Isabella is a first year PhD student in my research centre at the University of Edinburgh. She is interested in research and writing spaces and has started to explore the ‘knowledge-making and meaning-making experiences’ of history students. She is wondering how to use walking methods as part of this work and we recently met to discuss this aspect of her project, so I invited her to walk with me here. One of Isabella’s supervisors is my colleague James, who joined me for a walk round the Moss back in November. It is no surprise, then, that Isabella is thinking about postdigital education: recognising the entanglement of digital technologies in our research and writing practices. As I found with James, there is no reason to discount a walk round a peat bog.

Isabella has not been to Lenzie before. She has only recently moved to Scotland for her PhD and is enjoying living in Edinburgh and exploring the nearby towns and cities. Isabella is from South Africa and has been studying history at the University of Cape Town. This is her first time living in another country. After our walk, Isabella will take the train to Glasgow and wander round the west end. As I lived there for two decades, I fully endorse her plans to visit the Botanic Gardens and the Kelvingrove Museum. I suggest stopping for a coffee on Ashton Lane. I am feeling nostalgic for this part of the city at the moment and I am excited for Isabella, discovering new places.

As we walk, we talk more about Isabella’s research plans. At a recent meeting with her supervisors, they discussed the possibility of expanding the scope of the project. Isabella is now thinking through the implications of working with other types of learners in different contexts. She feels that walking methods would be a good way of expanding the field of her studies. Could she accompany participants on their routes to work? Perhaps mapping and creative writing exercises would bring journeys into the project. Perhaps, like Brian, Isabella will start to explore learning spaces outside the academy.

When I walked with Ruby, she told me about a recent fieldtrip to Fala Moor in Midlothian, where a group of students worked with singer and composer duo, Karine Polwart and Pippa Murphy. It turns out that Isabella was also there. Isabella was inspired by their collaboration and the openness and responsiveness of their creative process. It prompted her to listen more to her environments and showed how a connection to place can be enhanced through creative methods like songwriting, composing, or poetry. Isabella wonders whether her own research methods could move in that direction.

Isabella asks me about my project and the approach I have taken here. I return to the conversation I had yesterday with Jimmy. We discussed the ‘openness’ of the exchanges and encounters that comprise this project and noted how loosely they might be defined as interviews. I agree that there can be huge value in the insights that writing prompts and artistic methods can provide. But last week in Spain, working with the Walking Assembly, I realised how the lightest of frameworks and plans can effectively hold space for unexpected experiences and outcomes to emerge. The theme of that gathering was ‘learning without teaching’ and I think that is what I am experiencing here.

Halfway round the route, I realise that we have been talking about place-based research, rather than doing the work (however that might be understood). Of course, talking is part of fieldwork, but sometimes the conversation can delay a connection with the site. I have walked with a lot of researchers, including several PhD students (Ada, Ali, Ellie, Deirdre, Kyriaki, Brian and Eilidh), and with many of them, also, there has been a careful discussion about their research before we have settled into the environment. It is hard for me to avoid falling into supervisor mode. But it has also been important to understand the specific interest that my co-walkers bring to the Moss: the questions that they are asking and the methods they are using to find answers.

But there is a point on this route when conversation gives way to something else. This happens on leaving the birchwood, when the path joins the boardwalk. As the vista opens up and the bog reveals itself, with all its muted colours and shifting scales, there is a moment of change in pace and purpose. Isabella and I pause our walk and take in the atmosphere of this place. We watch a great black corvid swooping down into the heather. I am sure it is a crow, but it seems way bigger than I expect it to be. Sometimes scale is hard to gauge here. As I attempt to verify my assumption with the Merlin app, I record a skylark – the first time I have encountered one here, although others I have walked with have told me they have seen them.

We walk along the southern pathway across the bog and encounter another chapter in the war of attrition that I have been monitoring here. I review the stages of this story:

First, a desire line emerged leading to the tree swing.
Second, a section of fence was rolled out over the boggy ground, as a makeshift boardwalk.
Third, the fence was moved aside, and contractors dug a series of ponds across the path.
Fourth, the fencing returned and was placed in a meandering route around the new pools.
Fifth, the fencing was removed from the site.

The sixth stage, which we encounter today, is the appearance of a brand-new desire line to the right of the original. This new route takes a completely different path to the wood. Check. I wonder what the council’s next move will be? Surely, we won’t see more barriers and ponds in this area? The oneupmanship seems unhelpful.

This part of the Moss, which I have studied for over a year now, is the best example of the contested relationship between the users and managers of this site. I have learnt about the context by speaking with both dog walkers and council officers, but I have only understood its implications by being here so often and observing the changes and developments over a long period of time. For me, walking methods have been an effective way to build a connection with Lenzie Moss as a more-than-human environment, of which I am a part. I am pleased to know that younger researchers see the value in this way of working as well, and I look forward to finding out what new pathways Isabella will follow.

May 21, 2026

My client is not in a hurry. (Antoni Gaudí)

I have spent most of the last two weeks in Catalonia, first in Cap de Salou with Iona, then at the Walking Assembly 2026 in Girona and the Pyrenees, and yesterday as a solo tourist in Barcelona. I returned late last night. Today, I have been plunged back into the emails and tasks that have mounted up in my absence. It is hard to believe that just hours ago I was sitting on Montjuïc looking out over the city, with Gaudí’s Sagrada Família in the distance. Now, I am escaping the admin by walking round a peatbog with my friend, Jo.

