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Vegetable garden gloom

I know there can be good years and bad years. As gardeners we are mindful of the vagaries of weather and their consequences. We are accustomed to shrugging off the failures and celebrating the successes. But 2026 in the vegetable patch has tested such fortitude to the limit. With few exceptions, as Lammas approaches, there has been little produce to tickle the taste buds and several disappointments to thwart menu-planning.

It started with the shallots. Encouraged by terrific success last year, I planted out the ‘banana’ variety from a couple of packs bought at the supermarket. I then waited for the first touches of green to appear. And waited. Eventually, one shallot in the middle row of three produced a result. Healthy green shoots appeared and boosted my spirits. Maybe the rest would follow? They didn’t. Over a couple of weeks I watched these wayward alliums, and gradually lost all hope of success. Eventually I poked around to find out what was happening. A slimy mush was the outcome. No roots formed, no shoots produced. Except for the one. I harvested it, with two shallots the result.

The Musselburgh leek, grown in the Dumfriesshire Garden veg patch for several years now, is a family favourite. Short stems and full of flavour. After late frosts and then quite a bit of rain, my crop looked set to put on growth. Then came a mini-heatwave that coincided with a few days spent away from home. On return I found almost every plant had shot up a tall spike, topped with a glorious pinkish white umbel. Elegant enough to impress a florist. Apart from the pungent bouquet. The few plants that hadn’t bolted I assigned to a fish recipe, only to find them woody, fibrous and inedible.

Trying something new this year, I sowed a row of purple climbing beans, carefully preparing the ground under some posts and wires where previously raspberries had grown. I looked forward to a magnificent display of leafy plants, then flowers, then pods. It was not to be. Reluctantly, two shoots eventually appeared. They are making pathetically slow progress up the twiggy sticks I provided to get them started (see featured image). The yield, if any occurs, will undoubtedly be meagre.

Undeterred, I turned to a trusty and reliable legume. In years past I have had gluts of dwarf French beans. So much so that I’ve taken to sowing just a few drills of one variety, thereby picking the crop at its best. This year, the packet promised a lovely yellow bean that I felt sure would look good in a salad Nicoise or similar. I was foolish to get excited. Just one plant appeared, and it was soon attacked by gourmandising slugs. I tried a second sowing and am hoping for the best.

Last autumn I planted garlic cloves in abundance, in nicely composted, free-draining ground. As the days lengthened I was troubled by the number of gaps in the rows of new shoots. Normally 100% sprouters, things were looking somewhat doubftful. When this spring’s growth got underway, it too was rather feeble and some plants gave up the ghost completely, a withered stem their only reminder. I know that comparisons are odious, but take a look at this image below of the garlic crop in summer 2022. For twelve months thereafter the Dumfriesshire kitchen was self-sufficient in this essential cooking ingredient.

Contrast that with the woeful offering in the trug from 2026.

All in all it has been gloom in the veg patch this year, with just a few consolations. Lettuces and herbs grown in the greenhouse have thrived and also done well when planted out.

Likewise, the much prized early tatties haven’t failed to deliver. Planted sooner than usual in a warm spell in March, they were ready by mid-June. We ate the first ambrosius batch with melted raclette cheese, gherkins and a glass of dry white Bordeaux. Grateful for that, I tried to look ahead and be optimistic, It’s the only thing a gardener can be.

But hope springs eternal! I’ve noticed that the Victoria plum tree has an inordinate amount of fruit on it. After all the disappointments among the veg, we could be in for a bumper prunus year!

Mellow Yellow

Until recently, if someone had asked for my thoughts on the colour yellow in the garden, my immediate reaction would probably have been: ‘apart from daffodils, then I’m not a big fan’. Then came an early summer day when a rose of sharon, aka hypericom hidcote, was in full bloom just outside the kitchen window. Planted a couple of years ago, it was a mass of bright star-shaped flowers, with plenty more buds to suggest it would be in bloom for some time. Yes, a bit blowsy perhaps, and no doubt derided by experts (I have heard such remarks on various gardening broadcasts over the years). But on that day it got me to re-think the merits of yellow in the garden. I also realised that a colour I thought I’d avoided, was in fact quite well-represented in the Dumfriesshire Garden. I decided to look at this a little more carefully and here below is the outcome, season by season.

