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

  • Global gossip

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    Today my blog is one year old. I am gradually getting to grips with the site (thank you again to Tommy and to Rob) so now I want to invite my family and friends – and anyone who may have dropped in from cyberspace (well, you never know) – to help it grow. The idea…

  • Beijing’s Early Birds

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    “If you don’t come out in the morning to wake up, how will you be alive? What kind of life is that?” Caroline Cooper’s postcard from Beijing Overgrown with towering skyscrapers and wide-lane boulevards, Beijing’s quiet street life and old hutong homes are under threat. Preparations for the 2008 Olympics are at the forefront of…

  • Dubrovnik street theatre

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    “Sex and drugs and sausage rolls,” there’s a guy behind me in the queue for the concert in St Salvation  with a mission to entertain. “You don’t get lager louts in this town, you get Saga louts.”  His wife is not amused: “Oh Sid, give over.” With or without Saga louts, at night you can…

  • Oink oink

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    So here I am sitting in the City Chambers cafeteria enjoying a bowl of minestrone with two Tigers and a Monkey. It’s been an odd week.

  • Bums on seats

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    “In the rise of the electronic era, community can be decoupled from geography. Until you have experienced this don’t dismiss it. This network is very real in lives of millions of people.” I woke at 5.30 this morning with yesterday’s news swilling round my head. Just goes to show it’s not a good idea to…

  • Hot air stifles climate change debate

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    Today I went to a full meeting of City of Edinburgh Council. Sitting in the public gallery is a bit like having a seat in a box at the theatre, it feels quite grand but you see and hear only part of what is happening on stage.

  • Goodbye Lenin hello Tesco

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    This is an extract from a Postcard case study written last year – this year’s riots in Budapest give a new twist to the tale. Old Soviet heroes rust in peace in a statue park on the green edge of Budapest but in the heart of this city, capitalist business is booming. Hungarian trade is…

  • Postcard from Helsinki

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    Autumn tree tops, brown reeds reflected in the water, trams running over the bridge: my view of Helsinki from the hotel room. I am warming to a place where you can buy birch twigs in the market to thrash yourself to a healthy pink in the sauna. “Be sure to jump in the sea afterwards”…

  • Out of the bag

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    I am a suspected terrorist. My rucksack contains potentially explosive materials. I may look small and inoffensive but it is a cunning disguise contrived to deceive and beguile and it fails every time. In other words I am about to board a plane and I am carrying a make-up bag with a random selection of…

  • Take me to your leader

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    What a bunch. I went to bed last night profoundly depressed by the whole sordid circus of politics. There’s the seedy lot on the podium at Manchester, the even seedier media probing every political cough and spit but worst of all are the 30 idiots dragged in or dredged up by Newsnight to form the…

  • How does your garden grow?

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    Looking at the sky it’s hard to believe gardeners must start to plan for a scorched earth. Rain is blurring the view from my study window, frogs are hopping by the back door and the cats are settling for a long snooze on the sofa. A Government minister has just suggested I must start preparing…

  • Out of this world – revisited

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    The adventures of Tim Peake has me rummaging in an old blog post inspired by an earlier space mission. It’s both interesting and depressing to see how little has changed in the ten years since I wrote it. And that ‘Last Look at Earth’ becomes more symbolically potent as our awareness of climate change grows while the…