Jo is an important person in my career journey. When I was working on my PhD in theatre studies at the University of Glasgow in 2010, on the recommendation of my supervisor, I wrote a letter (back when we used to write such things) to the heads of related degree programmes at local universities, asking if they might have any teaching work available. One of these landed on Jo’s desk at the University of the West of Scotland’s Ayr campus, just as she was looking for performance teachers who could bridge theory and practice. We met for a coffee in Glasgow and within two years I had a full-time academic post. I worked at UWS for five years and by the time I left, my life had changed completely. Jo has been a mentor and friend ever since and I have plenty to thank her for.

We have lots to catch up on. Not only do I want to regale Jo with stories of my recent adventures, but we also have all the news of our families, and our work in art and education to share. Jo is one of the most energetic and enthusiastic people I know; her conversation is fast-flowing and lively, and she is always interested in what I have been up to and how my children are doing. We will have to be disciplined if we want to keep our attention on the task at hand. So we agree to share a cup of tea after our exploration of the Moss and hold all the other topics for now.

Jo has had some challenging professional experiences over the years – often bravely standing up to injustices and always prepared to take on the egos in charge of cultural and education institutions. She is therefore particularly drawn to projects like this, which she sees as an antidote to the extractive and unethical practices that have become so prevalent elsewhere. Taking time to build relationships with people and place, de-centring the researcher, and learning how to be other – I am pleased that Jo sees all these qualities in this work.

Jo is now semi-retired and has more time for exploring places like this. She arrived at Lenzie on an earlier train, having never visited before, and has been wandering round the town. Jo initially wondered whether the enthusiastic waves of a passing van driver were due to the friendly disposition of the residents. In fact, this was Gavin – an actor she has worked with a lot, and who I also know, and once bumped into on a walk round the Moss. Jo is scoping out routes to take her husband on and says she will return to Lenzie. I point out the route through the woods to the canal, which they have often walked along closer to their home in the west end of Glasgow.

Jo asks me about the peat bog, and I learn that her interest is driven partly by a love of whisky. She recalls a trip to Highland Park Distillery in the Orkneys and says that the whisky that is made there has a light peaty taste, which she compares favourably to the intensely smoky whiskies most associated with the Isle of Islay distilleries. While Islay’s Laphroaig kilns are fuelled by ‘a heady mix of the heather, lichen, seaweed, moss and woodland that decayed over the centuries’, Highland Park burns Orkney heathered peat, ‘which delivers complex floral aromas’. I wonder what whisky would be produced by smoking barley with peat from Lenzie Moss.

As we are not in any rush, we sit on one of the benches and look out over the bog. We watch swallows darting over the bog cotton, which is now growing all around us. Various timescales coalesce in this moment. It is now two days short of a full year since I began this project. I have walked with the Moss as it has changed through its annual cycle and look forward to at least another year of this project. I have known Jo for over 15 years now and we have followed each other’s work through many other projects at various other places. Reflection on time and personal history comes easily as we sit above centuries-old peat, slowly accumulating again, despite that rate at which it was extracted from this place.

I think about Gaudí, who began work on the basilica in 1883, but did not live to see its completion (the building is still under construction to this day). With God as his client, he wasn’t in any hurry to finish his great project. But great it certainly was. When I stood before it yesterday, as I sheltered from the thousands of tourists behind a bin, I felt overwhelmed and conflicted. Famously, the Sagrada Família’s height of 172.5 meters (which was only reached earlier this year) was deliberately capped by Gaudí to remain lower than the tallest point of the Montjuïc hill (just over five meters higher), because ‘the work of man must not surpass that of God’. Nevertheless, the building is designed to induce awe. I watched a crane lift a section of stonework into place and went on my way.

24 hours later, I reflect on the qualities that Jo sees in my own durational project and think about how light the traces are that I will leave behind. How many hours will I have spent walking round this site and writing about my encounters here? But sitting here with Jo, looking back over 12 months of walking Lenzie Moss, I am pleased to say that I have created nothing visible or enduring. The materials of this project are relational, the medium is ephemeral, and the legacy is words and memories.

I am grateful to Jo for helping me see the value in this way of working. As we reach the end of our walk and head to my house to finish our meeting with that promised cuppa, I realise how central time is to this project. Committing to these 100 circles has given me many hours of close connection to the Moss, but it has also afforded time to get to know my neighbours, learn from my guests, and maintain my friendships. As Gaudí knew, as did the whisky distillers from Islay to Orkney, time is the most important ingredient in any creative endeavour.

May 15, 2026

Just before I meet Julia, a pair of herons fly over Lenzie. I have never seen two flying together before. They soar fast and high, riding the wind, determined to get somewhere; at odds with the lazy feeling of this sunny spring morning.

I meet Julia outside her house and say a quick hello to her husband, Tony. Since Julia had to accompany Tony when I walked with him back in January, we planned another walk so I could find out more about Julia’s connection to the Moss. It is now exactly three months later – a deliberate delay since I know that Julia is enthusiastic about the birds of Lenzie Moss, and at this time of year, on a day like this, the air is filled with all kinds of birdsong.

