Fay Young

Trees in full leaf, bright green under a blue sky reflected in the pond: The Pond picture by Fay Young

One thing always leads to another

I’m a journalist. I’ve always been curious about people and places.

I started writing about other people’s gardens a long time ago and somehow I’ve ended up having a wild garden that’s open to the public.

This site is a collection of my writing on gardens, culture, wildlife, the environment and even a little politics.

The garden is open through Scotland’s Garden Scheme supporting Children’s Hospices Across Scotland.

We are open now for spring walks. Please don’t hesitate to let us know when you’d like to come. Just fill in the Contact form. Give us a call. Find out more about Pond Cottage Garden

  • Vertically challenged

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    It’s a dreary grey dawn but there’s a blaze of red outside the bedroom window and it’s twittering with sparrows all ready for the day.  After a proper hot summer, the autumn display of our rampant Virginia creeper has never looked more spectacular but I have mixed feelings listening to all that bird life.

  • Seeking the starlings of yesteryear

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    I’m still stuck on the Forth Road Bridge. Searching  for news of the starlings that used to roost in their thousands on the south side of the bridge I stumble upon unexpected human activities higher up.

  • Silver Highway Revisited

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    “There she is,” he says with understated pride as he swings out of the trap door on to the parapet connecting the twin towers holding the suspension cables. “One of the finest suspension bridges in the world.”

  • Let’s get armed with information

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    I wrote this book because I got really really pissed off with people with lots and lots of money telling people without any money they need to pay shit back. Mark Blyth, author of Austerity, The History of a Dangerous Idea.

  • Old skool blogging

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    Bliss. Blogging in the sun, sitting outside with birds singing, bees humming, light breeze ruffling sea-shore sounds from the aspen leaves and only the distant hiss of hot tyres on the M90 across the fields reminding me that tiresome hustle and bustle goes on beyond Pond Cottage.

  • The human city

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    People Make Glasgow.  The new slogan was revealed after a marketing research campaign that trawled the wisdom of the crowd. Across the city and round the world, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau sought themes and words that summed up  the city.

  • Troubled waters

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    Agitation on the pond.  Fear and fury rippling across the water. Ducklings darting in and out of reeds, their mother circling and crying overhead. The swan family on guard, cygnets packed tight between parents, mother hissing, father lunging at the bank, hitting out hard with his beak. Two helpless humans standing by wondering what on…

  • Fiddling with Europe while the planet burns

    Fiddling with Europe while the planet burns

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    The Red Gateway leads to an almost unimaginable world.  Yet it models the prospects for a future very like the one we are sleepwalking towards at present.  We will arrive there if we do nothing to turn away from business as usual. Stephen Blackmore On a misty, moisty Sunday morning there is not much chance…

  • A year of semi-natural Scotland

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    The old day job brings a brief escape from the surreal juxtaposing chaos of Facebook and Twitter. Off we go into the great outdoors for some down to earth chat with gardeners in the real world.

  • Spring WILL come

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      Ray is steaming ahead. Literally. In this cold air breath comes in cloudy puffs as wind whips flurries of snow off the verges and plucks a mourneful chord on the telegraph wires. G Minor I reckon but I really wouldn’t know. Whatever, it’s cold, bleak and very unseasonal.

  • Cameron’s poll tax?

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        On a bleak, finger-chilling day, some heart-warming moments.  At the demonstration against the bedroom tax outside the Scottish Parliament,  a young Edinburgh student stirs the blood with invective against Holyrood Palace: will they be paying tax on unoccupied bedrooms? Like f*** they will. And, a trade unionist raises hopes: “This will be Cameron’s…

  • Give us statues we can look in the eye

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    I might have known better. Getting into the taxi in Queen Street Station one rainy day I couldn’t help commenting on George Square. Looking a little tidier today, I say, but what’s happening to the statues?