Spring

At this time of year, daffodils and narcissi predominate of course, as I have described previously The yellow coltsfoot appears even in a cold spring, it’s a welcome resident from the wild world. Marsh marigold is a long-standing attraction by the pond and the delicate flowers of epimedium are always a spring time delight, as are the tough and adaptable merrybells. Late spring flag iris and tree peony keep the yellow theme going.

Summer

Buttercup and bird’s foot trefoil proliferate in grassy verges. Then come Jerusalem sage, giant scabious and rose of sharon. There are also yellow dogwood leaves, wild broom, and the wonderfully named elf dock.

Autumn

The tall and vigorous elf dock keeps going in a cooler part of the garden. Swamp candles dot the big border. The ligularia is an autumn stunner (I’m pondering splitting and spreading the joy elsewhere in the garden). The pumpkin lantern joins in the theme. The sunflowers here have crashed over in an autumn wind, but still put on a display, as does the yellow bog asphodel looking good alongside purple eupatorium.

Winter

There are not so many examples to select for yellow in winter! First, an ice cream dessert with frozen chocolate (short lifespan!). Then hazel catkins. I’ve recently planted several mahonia japonica around the garden, and what a display they make on a gloomy day! The leaves of early winter hornbeam complete the picture.

My title here is of course a 1960s nod to a well known song by Donovan. I was hoping the lyrics would spur me to new connections with yellow in the garden, but in fact when I dug them out, they seemed somewhat problematic in various ways. Nor were Yellow Submarine or Big Yellow Taxi particularly helpful. Nevertheless these reflections here have altered my thoughts on where yellow belongs in the garden. I might investigate some more plants to add to the collection. One day, folks might even call me mellow yellow …

Note: any mistakes here in the naming of plants are entirely my own.

Intermingling in the June garden

The garden in June is turbo-charged. Drifts of rain, bouts of sunshine and record-breaking heat make for prodigious growth, with visual exuberance at every turn. A gardener’s blog post at this time of year should therefore focus on images, not words. But this month, as I wander round the Dumfriesshire garden at various times of the day, one word has stuck in my mind. As gardeners we focus on individual plants that we try to place to best advantage. We may also group plants together in particular ways. Both of these suggest a sense of order and formation. This June however, I have been particularly struck by adjacent plants not merely sitting side by side to good effect, but actually growing in and through one another. So the word of the month in question is intermingling.

In the following images, you can see various degrees of this. There are plants cheek by jowl and friendly with each other, as well as two, three of more plants forming an intermingled whole, that is more than the sum of its parts. Crucially this intermingling is also happening between what I have introduced to the garden, and that which I have not. I am becoming more and more interested in celebrating this, rather than rushing to remove plant life that has come uninvited. You see here what can result.

Photinia and Lupin in evening sunshine. It was this striking almost intermingling, that got me hunting for other examples around the garden.

Solitary Herb Robert emerges through Juniper. Jerusalem Sage foregrounded by the now resting, and post-flowering Euphorbia.

Delicate wild rose amidst Hornbeam in a hedge. Deeper coloured variant growing alongside and through lush Ivy.

Johnson’s Blue Cranesbill rampant below Sambucus Nigra as grassy seedheads spike through.

Fern, Astilbe and Hosta touch at the margins in a damp spot. Not far away, Acers, Yew and Day Lilies meet and greet.

Could you ever plan this? Self seeded Oxe Eye Daisies, Buttercup, Herb Robert and soon to flower Campion are threaded through by the exuberant Cranesbill.

A solitary Oxeye and its neighbours.

Rampant intermingling!

Of course, there are dangers in such a celebration. Garden splendour can rapidly become overgrown chaos. It’s a case of balance. Informality will no doubt benefit from a curatorial hand. So we’ve already started pulling grasses out of the borders. Raspberry canes, introduced by blackbirds, are also a target for removal. Undoubtedly there is more weeding ahead. But for an inspirational look to the June garden, on balance, and to paraphrase a song by the Cranberries: you have to let it mingle.

Featured image New Cotinus growth contrasts with the massing pinks of the rambling rose that is now spreading over its branches.