Before we set off, I open the Merlin app and place my phone upside down in the drinks holder of my rucksack, so that the microphone can capture everything clearly as we walk. We will check the screen for a ‘bird audit’ every kilometre or so. I am not sure that we need it, though. Julia talks me through the different bird habitats of the Moss: chiffchaffs to the east; wrens to the north; stonechats to the west; and treecreepers to the south. As we follow Bea’s Path, a chiffchaff obliges us and Julia easily recognises its call.

Julia tells me that she has always been enchanted by birds, and that her interest is shared by her daughter. As a family, they have explored places in Scotland with unique birdlife: the Arctic geese of Islay; the eagles of Mull; and the seabirds of the Orkneys. But the Moss is almost on their doorstep and they have also enjoyed some memorable avian encounters closer to home. Julia tells me about the sparrowhawk that has visited their garden. And while they didn’t see one themselves, they have heard about ospreys at the Gadloch. I tell Julia about my fleeting encounters with a sparrowhawk and a buzzard, and my more regular sightings of kestrels, which she has also seen here.

We stop to check my phone: goldcrest, bullfinch, dunnock, jackdaw, chaffinch, willow warbler, blue tit, robin, great tit, chiffchaff, wren, blackbird, sparrow, treecreeper, coal tit, and goldfinch. And we are only at the boardwalk. We then see, and hear, an olive-yellow bird, singing away, on its perch in a birch tree. Its cascading song is very distinctive, so Julia has no doubt that this is a willow warbler.

As we walk south, we see that the bog cotton has burst into seed with thousands of fluffy white clumps bobbing in the breeze. Last year, Richard noted how late that had happened. We pause at the bottom of the boardwalk, beside the bog rosemary enclosure. When I walked with Bob a month ago, we studied the sign that had been pinned to the fencepost at this spot. I returned the next day to find that it had been torn down. It has since been replaced. Julia feels that informing the public is an important dimension of the conservation work here.

As we chat, I notice a man on his knees further along the path. I don’t think anything of it at first, but when he stands up and walks towards us with his black labrador, I notice that he is covered in blood. He has tripped over the exposed roots and knocked his nose. We make sure he is okay and Julia gives him some tissues. Luckily, it seems that the injury looks worse than it is and as he lives nearby, he is happy to continue on his way.

We walk on across the boardwalk and add a meadow pipit to our cast of characters. Like skylarks, which Julia and Tony saw recently here, meadow pipits are ground nesting birds. From March to October, when they are raising chicks, it is best to keep dogs on the lead at the boardwalk side of the Moss. Julia feels strongly about our collective responsibility to prioritise and make space for the wildlife that makes the Moss so special. If this means staying off the bog or keeping dogs close by during these vital months of the year, then we may need to accept that our habitual or established ways of being here need to change. It is about finding the balance between our desires and the needs of the wildlife. We know enough about the ecological impact of our actions to make the right decisions about what we do here. Having said this, there needs to be a serious and sustained effort to involve the community in these decisions – a topic I have discussed with many of the walkers on this project.

Julia talks about the landscape here: the industrial history of the area; the distinct zones of woodland, grassland and peatland; the view of the city in one direction and the hills in another. All this is important to Julia and her family. But she talks about the soundscape as equally precious and meaningful. We listen to chiffchaffs in the birchwood as the wind moves through the branches, and a distant train sounds its air chime, while the school break adds the voices of children to the soundtrack. An aeroplane flies over and we can just hear its faint rumbling engines. There is so much human and nonhuman life here, and for now at least, it all seems to be co-existing peacefully.

While I am well aware of the environmental impact of air travel and try to limit my air miles, I will be on a plane myself tomorrow. For the next couple of weeks, I will be spending time in Catalonia – visiting Reus, Tarragona, Barcelona and Girona, before joining the Walking Assembly 2026 at the Muga River in the Pyrenees. Last night, I joined a video call to meet some of the group and hear about what we would be up to. Birdsong was played throughout the meeting, and we were introduced to some of the Catalonian species we would be encountering. I am particularly keen to spot a golden oriole – a striking yellow migrant from Africa. Missing from the list, though, was the common chiffchaff. But they, too, spend time in Catalonia. Maybe a Lenzie chiffchaff will be there with me and the orioles.

Since I moved here three years ago, I have been enchanted by the vibrant lives of the many birds who make the Moss their home. Walking with Julia today has enhanced my connection to them, and taught me to identify more of them by sight and song. I understand entirely why so many people like Julia and her family are drawn to birds and spend so much of their time travelling to meet them and staying in their company. Birds take us out of ourselves and show us that there is more to this world than our human limitations. They fly high above us and commune with the wind.

Apr 30, 2026

When I started this project in May last year, I ventured out to the Moss on a beautiful summer day, accompanied by blossom and birdsong. While it is not quite summer yet, and I am a couple of walks short of the halfway point, today is one of those days. I will wait until I reach the fifty-walk milestone before I allow myself a midpoint celebration, but after a year of changing seasons, including many walks in rain, snow and wind, I will enjoy a return to the Moss in the sunshine, once again surrounded by new life.

