Writing

Venice: a model for car-free living?

It is entirely possible, it turns out, for a city to function without cars and vans and lorries. Who would have thought it? But is it practical?
Eclipse

Photographing this morning’s partial solar eclipse.
136 snail shells & a pint of shorts

As life events go, Shetland 1985 turned out to be right up there.
How to digitise photos from slides or negatives without a scanner

I digitised some 30-year-old Kodachrome slides this week. Some notes to remind myself what I did.
Bloodless grouse-shoot

After 20 years walking on the Moor, I finally bag a brace of decent grouse photos.
Getting jittery about swallows

It’s getting to that time of year again. Swallows are on their way.
My bat-shit crazy hypothesis about rooks

A ridiculous observation concerning rooks, which can’t possibly be right.
Book review: ‘A Book of Silence’ by Sara Maitland

A journey in search of the pleasure and powers of silence.
Putting the wet in wetland

Our moorlands are—or should be—important wetland habitats.
Book review: ‘Doubling Back’ by Linda Cracknell

Ten paths trodden in memory.
Book review: ‘Wanderlust’ by Rebecca Solnit

A history of walking.
Grouse in winter

How red grouse change their habits in cold weather.