The May garden of 2026 in thoughts and pictures

Once upon a time it was October, then June, and more recently it has become May. I have decided the fifth month of the year has become, at least for the moment, my favourite in the gardening calendar. And what a May this year brought us. From late frosts, to torrential rain, then finally a heatwave, it confused gardener and plants alike. But the end result here in south west Scotland was a frothy, vibrant and totally inspiring month when the Dumfriesshire Garden never looked better.

Here are some of the highlights.

At the very end of the month, something special happened. The small tree, Cornus Kausa Chinensis, five years after planting, came into flower for the first time. Not so many blooms right enough, but hugely uplifting with their delicate petals of pale, greenish-white. Pure elegance with a peaceful aura, and visible from the kitchen window too!

The adjacent Viburnum ‘snowball tree’, quick to flower when first planted, again produced another wonderful display, its colours subtly changing with hints of pink, as the month went on. I bought it a few years ago from a grower, who told me ‘it’s tough as old boots’ and he was right.

White was also a popular theme in a new garden feature. I installed a metal table just outside our living room and in full view from the indoors, and soon had to add another. Laden with pots of spring bulbs in April, in May they were home to geranium, hydrangea and saxifrage, with French lavender for contrasting colour. It’s curious how much pleasure these little tables are creating, as well as the mindful calm of deadheading whenever anyone goes out of the door or comes back in. More plants are in the pipeline for the tables, as the summer progresses.

In the various borders of the garden, May saw an explosion of growth, both in things I had planted and some that I had not. I was especially pleased with the epimediums, primulas, colocasia, rogeria, ferns and hostas, as well as early drifts of lupins, which in recent years have steadily seeded themselves around the big border. Couch grass, buttercup, willow herb, sticky willy and the insidious bindweed, were less welcome however, and had to be kept in check whenever an opportunity and the will arose.

Sadly, and in contrast to last year, May 2026 was a very poor month for meconopsis: lots of plants lost to frost, and late flowering from rather feeble specimens.

The azaleas, however, were in high gear.

As this inspiring month unfolded, I particularly enjoyed strolling around the garden in good light, when structure and exuberant new growth came together to produce vistas that made me wonder how my incremental and unplanned approach over many years had created such a harmonious effect.

Nowhere was this more marked than in the arboretum, now entering its eleventh year and providing an ever more fascinating place to wander. Circles of trees, mown paths curving through lush swathes of cow parsley and wildflowers. A long archway of hornbeam. The turf labyrinth. A new trio of sculptural railway sleepers. All of these delighted the eye and nurtured the spirit. Most stirring of all were the camassias. Fed last year after flowering, they put on a wonderful show of deep colour, sitting in a circle of nine mop-top beech trees.

In the main garden, the clipped lonicera nitida, known locally as ‘the donut’, was a favourite and quirky vantage point with a morning coffee. The box balls were a worry however. They looked good and have put on growth since introduced in February 2025, and I was pleased with the spreading carpet of flowering ajuga around them, but one of them seemed to have developed blight, and has now been removed. The exuberant and spreading flowers of a clematis in the rose arch, now in its third spring, was a pleasing compensation however.

All in all, the month of May 2026 was a splendid one in the Dumfriesshire Garden. It brought together all the elements that gardeners know so well. Erratic weather conditions, hits and misses, the sense that if we don’t keep up things will get away from us. But these sat alongside abundant rewards in the sharp light of lengthening days, the acid greens and vibrant colours that signal springtime is at its peak. Yes, Shakespeare’s ‘darling buds of May’ brought wave upon wave of daily delights as the garden built up to a tremendous finale of exuberant new growth, and with it, of course, the promise of summer.

Literary encounters in Dumfries and Galloway

Sometimes good things come in threes. When these happen on my home patch and relate to matters of reading and writing, then I consider myself especially fortunate. Recently, and in just over one week I attended three excellent events that fed my interests in the written word. Three local encounters that opened up new horizons and presented different ways of looking at and writing about the world.

Secrets, suspense and stake

Anstey Harris is a writer of commercial fiction who enjoys considerable success and a large readership. She’s a person whose latest book, set in my home region of Dumfries and Galloway, currently enjoys 19,000 reviews on Amazon. So when some University colleagues of mine involved in the DeathWrites network organised a workshop led by her, I was keen to attend.

