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
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Don’t let big tech Captain Hook grab lockdown loot
In our new Neverland big tech Captain Hook grows ever richer while lost boys and girls of performing arts struggle to survive.
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Schools ahead of their time – and ours
What would teachers, pupils or parents of 1896 make of the state we are in now?
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We’re all islanders in a pandemic
In retrospect it all seems eerily prophetic. Those faces framed in small screens, their distant voices interconnecting in the ether. Yet for Giles Perring it’s something much simpler and more profound than Zoom
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Poetry and song for a pandemic
Look up. Only look up. The night sky framed in my window is an escape from lockdown. Into darkness or light?
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Freedom to speak – and listen with undivided attention
Despite disagreeing, it felt like we had made a genuine human connection. A rare experience, social media makes it too easy for us to stay in our comfort zones, divided, agitated and enraged.
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Take to the streets: Edinburgh’s green space is not for sale
A robin sings into the night from a bare branch tree. The sound, sad-sweet in the din and dazzle of Edinburgh’s Christmas markets, seems to come from another world.
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West Highland trainlines of poetry
No need for narrative as the small Scotrail train pulls out of Glasgow Queen Street – the coming and going of industrialisation is written on the landscape.
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Leith: where local needs are global
There’s no quick fix. No instant gratification for community campaigners in a consumer society. “We need to know how power works, how politics works. You can’t just order democracy online and get it delivered the next day!”
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Balanced in between Ireland and Britain
When Marcia died in 1991, seven years before the Good Friday Agreement, her coffin was carried downhill to the church, Ulster-style, the weight born on the shoulders of men from friends and family. Balanced between Catholics, Protestants and non-believers.
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Five poems to defy populists
I wrote this for the 2019 election when there was good reason to be fearful. Five years on, we face another election in a turbulent time. And yet. Courageous compassion and conscience are precious human strengths. These five poems defy fear, anger and distrust.
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‘Who is it for?’ the big question at the heart of Dundee’s McManus
Who is culture for? A trip to Dundee’s McManus explores the meaning of ‘widening access’ and the purpose behind a welcome at the door.