tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60183574526930253022012-02-01T14:04:06.334ZIn July 2007, I started a major project to write a collection of walks which follow human resonances in wild landscapes. The project has officially finished, resulting in a book,(as yet unpublished but shortlisted in 2009 for the Robin Jenkins Literary Award). However, the fascination continues. And so does the walking and the writing (and the reading).Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.comBlogger1191100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-40617432863195849512011-11-01T21:40:00.004Z2011-11-01T21:55:51.537Z

Communion with past spirits; a waving off of summer; fancy dress; freakish acts of nature. It’s Halloween. And I’m lured away from these seasonal concerns towards fresh air and a snatch of big bright daylight on the summit of Dùn Coillich. I take the route newly marked to pass a number of archaeological features. Relics of shieling huts have been located to the south of the summit and the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-1759549488893539692011-10-17T19:46:00.007Z2011-10-17T20:35:05.850Z

Will Self's ten minute programme on Sunday morning, 'In Praise of Wind Turbines' was a fine thing to wake up to, even though I did have to listen again to properly absorb his argument rather than just floating to consciousness for the stinging metaphors and gobbets of wit. In his usual acerbic style, he questioned the attitudes of those who consider wind turbines ugly and unnatural, pointing out

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-34903443203839065162011-09-19T16:02:00.005Z2011-09-19T17:09:44.084Z

I've just returned fom the 77th International PEN Congress in Belgrade. Very interesting and important in many ways, it involved long hours in an assembly of writers from 90 countries. However, I was also able to get out and walk around the city, which was where I came across this fellow, Dositej Obradovic (1742-1811).He caught my eye for several reasons, not least his dynamic posture with hat

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-63213666283535834352011-09-09T15:22:00.012Z2011-09-09T17:06:26.587Z

'You'll maybe no be welcome in there now,' the driver said to me as I got out of his pickup at Laggan Stores. 'It’s Chief Anti Campaign Woman runs the shop’.He was referring to the fact that ‘Balfour Beatty’ was emblazoned along the side of the vehicle in which I'd just hitched a lift – the company now installing a much resisted power line between Beauly and Denny. In fact, I knew ‘Chief Anti

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-55526873430478847822011-08-29T16:26:00.002Z2011-08-29T16:38:17.913Z

I'm delighted to see that Alastair Scott's book 'Eccentric Wealth' about the relationship between Sir George Bullough and the Isle of Rum is out now. This is the background to my story (published in a pocket book format) of the servants' walk from Kinloch 'Castle' across the island to the laundry in 'Whiter than White'. I'm looking forward to reading it, and learning more about the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-74726158175705144902011-08-25T20:51:00.005Z2011-08-25T21:08:41.385Z

I love this art project by Stephen Wragg - a photographic record of the painted men who walk under our feet, striding, dancing, or mincing across the tarmac. Better still, he's inviting photo submissions, so keep your eyes peeled for your local walking men! You might imagine we live in a country with tight design standards and control - but no, self-expression is flourishing in Highways

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-6840351751910400782011-07-29T15:33:00.011Z2011-08-08T09:54:19.057Z

It wasn't quite a Lazarus moment, but curiosity about this early Celtic Saint gave my leg the longest stretch it's had since injury back in April. The curiosity was inspired by a tiny writing commission of 62 words as part of the '26 Treasures' project which has matched writers to 26 objects at the National Museum of Scotland, with equivalent schemes in Belfast and Aberystwyth. The 62 words are

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-7207710659652457062011-06-15T17:19:00.007Z2011-06-15T17:49:20.325Z

It's two months now since I was heaved off the tarmac of a tennis court to take up a supine position with a bag of frozen peas. Even now my right leg doesn't quite keep up with the breezy swing of my left, and protests if it goes too far or has to tackle inclines.Although quite seriously disabled by my torn hamstring, I never completely stopped walking. At first it was only the 200 yards or so

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-19402399081142945372011-04-29T11:46:00.005Z2011-04-29T12:11:14.398Z

Meredith Robinson, who is currently undertaking an MLitt in Publishing Studies at Stirling University displays the illustrated book she has created for her course project: Following our Fathers: Two Journeys among Mountains. The book comprises two essays, photos and hand-drawn maps extracted from my longer essay collection, Doubling Back, which was shortlisted in 2009 for the Robin Jenkins

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-84581709857132535042011-03-09T20:12:00.012Z2011-03-09T21:03:55.833Z

I've been spellbound by a chance reading of 'Arabian Sands' by explorer Wilfred Thesiger, of whom I knew little until I read this obituary (he died in 2003). My copy of the book published in 1959, has a linen map folded into a pocket at the back, immediately endearing it to me. It charts in red lines Thesiger's extraordinary traverses across Rub al Khali (The Empty Quarter), the vast area of

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-14894068264204213952011-01-29T19:14:00.025Z2011-01-29T21:34:59.278Z