A dozen of us gathered together, in person and online. There were short story writers, novelists, a poet and academics with interests in creative non-fiction. The theme of the event was ‘Secrets, Suspense, and Stakes’.

Anstey talked through each of these and also gave us prompts for short exercises where we wrote our own responses and shared them with the group. She spoke about the various types of secret: silver lining, dark, or open, as well as the idea of strategic opacity through which the writer keeps something secret from the reader, using omission or obscurity to increase complexity, realism and suspense.

Secrets can also have requirements of their own. They may have to be protected, defended, denied or excused. Secrets can be vital to the stake the reader has in a particular character or storyline. The stake is what invests us so that we care about what is happening in the story and feel compelled to stay with it. But secrets need to be used judiciously. They may be exposed in a big reveal, or fed to us parsimoniously. For as Anstey noted: once the doors are opened, they can’t be closed.

This was my first encounter with a workshop focussed on the craft of fiction writing. I came away feeling challenged about my lack of knowledge of the tropes and techniques Anstey described, but also persuaded that used with care and reflection, they offer great opportunities to enhance my own writing. In the days following I obtained a copy of Anstey’s recent novel The House of Lost Secrets and encountered a model demonstration of the ideas she had spelled out in the workshop. The jump from concepts to content was vividly displayed. Anstey proved to be both a wonderful teacher and a compelling writer.

Celebrating a Nithsdale triology

Pat Kirby is an American, who has lived for many years in Dumfries and Galloway, not far from me. A former school teacher, she’s been working for around a decade on a trilogy of novels, set in our local area. I was lucky enough to be invited to her launch event, which took place in the vibrant setting of Old School Thornhill, a superb venue for community events and activities of many kinds.

Pat introduced us to the novels and read some extracts from each, highlighting specific themes: about enduring female friendships, coupledom, family life, and wider relationships. Written in the first person, Pat readily acknowledged the stories contain elements of her own life, but not entirely.

I was delighted to purchase the three books at the launch and read them in fairly quick succession afterwards. In some places they feel like a memoir or even extracts from a diary, for example, documenting day to day events or the itinerary in a journey. By these means, the novels quickly draw in the reader, who is addressed personally and indeed quite frequently. Pat does an excellent job in creating suspense and stake and there are some very significant secrets in the trilogy. I was reminded of the idea of the unreliable narrator, who intentionally or not, may be misleading the reader. This led me to consider where autobiography might end, and invention take over. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, unless maybe you know the author and the settings and even feel you recognise the fictitious people she is writing about, and as a result get distracted and taken away from the central story line. It’s an interesting tension and can enrich the reading.

The books have a wonderfully well developed sense of place. Much of the action occurs in and around Nithsdale and Galloway, with their hills and rivers, village communities and towns, and high ratios of creatives. But there are also journeys to the USA and Japan, as well as to other parts of Scotland. A lot of alcohol is consumed and hangovers appear rather frequently. Here and there is a bit of kiss and tell. The novels cover three intense years in the lives of the principal characters and move the reader along, often with helpful reminders of wider events occurring at the time. The result is a deep feeling of reader interest and concern around the experiences of the main characters, and their associates. For this to be sustained over three volumes is an incredible achievement of the writing. In what follows I have tried to avoid spoilers.

The central character of the first volume, and it might be said of the trilogy as a whole, is Deborah Heaney. Soon after retiring from her job as a teacher, she is diagnosed with a life limiting condition. Whilst she is expected to remain healthy for the coming year, thereafter her condition is likely to deteriorate rapidly. In Deborah (the Last Year), 2014 we encounter the first person narrator electing to tell no one about her diagnosis, not even her family and closest friends, and instead embarking on a journey of biographical reflection, reminiscence, personal pleasure and purposive denial. Deborah goes back to the United States, where she grew up, leaving her husband John to continue his work as a GP, and also to ruminate on past events in their marriage. Old ghosts are revisited, unusual interactions occur. When complete strangers are convinced Deborah is someone else, she even encounters the doppelganger experience. Her year of choice and autonomous living is vividly portrayed in Pat’s storytelling. On returning home from her travels, Deborah throws a grand winter solstice party, prior to which she begins, incrementally, to tell friends and family the news of her illness. By this time Deborah has already embarked on her novel: ‘The snake eating its tale’, as she ironically puts it.

