bellies of tiny beasties. Our bones may last longer but eventually they will not. Who are we to destroy this world that we will become part of anyway? Fools.

Warm still this morning, though windy. My head is a bit thick this morning, first bjj for a couple of weeks last night so I’m probably a bit unused to it. No exercise other than stretches and press ups as well hasn’t helped. Dehydrated too. The yeti in the Serengeti. A morning spent here at my desk would be welcome instead of the demands, insults and stuff breaking I know is coming. And as for this afternoon it’ll probably be a re-run of yesterday. Another no show but I’m not spending the going to the skatepark and babysitting. Such a waste of everyone’s time. When there is potential that is being wasted it is even worse, how can we encourage that and make the best of people if they won’t even come into the building? This has been even stranger than last year. And it’s only September.

As much as I tan the meat now, meaning that I eat it, a lot of it, I’m still as against me killing animals as I was all those vegetarian years. I don’t think I could really do a hunt. I may have mentioned this before, the once I went shooting and me and GG both took a pot shot at a bird that landed on one of the targets. If it’s that stupid it’s probably not going to last that long anyway but I’m glad we both missed as I felt really bad for even attempting it afterwards. (Takes bite of chicken). Could I do it in a survival sense? Yes, but that’s different. This was attempted murder for our amusement and it felt shit.

We are very detached to the food on our plate. Maybe that’s why I get a kick out of our home grown veg, or the amazing crumbles made from N’s apples with the wild brambles. It really is the best food. Even more detached from the killing of the chicken or the cow for my meals. We don’t even prep them. The last time I prepped a fish was probably a rainbow trout caught by S yonks ago. I skinned a pheasant he shot but that was years ago too. In fact that was my 40^th. I’ll be 46 soon, how many meals have I had since then? Windy today, last night was wild, but at least the rains off.

Lovely morning, cool and sunny with the added bonus of picking conkers this afternoon. I hope we find some like last year. We found an acorn in the garden yesterday and I noticed some more dotted about the ground next to the trees when we were collecting firewood. Had two fires yesterday. One on the morning with school. It was both reinvigorating and rejuvenating. I lay on the woodland floor amongst the twigs and pine needles in front of a small fire and it felt great. I felt so home and relaxed it was noticeable. And this was work!

Late in the afternoon, in an attempt to keep the girls away from a sleepy mum, we built a fire in the garden. It went up quickly and we sat and warmed our hands before they went indoors. I sat for a bit myself burning out the embers. Later once it had cooled I tidied and packed the fire bowl away. I went back inside and the sky went dark. The rain that came down then was incredible. The apple trees were almost bouncing off the ground in the wind. It was so wild I took a video which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I thought I’d maybe send it to my cousin who is enjoying Colorado stillness at the moment, a nice counter to what they are missing in Scotland.

Humanity is a mystery. Man is a miscreant and I don’t think there is many people in general that wouldn’t fuck over someone else for their own gain. People are quite content to lead selfish lives and take care of their own base desires rather than look at any bigger picture. They are their own islands, humanity is not a thing because they are not part of it. Is this the idealism we see in youth where we always wish the world was a better place, until we are old and then we realise that that world was the better place. Then all we do is hanker back for the days that once were.

Once were what? More of something, less than something else. Does our lack of morality come from the lessening of the spiritual aspect of our lives? Do we need more or new religion to sort out our selfish minds, a return to a more moral life? Can a truly secular society be truly moral? We can of course be good people and lead good lives without the need of a god, but maybe we all can’t. Maybe I need to set an example with hard-core Catholicism. Knights Templar to the core.