I am walking with Eilidh – an environmental artist from Kilcreggan on the Rosneath Peninsula on the west coast. Eilidh now lives near Forfar in Angus, where she is a PhD student at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. Eilidh’s supervisor is Professor Mary Modeen, who I worked with at the University of Edinburgh recently, where we co-examined a PhD together. Eilidh’s artistic practice includes writing, sculpture and installation. She is concerned with the sustainability of art-making and often works with natural dyes and clays, or found materials like plant ashes, egg shells and sand.

Eilidh is researching Scottish wetland regeneration, using her creative practice as a research methodology. She is interested in the role of artists in rewilding initiatives, asking how we can engage the public with processes of species reintroduction and habitat restoration. Her research will involve collaborations with communities, artists and scientists and will lead to maps and documents of her field sites. Eilidh’s work resonates with my research and the emerging story of Lenzie Moss that I have encountered through these walks. But there is one aspect of her PhD project that I am particularly interested in: her focus on landscapes shaped by beavers.

I have always thought that the woodland to the north of the Moss looks very similar to the ‘terraqueous’ (land and water) environments that beavers thrive within, and create for themselves. These shifting watery and earthy borderlands are shaped by routes for feeding and escape – pathways between the underwater entrances to their lodges and to their food supply of grasses, leaves and bark. I think we can learn a lot from beavers’ boundary-crossing ways.

I know beaver habitats well, having spent time in the years before the pandemic at Bamff Estate in Perthshire – the site of one of Scotland’s longest established beaver populations. Over several visits, I worked with a group of artists and scientists to explore the ways in which humans might collaborate and become part of the beavers’ worlds. We made sculptures, films and songs, wrote poems and essays, and I published a chapter about the project, which I am delighted to hear Eilidh has read. She has also visited Bamff, so we compare our experiences there. We chat about the contested politics of beaver reintroductions – a controversial subject in Scotland, due to the impact that beavers can have on waterways and the adjoining fields and woodland.

We see parallels in some of the tensions that I have encountered here. We investigate the paths and signs, and reflect on the dogs that run around us off their leads (as Clyde often does), and the impact this has on the environment. Eilidh says that as humans, we dominate every landscape; we strive for control over land and stomp wherever we like. For Eilidh, change is vital, however difficult that may be. She asks: as the rewilding movement grows in numbers and projects, how do we encourage the loosening of our grip on the land? How do we let go, and watch our terrain become patchy and messy, dynamic and unpredictable? Eilidh believes that this starts with community engagement and public education, listening to the people who live here and establishing relationships that can move forward together. There are lessons here for the beaver reintroduction movement, just as there are for peatland conservation.

While there are no beavers at Lenzie Moss, both beavers and bogs are connected through their relationship with water. As the Wildlife Trusts explain, beavers, who are often referred to as ‘ecosystem engineers’,

[…] make changes to their habitats, such as coppicing trees, damming smaller water courses, and digging ‘beaver canal’ systems. These activities create diverse and dynamic wetlands that can bring enormous benefits to other species, such as otters, water shrews, water voles, birds, invertebrates (especially dragonflies) and breeding fish, as well as sequestering carbon.

Bogs, too, sequester carbon, and both beavers and bogs can help to prevent flooding (‘the channels, dams and wetland habitats that beavers create hold back water and release it more slowly after heavy rain’). I wonder what beavers would make of, and make with, this place. As we walk along the north woods path, I point out that the gardens of the houses that border the Moss are prone to flooding. Perhaps beaver inhabitation would help solve this problem? (I am sure there are plenty of counterarguments to this suggestion, so I only make it speculatively).

Eilidh tells me that in 2023, when Storm Babet crashed through the country, her house was badly flooded. When she initially pitched her PhD research, Eilidh was interested in natural flood management. But she says that the experience is too recent and too raw for her to fully embrace an artistic exploration of flooding, at least for now. She is nevertheless drawn to wetlands and their water retaining qualities. Beavers allow an exploration of these dynamics from a different perspective.

During my fieldwork at Bamff, we studied maps of the site and examined aerial photographs that showed the landscape alterations that the beavers had brought about. I was struck by the difference between the fragmented mosaic of the beaverlands and the monocultural fields of the neighbouring farmlands. When Eilidh and I pass the ponds to the south of the Moss, we peer into the green algae filled water and I am struck by how reminiscent it is of those beaver pools – albeit on a much smaller scale. The sticks are fallen trees, brought down by roots weakened by expanded waterways, or by gnawing teeth; the leaves and moss are patches of earth amongst the ponds.

Mapping, aerial images, measuring and both qualitative and quantitative data are all important parts of Eilidh’s artistic practice. She makes sculptural forms through contour mapping, moulds with wild clay, and makes zines, maps and notebooks. Eilidh describes her practice as a form of ‘deep mapping’ – an expansion of traditional cartography through ongoing performances, exchanges, assemblages and experiments. I am familiar with the concept of deep mapping and have used it before in my own work (I once attempted to deep map my commute between Glasgow and Ayr). The point is to keep things open and moving, rather than fixing place into a ‘flat’ representation.

Discussing this method with Eilidh today reminds me that these 100 walks round Lenzie Moss might also usefully be thought of as a process of deep mapping, and the blog as a textual deep map. Ongoing conversations, reflections, documentation and dissemination are at the heart of this extended encounter with the site. Eilidh’s creative research has a similar aspiration. I am looking forward to following her deep mapping process over the next years.