In the second volume, Jane (the Last Year), 2016 the narration switches from Deborah to one of her long-time friends, Jane Menzies, an artist and resident of the town of Dumfries. Jane is the mother of five children who have now grown up and left home. She remains somewhat precariously committed to their father, her long time partner and a rather self-absorbed writer. At this pivotal moment in her life Jane is seeking to resurrect her artistic ambitions. As she dives deeper into her project and her work becomes more demanding, curious experiences occur, mainly associated with watery contexts. Elements of magical realism creep into the writing and are wonderfully well executed, creating tension and intrigue. We also see the complex encounters that develop between Jane and her dear friend Deborah, when Deborah’s health, as predicted, suddenly worsens and the realities of dying and death move suddenly closer.

The third narrator is Róisin. In her early thirties and separated, she arrives in Scotland from the USA, just in time for Hogmanay. She has won a poetry prize at the Wigtown Book Festival and a generous sponsor has paid for her to come to collect it. In Róisin (the Last Year), 2019 and as the new year gets underway, she finds part-time employment, and accommodation, with an artisan baker in the village of Moniaive. Rising before dawn to work, she spends the afternoons on her first novel, and the early evenings getting to know an assortment of musicians, writers, and creatives who inhabit the local scene. Then something happens. Befriended by the multi-talented Rose, she is supported and guided through the many challenges she faces.

In this final volume of the trilogy, Pat draws parallels to the doppelgangers and the shape-shifting water sprites of the first two novels, as Róisin experiences the phenomenon of lucid dreaming: awareness of a dream as it is happening, whilst also having the capability to influence its course. She explores the meaning of this in her personal support sessions with Rose. In due course she meets Jamie, a young man collaborating with Rose on the creation of a hill-top stone circle. He is the twin son of Deborah and John, and has some major worries about what he now knows is an hereditary illness that ended his mother’s life. What happens thereafter is the subject of Pat’s exquisitely crafted denouement! Hard to say, but I think this third novel was the pick of the bunch and my favourite of the three.

Pat Kirby’s trilogy of life in Dumfries and Galloway is a tour de force. It has multiple interesting characters, employs deft use of each passing year to tell gripping stories that run on from one volume to the next, beautifully anchored in a vibrant and colourful rural setting. It’s a heady brew and the volume of work in its creation should not be under-estimated. There must be around a quarter million words of Nithsdale story telling here and I feel sure the books will be read and enjoyed by many people who know and love the region. Pat’s insider-outsider position as a long term resident originally from the United States has been admirably exploited to produce three linked novels that celebrate life, community, and ultimately, many of the complexities surrounding what it means to be human. Pat may feel that her writing ambitions are now complete, but those who enjoy these novels may well be curious about where her talents will focus next!

Poems and poets at the Kirkcudbright Book Festival

Hexameter is the group name for six experienced poets with connections to Dumfries and Galloway. Along with a poet friend of mine, I was fortunate to see their debut performance at the Kirkcudbright Book Festival, where they launched their first anthology 6 by six, a handsomely presented volume containing six poems from each member of the group. Hexameter is a values-based collective, with a challenging ethos in which they work together to write better poems and become better poets. It’s a subtle distinction and implies a supportive but robust approach to giving and receiving feedback on each other’s work. Their first collection, according to the blurb, ‘allows each poet to showcase their distinctive voice while also creating a group identity’.

The poems presented at Kirkcudbright ranged from wry and humorous, to up-skittling and dark. The poets sometimes explained their inspirations, like falling asleep in the theatre, or missing a connecting train, and the journey their ideas took from there. Unlike the novelists Anstey Harris and Pat Kirby, the Hexameter poets are engaged in a craft, where brevity rather then longform, is key. But their poems also make use of stake and tension, often culminating in a final line heavily loaded with shock, irony, resignation, humour or hope. I particularly enjoyed the mundane yet deeply human contradiction captured in the ending of David Mark Williams’ poem, Cafe of Broken Dreams:

We're not inclined to make a fuss
over what we've been served.
We won't be back, we said the first time
but here we are again.