In Oman, I indulged my usual preoccupations in a new landscape. I was drawn to lines representing journeys; built structures that penetrate wilderness. How could I resist, with so much space, with textures of sand and rock and sea.A single set of footprints left in Wahabi Desert dunes – an archive of a journey that was almost eradicated overnight by the reorganising wind.Animal prints sunk into

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-42612343984895105282011-01-04T09:18:00.008Z2011-01-04T11:35:31.679Z

Delighted to have 'The Beat of Heart Stones' reviewed in the official magazine of the Dry Stone Walling Association, Winter 2010.This book brings to life the building process of an old dyke, the history it has witnessed and the life it supported in a brilliantly evocative way. I challenge you not to become involved with these living stones by the end of the journey.Richard Love

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-87937416557588820752010-12-07T20:56:00.005Z2010-12-07T21:20:46.997Z

I can't claim to have been doing much walking over the last week or so, but I have been shuffling around on my skis with my eyes frost-struck and a camera in hand. This particular weather event has dressed the trees - ghosting their arterial shapes with white echoes; baubling them with ice-lights ; laying low mists to worship at their feet; and scouring the skies with purple dusks to backlight

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-35277800012853569342010-11-07T16:45:00.005Z2010-11-07T17:04:25.239Z

It was lovely to hear Claire Tomalin talking on this afternoon's Radio 4 Book Club about her biography of Thomas Hardy: 'The Time-Torn Man'. She spoke of how significant to becoming a writer the long walk to school had been to Hardy, offering him a rich internal life. When I read the biography, whilst I was re-walking some of Hardy's Cornish paths, I was very struck by that childhood development,

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-5387754607329093212010-10-28T09:38:00.002Z2010-10-28T09:41:01.503Z

Marvellous series on Radio Three's 'The Essay' this week in which Andrew Motion explores the relationship between walking and writing through a number of poems.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-46469780729879098832010-10-27T16:50:00.010Z2010-10-28T09:11:25.682Z

I needed to gasp some lung-fulls of the clear autumn air that the last few days suddenly gifted us, and grasp at some of that scoured-sharp light before the clocks changed. Ardgour was my target - the diamond shaped piece of land more or less bounded by Lochs Shiel, Eil, Linnhe and Sunart.The area first demanded my attention from Strontian at its south-western corner when I was walking through

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-32090246441634966422010-10-22T14:40:00.013Z2010-10-22T17:11:02.821Z

Last week, the Times Educational Supplement covered an unusual project I was involved with at Kingussie High School in September. About twenty facilitators -- artists, writers, natural historians, craftspeople -- with a particular interest in outdoor learning, converged for two days, and took the entire second year on a 'creative journey'. With 100 pupils and 10 teachers, this was quite a

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-28753732993685198082010-09-23T18:33:00.003Z2010-09-23T18:43:40.056Z

Glasgow University is undertaking an interesting research project exploring the relationship between reading habits and pro-environmental behaviour. Looking at what is referred to as 'Creative Environmental Writing', the project raises a lot of interesting questions about the role and responsibility of writers in challenging times, how easy it is to 'track' reading choices and attitudes, and the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-8827915891507680452010-09-13T16:39:00.010Z2010-09-13T21:27:25.392Z

I've just spent a delightful weekend at the 10th Black Isle Words Festival in Cromarty, an 18th century sea port. It's the third time I've been lucky enough to attend as part of the programme and it delivered its usual intimate sharing of words and ideas, with the stimulus of quality literature in a jewel-like setting on the Moray Firth.This year, the theme was 'where the wild things are ', and

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-39042573934330670172010-07-23T16:22:00.003Z2010-11-02T14:02:02.346Z

My second pocket book is out this week, with a stony cover to chime visually with ‘Whiter than White’, and inside pages illustrated with line drawings. ‘The Beat of Heart Stones’ celebrates a Highland Perthshire landmark - an extraordinary dry-stone dyke that climbs two miles in a straight line towards the summit of Schiehallion. I find it hard to claim it as either fiction or non-fiction, but a

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-62023465516055963692010-07-12T09:27:00.005Z2010-07-12T10:03:57.577Z

The 'Books, Borders, Bikes' festival running for the first time at the gorgeous Traquair House in the Borders on 14th and 15th August is getting me excited. It brings together so many of my passions: land, walking, cycling and international exchange. I've been invited to appear with Raja Shehadeh, whose writings, particularly about walking, identity and land issues ('Palestinian Walks') I've long

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-6583153099124274532010-07-08T10:11:00.009Z2010-07-09T11:40:40.041Z

Bereft of our long-planned but necessarily postponed 'drove' through the Cairngorms, a small group of us spent a couple of days exploring the southerly section of our intended journey between Glen Brerachan, near Kirkmichael, and Blair Atholl. An old road stretches though here, a 'short-cut' through the hills, a by-pass of Pitlochry. The road, that climbs north over a pass and then drops to the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-13852987362547437042010-07-01T15:54:00.001Z2010-07-01T15:56:40.212Z

Just in case any readers were intending to join us drovers along the route next week, I'm afraid to say that because of some sad circumstances, the journey has had to be postponed.More news will follow in due course.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-90831281986579992412010-06-28T14:37:00.008Z2010-06-30T16:41:23.783Z