Apr 24, 2026

This is my second circle of the Moss today. When I walked with Clyde this morning, I noticed that the contractors were back on site. The fence across the central path had been reinstalled – this time with a lower, sturdier structure. This version would be easy to climb over, for anyone who was determined. I think it will have more chance of staying put, but I will be interested to see what happens after the last attempt was destroyed in the night.

I meet Bob outside the station. He lives on the other side of the track and for decades, he has walked and jogged round the Moss. Bob is a retired maths professor and moved up to Glasgow in 1980. He discovered a love of hillwalking and has been an active member of the Ramblers ever since. Like David K, Bob learnt about my project from Carol. I am grateful to her for recruiting new walkers on my behalf! Bob has a slight ankle injury today, so he tells me he might struggle a bit, but should be fine to complete a circle. Bob no longer runs here, but he often walks this route. He tells me he is ‘law abiding’ and always sticks to the main paths.

My semi-regular run takes me round the Moss in the other direction before cutting through Boghead Wood and up Christine’s Way to the canal. This is one of Bob’s favourite routes, too. He tells me about the other pathways that he enjoys. One of these is the Ladies’ Mile (or Lady’s Mile, as it is sometimes spelled), which I have never walked along, but which is clearly visible on the other side of the trainline.

There is information about the Mile on the arts and heritage website, Trails + Tails (the project that commissioned the Stacks artworks, which I explored with Ada, and which Iona climbed onto). A postcard at the Auld Kirk Museum in Kirkintilloch tells its story:

This postcard relates to an access controversy of 1904. The Lady’s Mile footpath ran between Boghead and Lenzie Station. Most of its route was on railway property along the south side of the line. The path was not an official right of way and to retain ownership the railway company locked the gates at either end from time to time, to the annoyance of local residents who vented their frustration by vandalising the chain that held the gate shut. However, a few months later, path users were forced to acknowledge the railway’s right and recognise that the closure had been intended to last about 24 hours. This postcard is postmarked 12th December 1905 and is addressed to South India with Christmas and New Year good wishes.

This anecdotal evidence of vandalism at the start of the twentieth century suggests that disputes about land use and access are nothing new here. I wonder whether I have met some of the decedents of those frustrated residents.

Bob and I catch glimpses of the sunlit Campsies through the trees, and he tells me that he was up there earlier today, playing indoor bowls in village of Fintry, which is hidden up in the hills in the strath of the River Endrick. I have visited Fintry from time to time and was there earlier this month with my children, shopping for Mother’s Day presents at the Courtyard Cafe – a favourite of Bob’s wife and her friends. Bob has been bowling for years now at the Sports and Recreation Club (he tells me that there is another good cafe there) and he recently persuaded some of his Rambling friends to give it a go.

As we wander down the boardwalk, we look out towards Bishopbriggs, and Bob points out the route over the humpback bridge that links the Ladies’ Mile to Boghead Wood. I will walk this with Clyde one day soon. Bob also tells me about the route from the bottom of Victoria Road, past the Gadloch and over to Auchinloch (which has a pub that I have always wanted to try out). I am grateful to Bob for all these tips for further exploration of the Lenzie area. I remember that all this used to be connected to the Moss, prior to the railway line and the mid nineteenth century building works that created both Bob and my houses.

At the exact spot where Eilidh and I met Janice last week, we find a laminated sign pinned to a fencepost. The notice is about restoration works and tells us that ‘further access and biodiversity works will be undertaken in line with conservation objectives set out in East Dunbartonshire Council’s Lenzie Moss [Local Nature Reserve] Management Plan’. There is a list of works undertaken so far:

◦ Rewetting, regrading and reprofiling works to initiate recovery of peat and vegetation
◦ Scrub removal and thinning of Birch woodland
◦ Habitat Creation – ponds, dead hedges etc
◦ Path/boardwalk upgrades and maintenance

The sign includes QR code links to information about the NatureScot Peatland ACTION programme and the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. It also explains why it is important to protect peat bogs:

◦ Stores carbon reducing greenhouse gas release
◦ International important habitat (European Priority)
◦ Regulates water flow, quality and stores water
◦ Healthy peat supports key wetland species

There are pictures, of a skylark, a meadow pipit, a common snipe, a roe deer and a sundew. There are also some suggestions ‘for your own safety and protection of this site’:

◦ Stay on designated pathways and boardwalk
◦ Do not wander beyond fencing, dead hedges or into the peat bog
◦ Keep your dog(s) alongside you or on a short lead at all times
◦ Admire but do not disturb the wildlife

The sign seems to respond directly to the concerns raised by Andy and Janice: ‘Lenzie Moss is a very sensitive site, walking across the peatland can cause irreversible [sic], undoing thousands of years of growth and emitting greenhouse gases such as CO2 or methene!’ It concludes with a simple plea: ‘Please Respect Lenzie Moss’.

It is good to see this effort to communicate the reasons and intentions of the conservation work. But I have seen over the last year that these A4 signs tend to get damaged or removed easily. I wonder whether more permanent and enduring signage might be of value.

In return for Bob’s walking tips, I invite him to explore a path that is new to him, and we set off across the bog and through the woodland to the old peat shed. We stick to what I assume is one of the designated pathways, but I allow myself a short detour to inspect the new fence. Bob asks me about the ruins, and I show him the concrete platform, which I am assuming was part of the railway infrastructure.