Feeling thankful

I’ve no reason to believe that Dumfries and Galloway is any more or less well served than other places in the kinds of literary events described here. Yet writing workshops, book launches and book festivals do seem to proliferate in my home region and undoubtedly precipitate and support a thriving community of interest in the written and the spoken word. Wigtown, with its numerous book shops and internationally acclaimed festival, is the outstanding exemplar. Dumfries and Galloway therefore have much to offer readers and writers. I am especially interested in those writers living in and setting stories inspired by this fascinating region of rolling hills, woods and pastures, rivers and coastline, rural towns and villages. We may be challenged by climate change, demographic trends and economic shocks, as well as by global conflicts and divisions, but our region has somehow forged a literary eco-system that constantly inspires, consoles and provokes. Three events in a week was rich fare indeed, and will sustain me now as I turn back to a writing project of my own!

Find out more here about these writers and how to access their works

My thanks to all the writers whose work is discussed here.

There is lots of information about the writings of Anstey Harris to be found at: https://ansteyharris.com/

Pat Kirby’s books are available in some Nithsdale bookstores, like Chapters and Thomas Tosh, and can also be purchased direct via: https://patkirby.co.uk/

The first anthology from the Hexameter Collective is published by Coronach Press. Contact coronach@gmail.com. The full reference from the extract above is: David Mark Williams, Cafe of Broken Dreams. In: Hexameter, 6 by six, Coronach Press, Glasgow, 2026, page 36.

Sculptural influences in the garden

Since I took a lease on the field next to my house in 2015, I have developed a couple of acres of rough pasture into something that gives endless pleasure and satisfaction. A veritable arboretum, the field is now home to over two hundred trees and woody shrubs. A block of silver birch runs the entire length of one side, elsewhere there is planting of oak, beech, dogwood, hornbeam and hazel, in circles linked together by mown paths. Dotted throughout are single specimens of cedar, redwood, and holm oak, as well as small groups of special interest, such as Scots pine, rowan, prickly pear, and red oak. In addition to these, I have created hedges, arboreal archways, tree lined paths and a turf labyrinth.

It’s a place to let the imagination run free, and this has extended to inanimate objects like groups of large rocks and a couple of cairns, the larger one of which has had a screen of hornbeam planted round it this winter. There are constructions of precariously balanced large rocks, and also a couple of stone campfire circles. A few years ago I also installed a large sandstone gatepost, inscribed with some words from the anchorite Julian of Norwich: all shall be well.

You can find reflections on the development of the arboretum here and here. It also gets referred to in many other posts on this site. Below are just a few relevant photographs taken over the years.

This month has seen a new addition to the arboretum. Three old railway sleepers have lain abandoned and close by for years. Several times I have thought about doing something with them, but inspiration has evaded me. Until now.

For reasons that will soon become clear, I suddenly realised that these three pieces of weathered, textured, drilled, and mossed timber might have potential for a garden installation. On a dry and intermittently sunny April morning, I therefore spent some time choosing a location for the idea, and eventually settled on a spot among wild cherry trees and close to the sandstone gatepost.

The next question was how to group them. I quickly understood that there would be no single viewpoint from which the three pieces would be seen. Situated close to the intersection of three mown paths, the installation might be approached from one of several angles, depending on someone’s starting point and chosen route. This made things simpler and my original trial positioning seemed to need no adjustment. I got things set up in a temporary way (see featured image) and then went off for lunch.

When I returned, I wandered back and forth on the adjacent paths, checking how things looked. Sometimes the first choice is the right one. I decided to go ahead. Next I laid the pieces on the ground, prepared their postholes to a satisfactory depth, replaced each sleeper back in its location and back-filled with soil, pebbles and pieces of the cut turf. Well tamped in. The result can be seen below. I hope you like it as much as I do.

The general inspiration for this installation comes from various jardins remarquable seen in France and elsewhere over the years, and in particular, the creations of Christian Lapie. Specifically, it also arrived in my head at a time when the wonderful work of Andersen Borba is showing at Cample Line near my home in Dumfriesshire. His exhibition is entitled The Unearthed. A particularly striking element in the show is a group of tall figure-like pieces in wood, variously treated with collage, paint, and carving, along with inserted stones, metalwork, and cast bronze.