I'm off soon on a trip following some old roads through the Cairngorms with various others including pack ponies, and at least at first, some Highland cattle. The creative journey is undertaken under the aegis of 'Speygrian', a network of outdoor educators, artists and writers, whose inaugural journey I was part of on the Spey. I'm hoping that this one will be a bit dryer!Come and meet us at

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-88764950774231915592010-05-30T12:31:00.008Z2010-05-31T07:42:21.975Z

My article about walking the Annandale Way appears in the June issue of a very nice magazine called Dumfries and Galloway Life. It's a glossy, high quality publication and so I was particularly pleased that my photos as well as words passed muster. I hope the piece will encourage a few people to walk the Way, as I do think it's understated treasures are worth seeking out, especially for people

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-43387499197439952462010-05-23T20:11:00.002Z2010-05-23T20:17:23.100Z

A nice read in Saturday's Travel Guardian about the joys of combining cycling and storytelling in Fife, by Kevin Rushby. I'll shut up about cycling now, and get back on my feet!

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-86345331702241991612010-05-13T14:27:00.012Z2010-05-13T17:01:35.261Z

There can't be many stretches of A road in Great Britain where a cyclist can be Queen. I found one on Friday. Twenty two miles of single-track peace and the few vehicles who were on the road gave me priority in the passing places! This was the A836 from Kinbrace, in the heart of the Flow Country, the name given to the rolling expanse of peatland and wetland, covering 4,000 square kilometres in

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-18171703925647556262010-05-02T17:38:00.004Z2010-05-02T17:45:41.362Z

Intrigued to hear about a fun way to get people to walk the stairs in the subways of Chile. “A ‘musical ladder’, which looks and sounds like a piano, opened Thursday at a subway station in Santiago de Chile with the aim to encourage Chileans to use the stairs and encourage daily exercise”. More here.Also, following on from the last post, I love this clip of elegant ladies 'dancing' on bicycles.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-56303221527145832332010-05-01T13:05:00.008Z2010-05-02T17:47:33.342Z

Groups of people moving through the land in semi-organised ways, has become a bit of a theme over the last week or so.Raja Shehadeh wrote in last Saturday’s Guardian about taking 48 international writers for a hill walk north west of Ramallah as part of the second Palestine Festival of Literature (the third starts today). If the very existence of the festival is sticking a neck out, the walk

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-16592578428482849422010-04-27T19:16:00.005Z2010-04-27T20:00:23.584Z

Poet Tom Pow has undertaken a wonderful study of dying villages in a number of European countries, exploring the social, ecological and cultural effects of demographic change. He responds to the experience of travelling through them in a mixture of poetry, photographs, landscapes, physical artefacts and this excellent website. I went to hear him speak about it last week at his residency at the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-57034842272329970182010-04-20T21:53:00.005Z2010-05-04T18:48:04.617Z

Look away now if you're not interested in a sponsorship request! On 7th May 2010, my Raleigh Royal and I will have been together for 20 years and have travelled many miles. To celebrate, and to raise money, we are going to take part in the Etape Caledonia on 16th May, an 81 mile closed-road 'race' through the hills of Highland Perthshire which passes my home in Aberfeldy. We're both a bit rusty,

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-85096362129767956022010-04-19T08:54:00.010Z2010-04-19T09:39:58.432Z

This is quite a fascinating website if you are currently marvelling at (or infuriated by) the relinquishing of our skies to birds, air currents, volcanic ash. A short film visualises flight paths across Britain, the central 'motorways' these routes conform to, the fabric their lines weave, and the gaps above sensitive military sites etc. There's some similar animations showing taxi routes in

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-75556467502055044142010-04-15T11:01:00.007Z2010-04-15T11:28:48.621Z

I'm very grateful to a reader of this blog for drawing my attention to Fieldwork, a collection of essays by Ronald Blythe, and in particular to ‘John Clare and footpath walking’ written for the John Clare Society Journal in 1995. It infects me with excitement, as reading sometimes does. It articulates, with wonderful clarity and economy, my own half-developed observations and ideas; and each time

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-42738305819579331202010-03-15T20:48:00.018Z2010-03-19T20:42:18.160Z

OK I didn't, that was 'Dummy Jim'. But I'm thinking of him for inspiration as I start the uphill training towards the Etape Caledonia - a day's 'spin' along 81 miles of closed roads in (hilly) Highland Perthshire. In May, when this ride happens, I'll have had my bike for 20 years. Getting back on a bicycle after a winter break reminds me what I love about cycling. As far as rhythm and pace go,

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-9607738111651828842010-03-11T19:16:00.006Z2010-03-12T12:03:46.579Z

The wind is rising, and so is the temperature. The first green patches have re-emerged in my garden, and there are rumours of a thaw after what seems weeks of a china-blue freeze over a white land. So I took my skis out again, back to the hares on the hill, while I still can. I saw only one or two at first. They sprang up out of hollows; the sound of the wind must have stopped them hearing my