This afternoon, Bob and I have shared what we know about this place with each other. I now have some new walking routes to explore, and Bob has seen a side of the Moss that he hadn’t yet encountered after all those years of running and walking here. We have followed the rules today, but it seems there will always be those prepared to break them.

Mar 31, 2026

I arrange to meet Eilidh at the far side of the Moss to my home, so I walk there on my own, along the north woods path to Heather Drive, where the woodland meets the concrete. On my way, I am treated to a chorus of birds: greenfinch, bluetit, robin and wren. Higher in the trees, crows, magpies and pigeons join in; and gulls soar above. I pass the broken birch branches, and the tangled shapes of the oaks that border the path. Peering into the wood between me and the houses, I notice a swing and a traffic cone and wonder about a section of the Moss that I have yet to explore.

Eilidh joins me after walking the dog and dropping her two children off at primary school. I remember that Clare had suggested that I should walk with Eilidh (their children are in the same class), due to her influential work in forestry and outdoor learning. Other parents – all mums – are dispersing around us and chatting on the footpath on their way back from the school run. Eilidh mentions how safe this place feels; she is pleased that many local women feel comfortable walking and running here.

Eilidh is Education Programme Manager for Scottish Forestry, where she coordinates the Outdoor and Woodland Learning (OWL) Scotland network, ‘supporting practitioners to engage young people in outdoor learning and connect their broader learning with the world around them’. This involves national networking events, upskilling and raising confidence in teachers and youth leaders, engaging them in conversations about how to connect young people with nature. I remember David K suggesting that this is exactly what is needed for the future of places like the Moss.

Eilidh remembers visiting the Moss with her school, soon after moving here from Bishopbriggs as a teenager. She talks about the transitional areas of the site, which encompasses residential gardens, communal grasslands, woodland, bog, and farmland. While my journey to meet Eilidh was soundtracked by the woodland birds, we are now walking down the boardwalk, where I have seen swallows, meadow pipits and stonechats. The different ecologies of the Moss meet and mingle and create a unique environment, which needs to be protected. For Eilidh, it is a ‘magical place’ that invites exploration. Eilidh’s children now play on the Moss, so she knows how important the opportunity for wild adventure can be.

We turn off the boardwalk and not for the first time, my folded A4 paper and note taking attract attention. A woman with a red setter asks us if we are involved with the conservation works. I tell her that I am actually writing about the Moss. We chat for a while and she shares what she knows, most of which tallies with the things I have learnt before: the army training on peat hill, the timeline of the peatworks, and the environmental protections. She also shares her concerns about the management of the site, and voices her opposition to the fences and other efforts to block access to the paths. She says that the bog has been fine for hundreds of years and that she doesn’t think a few people walking their dogs here makes enough of a difference to justify the barriers.

I realise that both the dog and this perspective on the Moss are familiar, and when I mention my walking project, it is confirmed that this is Andy’s wife, Janice. The setter is Juno, who I walked with back in September. I remember Andy telling me how upset he was by the tree felling. While Andy and Janice are among the strongest voices opposing these interventions, they are not alone in their concerns. I have spoken to many people now who have raised questions about the approach being taken here. I am yet to hear from anyone who was supportive of the recently torn down fences in the centre of the bog. We continue in opposite directions – Janice heads north up the boardwalk and we walk onto the main path across the bog.

Eilidh tells me that she moved into forestry via freshwater biology, by way of community engagement and outreach. She therefore understands how important it is to take diverse points of view into consideration and to develop projects carefully, in dialogue with the people who are involved and invested in a place. Eilidh agrees with me that there is an opportunity for more of this work here.

I ask Eilidh more about her job and she explains the complex systems of the forestry sector, which involves geneticists, ecologists, educators, technicians, lawyers, and a whole host of other professions, all with different knowledge, methods, and opinions. There are also contentious debates, including about the balance between investing in new productive plantations and restoring native woodland (both of which Eilidh says are needed). For Eilidh, when working with this level of complexity, the important thing is to identify the most urgent issues. For Eilidh, biodiversity loss and climate change are paramount, but that can involve more timber production, which otherwise takes place in countries without strong guidance and legislation on sustainable forest management. In this country this is upheld by the UK Forestry Standard and the UK Woodland Assurance Standard.

We walk north and I re-trace my steps towards Heather Drive, this time in company. I ask about the state of the woodland here, which Eilidh tells me is another little mosaic of habitat, with the dominant birch growing comfortably amongst some more diverse areas. Birch are pioneer species, which can thrive in harsh conditions. But there are also oaks, beech and holly. There is a similarly another pocket of mixed woodland along the railway line. On close inspection, the variety of life here – lichen, bryophytes, and often overlooked smaller species – demonstrates the complexity and importance of this fragile habitat within this semi urban area.

We complete the circle and Eilidh’s way home is along a path that borders the houses on the north side of the Moss. I have never walked this route before, so I accompany her and satisfy my curiosity by exploring the mixed woodland we have just been discussing, and the play area that I noticed earlier. After we go our separate ways, I wander along a water channel, which is bridged at intervals, providing access to a line of gateways to each of the neighbouring gardens. There are bike tracks in the mud – this is clearly a well-travelled path.