It was during a gallery tour of Borba’s exhibition that one of the group members talked about the tall wooden posts, remnants of old fencing, that dot the landscape around her home near Leadhills, showing us photographs of some striking examples. I thus found a link between the skilled and wonderfully detailed work of the sculptor, and the agentic effects of time and weather on objects in the landscape. Only a few days later I ‘unearthed’ my three sleepers from under a pile of leaves and thought about how they would look standing up in the field. Seizing the moment, plus a spade and wheelbarrow, I went ahead immediately. I was also delighted, on close examination to find on each of the sleepers a rich array of markings, drilled holes, weathering and de-composition. Characteristics of which I feel sure Borba would approve.

I have no idea what journey brought these three elements of the railway system to the edge of the field near my home. Untouched by the hands of an artist they nevertheless have stories of their own to convey. I am going to keep my eyes open henceforth for other pieces of timber or found agricultural detritus that might be displayed sympathetically here in my particular corner of Dumfriesshire. It’s worth emphasising that you don’t need an arboretum for this kind of approach to sculpturally inspired objects. Remarkable gardens can come in any size!

Hosts of golden daffodils

I’ve struggled to put this piece together. Not because it’s in some way complex, demanding to write, or over-long. None of these. My struggle is about whether one should celebrate something so simple and pleasure-giving as my subject here, at a time when the world is being torn apart by conflict and war.

After much wrangling with my conscience, I have decided to go ahead.

Louisa Birdsall – illustrator and designer

In the early part of 2025 I had completed my first novel and the manuscript was in production with an independent publisher. For a story set in my home region of Dumfries and Galloway, in south west Scotland, I was keen to find a local designer or illustrator to create the cover. In my mind I was thinking about something a little like those evocative railway posters from the 1930s. I began casting around and soon found someone living nearby with a developing interest in book illustration. She immediately understood what I was looking for, but felt she couldn’t provide it. Fortunately she kindly pointed me to someone who could. That person is Louisa Birdsall, whose story is recounted below in her own words.

Snippets from a novel in progress

My first novel, Epiphanies and Robberies, came out in summer 2025 and a few months later I made a start on a follow up. The initial idea was a sequel. I’d got very fond of the main characters and wanted to stay with them, checking on what they were up to, and how their life worlds were changing. But then I decided to take the reverse perspective, to look at some of those characters earlier in their lives, exploring the factors that had shaped those people we had met through the pages of the debut novel.

In other words, a ‘prequel’.

I’m now immersed in the writing. Once again, the setting is the imagined village of Kirkgate, in south west Scotland. This time the underlying mystery is historical and relates to events that took place locally during World War Two. The key year in which the story unfolds is 1997.

Five blogs to follow

January 2026 marks five years since I started posting on this site. I began with regular blogs and in due course added various pages. My posts range through short fiction, essay-type reflections, garden musings, updates on current activities, interviews with interesting people, and occasional thoughts on the process of writing. The pages are home to information about specific projects as well as images and videos. In a sense, the site has become somewhat like a garden. It needs tending and curating, a periodic tidy up, and if suitably looked after can give significant pleasure to its creator as well as those who drop by on a visit.

I won’t strain the metaphor too much further, other than to say that like a garden, the blog is also a wonderful way to create communities of people with shared or over-lapping preoccupations, enthusiasms, and passions. Of course the blogosphere is vast and varied. I’m particularly attracted to the parts that offer space for quiet reflection, story telling, chronicling and the respectful sharing of ideas. In this spirit, I offer some thoughts on five specific blogs that I follow with keen interest, and where I enjoy a sense of community with their authors.