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-8298616179177933972010-03-04T20:02:00.005Z2010-03-12T12:04:10.818Z

One of the delights of being surrounded by white stuff has been observing the criss-crossing patterns of prints made by animal and human movement. I was on a hill near home this afternoon which was scrambling with mountain hares in their white coats. They were locked, as they should be now that it's March, in nose-to-nose combat, leaping and circling. I was mesmerised by the lines left by their

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-19012205519565849472010-02-22T17:54:00.004Z2010-02-22T18:04:45.438Z

A great feature in Saturday's Guardian Review had a number of writers proposing ten rules for writing fiction, as inspired by Elmore Leonard's original. I was fascinated to see that Helen Dunmore, Will Self, Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel all had going for a walk amongst their ten. It's no big surprise, but good to see the endorsement for walking as part of a writer's toolkit. Helen Dunmore's

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-70550165583042522632010-02-18T16:30:00.002Z2010-02-18T16:35:42.765Z

Also been having a bit of fun trying to capture 'my wall' in ink....

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-20724207735753911532010-01-27T18:53:00.006Z2010-01-27T19:04:02.129Z

I'm playing with some visuals in preparation for putting my Schiehallion dyke walk (an extract is published on page 26 here) into a small lovely, book form, and have got so excited about seeing it stretch through the land in these tweaked photos. Why?

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-31436307738967275762010-01-21T17:27:00.008Z2010-01-21T17:43:33.125Z

I'm fascinated by gravestones at the moment. It's something to do with the combination of text, stone and the dynamic effects of weathering and colonisation by moss and lichen. Here's some that I photographed recently at the 13th century St Justus Church on Cornwall's Roseland peninsula, set in a semi-tropical woodland beside a tidal creek. I haven't fiddled with the colour!

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-64668504386541653872010-01-21T17:12:00.007Z2010-01-27T21:52:24.400Z

Today's the first time for several weeks that I've had my feet on grass and ground - quite squelchy ground too - when I've walked from home. The snow is leaving behind an interesting legacy. Great table-top slabs of ice have been dumped on the banks of the burn that crosses the golf-course, still huge and ice-berg-ish. The ways and paths - here and on the lower, thawing hills - that have been

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-19171488226647629852009-12-13T13:31:00.003Z2009-12-13T13:43:34.852Z

Ice on the slopes of Schiehallion, where contours were invented in the 1770s.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-4697614661933220242009-12-11T11:42:00.006Z2009-12-11T12:15:17.859Z

What a great morning. Sunrise as I crackled through frosted grasses above the mist. A steaming mocha with whipped cream on top. Then home to find that The Independent have today recommended A Wilder Vein as a Christmas read in their nature-writing round up. (Some other great recommendations there too). Hurrah!

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-33705027378675072322009-12-03T17:50:00.018Z2011-10-02T12:44:39.295Z

I was in Zurich to talk about writing. The lands transformed incrementally as the train rolled from my local station through Scotland, England and France. Despite this, on arrival I immediately noticed my noticing - the senses sharpened by being somewhere different. The scent of roasting coffee beans spilled onto the streets; trams screeched on their rails; I rubbed my eyes in smoky bars. The

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-65544154324765633642009-11-09T14:41:00.004Z2009-11-09T17:06:34.495Z

An interesting review of 'A Wilder Vein' by Roger Cox in the Scotsman on Saturday here, describes it as a book, 'in which 18 writers – poets, novelists, anthropologists and natural historians – visit the uninhabited regions of our crowded little archipelago and meditate on what these places mean; and while individually the results are often sparklingly written and utterly transporting, taken

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-65520891822029266902009-10-09T09:45:00.008Z2009-10-09T11:37:59.785Z

I suppose it’s inevitable that a walker will develop an obsession with maps. I spend hours looking at maps of places I know, or places I plan to go. The imaginative gap between what I read from the configurations of line, shade, and word, and what I meet and feel once in the actual landscape, is always intriguing. Google Earth has never worked the same magic on me, although it can be a useful way

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-13454789702537297952009-09-24T09:56:00.003Z2009-09-24T10:08:16.942Z

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-467186117464459342009-09-17T12:18:00.007Z2009-09-24T10:09:51.545Z

Last Saturday, mist cleared to another blue-ceilinged September day and brought over a hundred walkers and runners onto sections of the Annandale Way to meet for celebrations at Lochmaben. Lady Hope-Johnstone spoke and unveiled a finger-post to officially open the 55 mile route, and two of the pupils who had walked and written with me read from the creative writing work which is incorporated into

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-24165088038882235232009-09-13T11:32:00.010Z2009-09-22T20:24:08.867Z

What a delight it has been to receive the anthology that I've edited hot of the press from Two Ravens Press. Although publication date is 2nd November, it's for sale before then from their website ONLY at the great price of £8.99, for delivery from 1st October. This not only gives the reader a good deal, but is good news for this small press who are severely challenged by the commercial discounts

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-19963538523925285162009-09-09T09:12:00.014Z2009-09-09T11:30:40.280Z