I rejoin the main path near the primary school and reflect on the complexity of the Moss and all its visitors and residents – human and nonhuman. I am sure that there will always be differing opinions and diverging uses of this place. The important thing is to engage with this multiplicity of experience, listening and learning, and finding the best ways to be here, to enjoy the site, and to protect it.

Mar 27, 2026

… ‘field’ describes a place to learn from, to research, to draw from. (Suzanne Ewing, Introduction to Architecture and Field/Work)

Today’s walk starts with low, bright sunshine and cold, dry air. I forget that that my colleague Suzanne is bringing her dog with her, so when she steps off the train at the far end of the westbound platform, it is a lovely surprise to see Lina the black labrador by her side. Suzanne is a Professor of Architectural Criticism at the University of Edinburgh. I have enjoyed contributing to her postgraduate course on ‘Cities as Creative Sites’ at Edinburgh Futures Institute, as well as co-authoring a book chapter with her. Like me, Suzanne is interested in fieldwork. She has an incredible eye for the materials, patterns and spatial configurations that create places.

For the last two decades, Suzanne has worked at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), which she directed from 2016 to 2019. She teaches her students to attend carefully to the edges of things, the objects and lines that demark a place, the surfaces and marks that inscribe patterns on the landscape. Good architecture grows from these starting points and enters into a dialogue with them, rather than imposing a predetermined structure on a blank canvas. I am interested in Suzanne’s perspective on the architectures of the Moss.

I haven’t seen Suzanne for a couple of months, since she had a bad accident on her bike. Cycling home from work one day, she hit a pothole, tumbled face-first over the handlebars, and ended up in A&E with a cracked cheek bone. Suzanne doesn’t remember it happening, but she was helped, and looked after, by a group of people who were at the scene. Suzanne says she was lucky and is recovering well. I admire her optimism.

After some time off work, Suzanne has eased back into teaching and research. Today, she is in no rush and will head back to Edinburgh later to meet a friend for another walk. For Suzanne, the freedom and flexibility that academia can sometimes provide is key to the creative practice that she uses in her work, and teaches to her students. These walks round Lenzie Moss have brought this into focus for me – the benefits of wandering, exploring, talking and learning. This is the work of fieldwork.

As we walk up Bea’s Path, the weather changes dramatically. Within minutes we are struggling through heavy snowfall. We pass several dog walkers, all of whom have been caught off guard. Luckily, we are in waterproofs and hats, although the snow quickly gives way to rain, and water runs down my jacket to soak my jeans. Lina is excitedly exploring this new place and jumps confidently into the large pools of water that have formed amongst the birch trees. Her muddy paw prints add another layer to my wet clothes.

We make our way along the north woods path, and by the time we reach the boardwalk, the sky has cleared again, and we are back in the sun. Suzanne talks about fieldwork and says that when she started studying architecture at the age of eighteen, their class took many trips. This cultivated a sensibility to the expanded field of an architectural site, and the work that might take place there. Suzanne has written that ‘fieldwork is a practice, not a discipline’.

At Lenzie Moss, Suzanne considers the bridges, dams, and enclosures that are now part of navigating the bog. She says that these features ‘inhabit its thicknesses’, by which I think she means that a certain quality emerges over time, which shapes the way that this site is used and perceived. In the boardwalk, the fences, the paths and the waterways, there is something of a taxonomy of architecture and material that ‘feels appropriate in its scale and deliberation’. Suzanne is interested in the tensions here between management and access, which are encapsulated in the anti-vandal painted fence posts that now stand ineffectively in the centre of the Moss.

Despite the sunlight casting birch shadows across the glowing sphagnum, it is still very cold. I am finding it hard to write notes on my rain-soaked paper and I give up after scrawling ‘cold hand’, almost illegibly. We pass a dam and Lina explores its wooden structure, which leads to one of the clearly visible desire lines that Stewart and I followed earlier this month – marking a connection to the south woods through the heather. Suzanne sees the fundamental building blocks of architecture in this arrangement of lines, edges, surfaces and materials. Where are the areas of stability? What kind of structures could be developed here? How does the field provide clues, offer suggestions, and open up an enquiry?

We arrive at the ruined buildings and I show Suzanne around. A couple of days after my walk with Stewart, I visited ESALA to talk about my Lenzie Moss project with some postgraduates. We also heard from architect and PhD student Adrian McNaught, who shared an experiment with materials left in the woods, to be marked and shaped by the environment. It struck me that ruins work in the same way: co-created by the elements and the flora that take root in the cracks and openings. Suzanne and I explore the old peat plant – imagining its past uses and comparing its solid, enduring foundations to the more fleeting installations of the fencing and the dams.

We have time for a post-walk coffee, so return to Billingtons, only to find that the outdoor seating – that most temporary of architectures – has been stacked away. It is now a beautiful spring morning in Lenzie and it is hard to accept that there was a blizzard here just 45 minutes ago. We can’t go inside with Lina, especially now that she has brought half the bog back with her. So we head up the road to share a cafetiere in my kitchen. Lina meets Clyde, who has been patiently awaiting my return, and they play power games with a bone while Suzanne and I chat away.