While I was Gardening This wonderful site is the work of Deb, (or tagpipspearl to use her soubriquet). She is a horticulturalist, gardener, and much more, based in Washington State, USA. I think it was a shared interest in the wonderful Camassia plant that first connected us. Over the last few years I have followed the writings of Deb as she ranges across a wide variety of topics and experiences. Her in-depth horticultural knowledge never gets in the way of stories about the garden and the natural environment around her. She writes about work on her own patch as well as visits to other botanical gems, trips to the coast and the walking of trails. In the last year she has shared some of the personal pain that comes with the Trump administration, and holds fast to the motto Illegitimi non carborundum. Deb is a prolific blogger, hard to keep up with at times. But I try to read her every post, feeling a sense of connection between her gardening in the Pacific North West and mine in Scotland’s South West. Her posts are redolent with a passion for plants and trees, respect for nature and commitment to protecting it. My connection with this blog came entirely through my own online activity and is all the more cherished by distance and encounters through the written word.

Carruchan (at least one meaning of which seems to be ‘stony ground’) is a blog by Stephen Shellard, which I first encountered after I read his excellent memoir about coming of age in Northern Ireland during the time of The Troubles. Carruchan is a diverse and regular offering of writings that range from careful thinking on matters of political economy, to the specifics of current affairs, accounts of book launches and festivals, reviews of podcasts, poetry readings and concerts attended. Stephen is incredibly adept at producing deep dives into, as he puts it, ‘Whatever’s on my mind …’ As someone, like me, who has lived in Dumfries and Galloway for several years, he presents a fascinating window into the life of the region, expertly weaving his local observations into a wider understanding of the social, historical and geographical context. It’s always a pleasure to see notice of his latest offering as it drops into the email.

Sabr (meaning patience in Urdu, Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic) is a care collaborative which focuses on the question: ‘how can we re-think, politically engage with, and collectively organise care for the people in contemporary societies?’ I was drawn to the site by one of its contributors, a good friend and colleague, Devi Vijay, with whom I have collaborated on numerous palliative care research projects over the years. The collaborative got started in December 2023 and has created a shared platform for academics, practitioners, activists and policy-makers on issues concerning rights and justice in care provision. Devi and her co-workers have put together a rich and varied offering comprising blogs, links to key publications, podcasts and videos. At year end they also added a terrific listing of books read in 2025 along with movies recommended, and a playlist, described as ‘a motley bunch of songs … about the thriving more-than-human world around us, protest, hope, and revolution.’ The regular blog posts present fine-grained accounts of the realties of giving and receiving care in a wide variety of social contexts, especially in India. Somehow, they dig below the conventions of academic writing to present worlds and experiences close up and fine-grained. ‘Care’ is a complex issue and a ‘wicked’ policy problem. Sabr explores it with fresh eyes and new perspectives.

Enjoying Wildlife is a superbly crafted collection of blog posts in which a neighbour of mine, Barbara Mearns, draws on in-depth observations of flora, fauna and weather to evoke the natural history of the Nith valley in Dumfries and Galloway. Barbara’s nature writing draws deeply on her skills as a poet and is often accompanied by stunning images of her subject matter. Her posts take us on walks close to home, share the practice of surveying species of birds and insects, and provide close encounters with the changing dynamics of the natural world. Barbara’s most recent book is a beautiful collection of peatland poems. Her commitment to understanding nature close by combines with Barbara’s writing talents to produce a steady gaze and the facility to share insights with others: in prose, poetry and the spoken word.

Michael Bloor Michael Bloor and I have been friends since the early 1980s, when we worked in adjacent offices in the MRC Medical Sociology Unit, in Aberdeen. I regard him as one of the most talented sociologists of his generation, whose skills and scholarship are beautifully captured in his Selected Writings Just occasional hints of these academic achievements can be found on his blog, which is in effect a repository of short fiction, historical insights, imagined encounters, personal memoir and frequent injections of couthy humour and superb bon mots. Widely published in online magazines, Michael’s writing comes in a steady flow of creativity and imagination that never fails to intrigue, delight and sometimes puzzle the reader (in the best possible way). He has kindly gathered all this together on one single site that is full of literary pleasures.

I thank the writers of these five blogs for sharing so many different perspectives and subjects, from the local to the global, and for the sense of community they create. I am indebted to them for the inspiration they bring to my own efforts. In what Anthony Giddens called a runaway world they provide anchors for good reasoning, compassion, and progressive values. Check them out too for reading delights, irony and humour, and not least, those occasional quirky perspectives that illuminate the day!