Last week I walked a 40 mile section of Hadrian's Wall path, starting in the east, on the outskirts of Newcastle, and climbing up to the escarpment of the whin sill where the Wall clings to its tippy edges through the Northumberland National Park. We finally left a rain-sluiced wall at Birdoswald Fort not far from Brampton in Cumbria.I had glimpsed a tiny section of the wall only once before, and

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-51115622467918022352009-09-08T16:47:00.013Z2009-09-08T20:13:06.444Z

One thousand feet up on the hillside at Abriachan where the winds sing over the brow of the steep western slopes of Loch Ness, a dormer-windowed house straddles lush pasture land and the scratch of heather on the open moor above. This is Achbuie, where at the age of nineteen, prolific writer Jessie Kesson (1916-1994) went to rehabilitate after a ‘lost year’ of virtual imprisonment in a mental

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-56658379021254206472009-09-08T14:54:00.002Z2009-09-08T16:29:40.981Z

This collaboration between Orion magazine and Words Without Borders looks interesting - writings in translation about varied walks.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-16415678157338986252009-08-26T19:00:00.008Z2009-09-22T20:27:08.645Z

The winner of the first Robin Jenkins Literary Award was Mandy Haggith with her novel The Last Bear, described as 'a haunting and compelling novel set one thousand years ago in the remote northwest Highlands of Scotland, ..[it] recounts a tale of ecological and spiritual crisis from the viewpoint of one extraordinary woman.' The shortlisted writers, pictured above (L to R: me, Louisa Gairn,

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-91522941271104853542009-08-03T15:54:00.008Z2009-08-04T12:57:53.337Z

I'm delighted to find that my unpublished book Doubling Back based on walks taken with feet and pen during 2007 and 2008, is on the first ever shortlist of the RJLA. This new award is for books that have the environment, trees and forestry in Scotland as a key theme or setting, in the name of the wonderful writer of rural Scotland, and beyond, Robin Jenkins.In a recent edition of The Author,

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-38944587154995599942009-07-31T15:35:00.004Z2009-07-31T16:41:26.097Z

It seems to be a formula that works. Take sixteen writers, put them together on a windswept, sun-scoured hilltop between Beauly and Drumnadrochit for five days with good food, writing activities and the theme of 'Place'. A stimulating time seems to be had by all.I was one of the tutors last week at Moniack Mhor with poet Valerie Gillies as co-tutor, Andrew Greig as Wednesday night guest reader

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-84733233863260118202009-07-11T10:31:00.008Z2009-09-22T20:25:55.344Z

As A Wilder Vein, the anthology of 'wild places' writing that I've been editing is prepared for print, I'm delighted to see a shorter version of the piece Raja Shehadeh has written for it in today's Travel Guardian. He reflects on his first visit to the Scottish Highlands when he found the landscape muted in colour and water-saturated in comparison to his often bone-dry native Palestinian hills.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-39963208279203131402009-07-02T11:10:00.005Z2009-07-02T11:21:15.666Z

A midsummer evening on my local hill, Schiehallion. We turned away from the summit, leaving a cake as an offering to the resident fairies, and as we began the descent, cloud drifted in to wrap the mountain and we projected onto it a huge brockenspectre of ourselves and the spiky summit. (Thanks to Elspeth for the photo of it).

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-1829054114253754532009-06-23T13:09:00.003Z2009-07-09T17:10:25.152Z

From the Devil’s Beef Tub to the Devil’s Bath TubWe took a walk on the Annandale Way.At Corehead, under the Devil’s Beef Tubglaciers cut into the hillsthousands of years ago andmany valleys now thread into one.We smelt wet moss and feltattached to the shimmery small riveras it flowed gently past –glistening rocks and spongy grass.We were nearing the end of our walkbut for the river it was just

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-21334944289437338632009-06-23T10:30:00.005Z2009-06-23T10:41:15.329Z

There is Nothing in the Water by Frank Cottrell Boyce is a wonderful testimony to the charms of the Annan river, published this month in a new anthology of nature-writing brought together by angling and culture website Caught by the River. Writers from Irvine Welsh to Roger Deakin explore the silt, sedge, cargo and currents of the UK's waterways. In Frank Cottrell Boyce's story, excerpted in

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-11093698447395292062009-06-18T08:40:00.008Z2009-06-18T11:34:55.643Z

Here are my top tips for creative walking enthusiasts in London. Both have a foot in the art gallery and a foot firmly outside.Although I have probably seen before the majority of Richard Long's work that is currently on show in major retrospective 'Heaven and Earth', I found its expansion into the large spaces of Tate Britain unexpectedly moving. Perhaps it was the humbling effect of a walk

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-42848859706719241182009-06-11T17:11:00.005Z2009-06-11T17:29:23.612Z

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-24548023481279789792009-06-01T08:18:00.025Z2010-11-02T14:00:22.606Z

