Hi. Welcome to my writing blog. A selection of short stories and other musings. Feel free to browse and make yourself at home.
Life force: (noun) ‘the spirit which animates living creatures; the soul.’ It’s a powerful thing this life-force; a term we’ve adopted to compensate for that bridge between the rational-scientific and the spiritual, because there is undeniably something other than mere existence that drives us forward. That beyond the biological mechanics, chemistry and physics that make … Continue reading West Highland Way
They could all see it, the grey flesh luminous with decay, in stark contrast to the dark earth beneath. Alec composed himself and let his breath out slowly, the vapour forming a thick column past his eyes as he crouched lower, thighs burning with the effort of holding still. With a gloved hand he teased … Continue reading Lockerbie
March 2016 A cold wind is blowing. Spring is around the corner, but winter is having a final hurrah. The boat is supported high on its cradle and twenty feet up, standing on the deck, I can see the inner basin of the harbour, marina pontoons bobbing around and, beyond that, the churning Firth of … Continue reading Last Man Standing
Sometimes I receive unbidden, a childhood memory so clear and real that I believe myself to be my nine year old self, living in a three storey maisonette on a hillside overlooking a wide expanse of sea to a mountainous island. It is night time. The sky is the colour of paper-ash. Snow, falling in … Continue reading Snowflakes & Bayonets
I am a child of the sixties, reared on an incongruous mix of hippy ideals and World War II action movies. It was a period submerged in technicolour and viewed in Panavision. A childhood filled with the glory of war, a celebration of the the courageous, of rugged handsome men, calm under pressure, hoodwinking the … Continue reading A Legacy of War
It is Autumn. I am in her garden, raking heels through the leaves beneath the cherry tree. I am in dumb retreat as she tells me things I do not want to hear. A symposium of platitudes. She tells me that her love, once as wild as liquorice and peaches, has become altogether more platonic. … Continue reading Cherry Tree
A year to the day since I was last here, I am back. In the little cottage. Same room. Same view. Same feeling of peace. Just under two hundred miles from Glasgow, but a million miles from the perpetual motion of city life and the the gravitational pull of family. No longer an atom flying … Continue reading Moniack Mhor
Technology is both a blessing and a curse. In this case I'm going with the former. The type of technology that would have cost you tens of thousands of pounds a decade or so ago, comes as standard in your smartphone. I live on a small rise in the land in a suburban enclave in … Continue reading The Beauty of Time
My first ever magazine, or newspaper opinion piece. As good or bad as it is, I'm really pleased it got published. Thank you iScot! Everybody wants to change the world. Well, most of us do. It’s that fundamental human urge to travel ever onwards. A river of life thing, bound with the laws of the … Continue reading iScot Article
It's a relatively rare thing to have snow fall as often as we've had this winter. Turns a grey winter cityscape into something altogether easier on the eye. I used to work in an area of Glasgow riven with multiple deprivation. The only time it ever transcended it's perma-bleakness was on days like this. Snow … Continue reading Snow!!!
The Absent Minded Scribe 