First offspring of 'Best Foot Books', this small book, perfectly formed to fit a pocket, contains a long short story inspired by my walks on the Isle of Rum. The Edwardian history of Kinloch Castle and the servants' walk across the island between castle and laundry form the backdrop. (See previous posts). Available from a number of appropriate outlets including The Aberfeldy Watermill, the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-48808777664523904242009-05-05T11:49:00.013Z2009-08-19T16:40:30.580Z

What links Romans and motorway engineers; opium and cattle-reiving; cheese and sandstone; saints and hunting dogs; wind-bleached uplands and mud-sea shores; the salmon and the Solway; Burns and Scott?Last week I walked the Annandale Way and found all these links and more. Running between the headwaters of the Annan river at the Devil's Beef Tub north of Moffat, and Barnkirk Point on the Solway,

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-15638788328937322009-04-08T13:29:00.007Z2009-09-22T20:26:23.667Z

‘Editing anthologies is an unsung art. An anthologist balances story selection, story editing, story arrangement, and central concept ...'This quote comes from an article, Anthologists Discuss their Craft in Clarkesworld magazine. OK, their territory as 'six of the most accomplished and innovative editors working in the fantasy, science fiction and horror fields', is a little different to my own,

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-9358634131298173152009-04-07T20:19:00.006Z2009-04-08T08:15:01.926Z

Here's a great idea. Last week I walked a stretch of disused railway line, now a path, between Haddington and Longniddry in East Lothian. Along the way were these panels, with some helpful and fun suggestions for what to see provided by Longniddry Primary School.From late April I'm going to be walking and writing along a new long-distance footpath in Dumfriesshire, the Annandale Way, which

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-83820570013724339602009-03-17T10:21:00.011Z2009-03-17T11:46:39.021Z

Last Wednesday myself and co-judge Hamish MacDonald announced the winners of the John Muir Trust's wild writing competition at Fort William's fantastic Mountain Festival. It's the third year I've been involved in some capacity and the way that JMT has joined the Festival in developing a creative response to mountains and wild places in our lives has been fantastic and creates more and more

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-44490382213120927162009-03-09T09:27:00.011Z2009-03-09T12:58:15.245Z

The train from Nairobi to Mombasa travels to its own timetable, its hours unpredictable. When children in the nearby villages and homesteads hear it, they come running across the fields towards it, specks at first, full pelt with shoulders leading, until they stop with wide grins for the daily spectacle. Whistles, shrieks, waves greet us. The embankments are trailed with paths. The beat of feet

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-77434451178123501332009-02-16T11:55:00.010Z2009-02-17T09:33:19.373Z

Our feet are unique. Making moulds of them in wool certainly showed that (see post below), but so do footprints on a beach. Look at these two. One gouges a great hole with its long toes and heavy front pad, drawing a great archless slab. The other seems almost impossibly pointed at its toes, the body it bears balancing precariously above an arch hovering high over the ground.This beach in Kenya

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-43541396692876472732009-01-09T18:21:00.006Z2010-08-18T14:06:23.013Z

Yesterday, three of us spent a very happy few hours making 'felt feet' by walking in wool, using a method being promoted as an artistic activity by Dartmoor-based felt-maker Yuli Somme.The idea came about on a long walk I took with her in Norway in 2004, following her father 's account of his escape across the mountains from the coast to neutral Sweden during the war, having been arrested for

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-38851445073379837402009-01-06T18:35:00.006Z2009-01-06T19:10:28.718Z

I love maps. There's something about the combination of line, image and sparse text that appeals endlessly to my imagination in conjuring landscape and places. As part of my walking and writing workshops, I've often asked participants to sketch a 'map' of the walk we've just undertaken.I keep instructions to a minimum so that each person can approach it in their own style. Mine tends to be a

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-47390566656331902492008-12-10T17:42:00.004Z2008-12-10T17:49:58.820Z

In November 2009 Two Ravens Press will publish an anthology of literary non-fiction that focuses on the relationship between people and the wild places of the British Isles. We are looking for high quality writing which animates a connection between humanity and the natural world where it is not obviously dominated by the human presence. It might articulate a discovery; a new way of seeing; an

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-15990234822862450112008-12-05T16:15:00.005Z2008-12-05T17:17:13.105Z

The walks are done. The essays are written, at least to a certain level. I still have piles of books to read, but have already read my way through some bigger piles - Iain Sinclair, Gaston Bachelard, Rebecca Solnit, Robert Byron, Norman Lewis, Simon Schama, and so goes on my inspiring reading trail through the non-fiction world of landscape, walking, philosophy, travel. Each of my walks has been

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-62062805820742425862008-11-13T16:59:00.006Z2008-11-13T17:44:47.788Z

Two friends of mine, Bonnie Maggio and Ruth Atkinson have a great exhibition on at the Birnam Institute at the moment. Both being very creative people they work in a variety of forms and genres from felt to words to music to paper and ink. But in this show Bonnie is exhibiting her shimmering glasswork which includes gorgeous bright jewellery, and Ruth a series of lino prints inspired by her

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-15490568932645856222008-11-06T11:47:00.004Z2008-11-27T11:01:34.950Z

A zig-zag in the path took the boy in red shoes in a moss-softened silence up between the trees. The narrow mud path led him through a port-hole fashioned by the interlacing of two beech trunks, and into the dark. A wall of trees pushed from his right and he was aware of a steep rock-tumbled slope on his other side where trees glinted luminous in the sub-marine sun that seeped through the canopy.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-62581954580116466632008-11-03T11:38:00.003Z2008-11-03T15:15:01.855Z

I can't recommend Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence, enough. Published this week by Granta, it charts an intellectual, spiritual and often physical journey that she has taken in pursuit of silence and an understanding of its part in her life. As a walker and a writer, I found startling resonances with my own experiences in the sister state to silence - solitude - and gained new insights into the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-60284757907663368722008-10-27T13:41:00.007Z2008-10-27T17:06:58.376Z

‘You’ll be the last this year’, the landlords of pubs and B+B’s kept saying to us ‘pilgrims’ along Saint Cuthbert’s Way. Certainly we saw no-one else who seemed to be doing the full 62 miles from Melrose in the Scottish Borders to Holy Island in Northumberland, or the reverse. And yet it seems to me the perfect season in which to walk it, when the tree colour is mesmerising, particularly in the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-83750293096533519062008-10-14T11:18:00.003Z2008-10-14T11:24:28.391Z

It's time to start scribbling an entry to the John Muir Trust wild writing competition.“We are looking for inspiring short stories with the broad theme of' ‘experiences in wild places,'” commented competition organizer Alison Austin. “Your entry can be factual or fictional and could incorporate a journey, a place, an expedition, a mountain or river, a walk, climb, sail or kayak.” First Prize is a

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-11322389802625522292008-10-13T19:59:00.002Z2008-10-13T20:03:12.893Z

Another writer has appeared on my regular walk. I'm not sure I approve.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-38833757761815713912008-10-09T09:48:00.007Z2008-11-27T11:02:02.056Z

Today is National Poetry Day and this years theme is 'work'. I'm no poet, so instead I offer this (a prose poem?) about a walk to work... For five years I walked that way, head down probably, ploughing a furrow from Waverley Station to my theatre of work. The costume went over my head as I entered the inmost cave. I tugged my face into the right shape, my hand on the door triggered the bell and I

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-67607537438235798262008-10-07T20:01:00.007Z2008-11-27T11:02:24.917Z

Last Sunday I finished co-tutoring a workshop for the Fruitmarket Gallery with sound designer, Jules Rawlinson - three sessions to develop an intimate narrative focused on a walk around Edinburgh's old town which creates interest whilst also being open-ended. We were using Janet Cardiff's audio walks as our inspiring starting point, and like her, using binaural sound. There was a lot to learn -

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-76852216830536906932008-09-22T17:35:00.006Z2008-09-22T18:19:36.369Z

It's not often the Re-readings features in Saturday's Guardian Review have me running to the bookshop. However Robert Macfarlane's piece on Nan Shepherd's 'The Living Mountain' did. She's a classic Scottish woman writer I'm embarrassed not to have read before. As Macfarlane says, 'Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most male mountaineers are focused on the goal of the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-59819791457850593182008-09-15T19:41:00.004Z2008-10-08T10:10:01.662Z

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-89155177857178244842008-09-11T14:33:00.006Z2008-09-11T21:24:55.899Z

Granta Magazine's issue 102 is dedicated to nature writing and makes a case for a shift - towards narratives, towards the presence of humans, the presence of the writer in the story. There's certainly some wonderful writing in there. Kathleen Jamie's 'it's not all primroses and dolphins' nature-essay looks at the human body and its sick cells under a microscope and finds vast landscapes. Paul

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-4350128796843939142008-09-08T21:14:00.002Z2008-09-08T21:18:25.953Z

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-54118946704388501032008-09-08T15:42:00.009Z2008-09-08T18:50:17.233Z

image from 'urban tapestries' - a research project by ProboscisI turn from the Alps now to the old town of Edinburgh. I have wondered if being the daughter of a great Victorian alpinist helped make Virginia Woolf a writer. Presumably walking was part of family life, and might have got her observing, speculating at the people and places she saw, thus allowing her imagination to roam beyond her

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-74149230251598117262008-07-25T08:33:00.008Z2008-11-13T07:18:10.597Z

Gertrude Bell wrote of the 'terrible and wonderful things that happen in high places' after climbing the north east face of the Finsteraarhorn in August 1902. She spent 57 hours in the attempt amidst a blizzard and mist, her ice axe teased by lightning, which provoked her cool words: 'It's not nice to carry a private lightning conductor in your hand in the thick of a thunderstorm'. Finally the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-28503189831408057012008-07-02T18:27:00.006Z2008-11-13T07:18:10.901Z

"The Alps themselves, which your own poets used to love so reverently, you look upon as soaped poles in a bear-garden, which you set yourselves to climb, and slide down again, with 'shrieks of delight'". This was part of John Ruskin's scathing attack on climbers and tourists despoiling the Alps in his lecture 'Sesame and Lilies' of 1864. I think I see where he's coming from. I've long loved being

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-16837325399150510742008-06-23T10:41:00.003Z2008-11-13T07:18:11.063Z

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-25670642395935118002008-06-19T12:54:00.011Z2008-11-13T07:18:11.266Z

There have been two interesting aspects to working with a small group of walking writers (or writing walkers) in my home town over the last 6 weeks.One is that most of us have chosen to write about a walk we take habitually, or at least a walk in a landscape we have grown familiar with over time. The challenge is of course to see it and communicate about it with freshness. The main theme of my

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-66059269033513408712008-05-30T18:17:00.003Z2008-11-13T07:18:11.403Z

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-14450084708846141182008-05-29T16:46:00.004Z2008-05-29T16:56:17.656Z

Further to my post about solitary to social paths below, I recalled this quote from walking artist Richard Long:'My materials are elemental: stone, water, mud, days, nights, rivers, sunrises. And our bodies are elemental: we are animals, we make marks, we leave traces, we leave footprints.' Walking and Marking catalogue, Richard Long, (National Galleries of Scotland)So I am still pondering - what

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-73141146759324852382008-05-23T09:02:00.007Z2008-11-13T07:18:11.745Z

This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve walked to this year. Without saying exactly where it is, for reasons that will become obvious, the name roughly translates as ‘the grey precipice rooted in water’ (I think), and is to be found by following wild goats where they have worn a red soil path through bluebell and young bracken towards a glistering sea, its horizon hung with small

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-69081791955267324042008-05-21T16:55:00.011Z2008-11-13T07:18:12.277Z

When solo footsteps are followed by others, a path is worn - like the one on the right in East Africa.But when I studied the hillside below and the web of paths woven by sheep and wild goats, I started to think about the webs we lay in urban areas where the most dense walking patterns seem to now exist. What kind of resonances do our interlocking ways leave when concrete and tarmac refuse to hold

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-69931571820356542002008-05-21T16:32:00.010Z2008-11-13T07:18:12.542Z

Last week I spent a sunny afternoon in the hills of south-west Scotland around Langholm prior to an evening reading at the lovely, recently refurbished, Gilnockie Hall. It's a place with an interesting writing heritage, being the birthplace and burial ground of poet Hugh MacDiarmid. I worked in schools in this area during 2005-6, and discovered a new generation of enthusiastic writers with

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-73791845376238554422008-05-16T15:06:00.003Z2008-11-13T07:18:12.692Z

A section of my non-fiction piece 'The Dogs' Route' about walking a drove road last September appears in this new anthology from Two Ravens Press (a Scottish newcomer attracting significant attention). Intended as a cross-genre record of what it is to be a woman in Scotland in 2008, there is a great diversity of forms and names including Jackie Kay and Dilys Rose. Launched in Borders, Glasgow on

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-90683532111270125572008-05-08T10:14:00.002Z2008-05-08T10:33:05.707Z

Thanks go to the Solitary Walker for drawing my attention to this wonderful poem . With its association of words with rocks with planets and paths, it seems to bring together many of my recent preoccupations whilst walking - following old forgotten crafted walls, touching worn slate stiles, and laying words to try and evoke and celebrate places and journeys.

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-28075276368312091902008-04-30T17:35:00.007Z2008-11-13T07:18:12.931Z

This set of steps, built in 1792 into a vertical 250 foot cliff face at Whaligoe, seven miles south of Wick in Caithness, has seen hard service. With a step for every day of the year, they zig-zag down to an otherwise inaccessible fishing station. Women carried the catch up the steps in baskets, for removal on foot to the markets of Wick, or it was cured below and collected by schooner. They

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-57768452482877560852008-03-31T14:21:00.009Z2008-11-13T07:18:13.302Z

Dyke! Have you any idea how long you have lured my eye along your length up to the famous summit of Schiehallion? – a magnet for those of us for whom lines in the land are like a fishing reel. You’re a tease – do you know that? I’ll bet you do, all one and a half miles of you snaking with the land, insisting on your twenty six degrees SSE up the north face.Twenty seven.Sorry?And here, out of the

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-7525307106668358482008-03-26T17:23:00.011Z2010-01-21T17:39:33.303Z

In Thomas Hardy’s poem of 1920, ‘If you had known’, he refers back to his courtship of his first wife Emma Lavinia Gifford which took place high on the clifftops and deep in the moist green valleys of North Cornwall. This poem was written fifty years after he first met her there as an architect travelling from Dorset to restore the church tower. Hardy returned to the area after her death in what

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6018357452693025302.post-2651443657713129142008-02-25T16:27:00.013Z2010-10-28T09:16:36.851Z

I have recently walked a six mile path in the West Highlands that links the village of Polloch to Strontian, rising over the shoulder of Ben Resipol (pictured) at over 1000 feet, and linking fresh water Loch Shiel with salty Loch Sunart. Each loch cuts a dramatic 25 mile gash inland and each has a feature that once drew columns of human traffic to it.Eilean Fhianain, the island of St Finnan, sits

Linda Cracknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15297389660800808299noreply@blogger.com0