My house, too, is part of the architecture of the bog. Reminiscent of the West End of Glasgow, which Suzanne and I both know well, these streets were created over 150 years ago (which I now know thanks to my walks with Eddie and Sophie). The new buildings and streets stabilised and fixed the edges of the Moss, and established a local population, who accompanied the flourishing and decline of the peatworks, and eventually fought for environmental protections and rights to access the site. We are still very much in the expanded field of Lenzie Moss and I entertain the thought that enjoying a cup of coffee with Suzanne in my kitchen is, in fact, still part of our fieldwork.

Mar 25, 2026

When I meet David on Kirkintilloch Road, he is wearing a camouflage jacket, which he attributes to his career as a deer stalker. David used to work for Scottish Natural Heritage (now NatureScot) in the Cairngorms National Park. He then went on to study countryside management and was involved in surveying the deer population across the East Dunbartonshire area, including at Lenzie Moss. David also remembers working for the council in this area in the 1990s, when he was employed to clear rhododendrons from the north part of the Moss. I hope we will see the roes on our walk today.

It is one of those days in Scotland when all the seasons come together: frost on the ground among the daffodils; snow on the hills beyond; clouds in the sky; and sunshine cutting through the trees. There is also a strong breeze. Given our direction of travel, this might help us locate the deer, who will not be able to smell us coming.

When I walked with my brother, Phil, just before Christmas, he recounted some recent deer stalking adventures and talked about the appeal of slowing down and paying careful attention to the environment. This is a sensibility that David knows well. David reads the landscape as we walk, noting the way that the wind moves through the branches – which are still without leaves – and the direction of the higher clouds, as well as the behaviour of the dogs we meet, and the flight of birds. It is fascinating to walk with someone who experiences the Moss in this way.

A silver-grey Weimaraner dog runs ahead of us and David notices that it has picked up a scent. We suddenly veer off the path and walk slowly through the trees towards the bog. As we reach the other side of the narrow strip of birchwood, we encounter two deer enjoying the sunshine. As they move away from us, David makes a squeaking call and instructs me to head slowly back towards the main path. We meet the dog once more, and his owner puts him on the lead, on our suggestion. But the deer have taken a different route now, and we don’t see them again.

As we reach the top of the boardwalk, David points out the location of the entrance to the drainage tunnel that runs between the Gadloch, south of the railway line, and Park Burn in Boghead Wood, to the west of the Moss. David tells me that the tunnel was dug by Napoleonic prisoners of war. We examine the area through his binoculars (David extols the benefits of a good pair) and notice an access point by the railway bridge on Crosshill Road, which seems aligned with the path of the tunnel.

We reach the boardwalk and look out across the bog. When I walked with Tony and Julia six weeks ago, we noticed the sections of fencing that had appeared, preventing access to the centre of the site. I said at the time that I wasn’t sure that they would be there for long. After various signs were put up and quickly removed, Carol and I noticed the addition of anti-vandal paint. Today, David and I observe what is left after someone has visited in the night and torn down most of the fencing. The route has been opened again, leaving only the deep-set posts that would have been difficult to remove on the fly.

David says it is all a bit of an eye-sore, but he is sensitive to the efforts to discourage access. David sees the bog as a vast carbon sink. He notes that the Moss used to extend further – reaching Bishopbriggs and further south than the trainline. He sees the fragment that is left as an important place that needs to be protected. For David, the answer lies in education. If people knew what was at stake, they would take more care.

David worries that people are becoming disconnected from landscapes like this. Young people stay inside on their screens (a situation I am often attempting to counter at the very local level of my own household). But if we can get them outside, engaged with the issues of conservation and biodiversity, then sites like the Moss are more likely to be protected. David says that we need to appreciate nature and the natural world more.

David tells me about a walk with the Ramblers (where he met Carol, who put us in touch). Half-way along the ‘Magnificent 11’ route round Linn Park, King’s Park and Castlemilk Park in the south side of Glasgow, he asked the group to stop. They stood in a circle with hands linked and eyes closed. And they listened. This invitation to become immersed in the environment and to take part in a listening exercise together had a profound effect on some of the group. Some told David they had not expected to be so deeply moved.

David encourages me to close my eyes and listen now. For a couple of minutes, I tune into the wind. It sounds different notes from various directions: a shrill whistling through the trees and a low, rumbling countermelody from the west. An approaching train joins the harmony, and I open my eyes to sunshine falling across the heather.

Suddenly, there is a commotion, and David excitedly directs my attention to the far side of the bog. He tells me there is a buzzard being mobbed by crows. I see a flash of brown dropping to the ground and we watch as a single, brave corvid sustains the attack. This is similar behaviour to the incident that I noticed with Carol, in the nearby trees. I wonder whether there was more going on then than I realised at the time. Perhaps the buzzard was involved then, too.

For the final section of our walk, we return to the main path. We say good morning to a jogger, who I have chatted with during the Lenzie Running Club outings. He is always very encouraging to Ruairidh, who joins in too. A mother pushes her baby in a pram. A couple walk their labrador.

I feel like I have just returned from an adventure into a wilder Moss, which exists just beyond the everyday journeys that people take here. David has shown me that there are roe deer, buzzards, and shifting winds out there to be discovered by those who take the time to listen. I think we can all learn something from David’s way of being in a place like this.

Mar 16, 2026

In every town and city today, cutting across parks and waste ground, you’ll see unofficial paths created by walkers who have abandoned the pavements and roads to take short cuts and make asides. (Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways)

I meet Stewart on the high street and appreciate his energy right away. We set off at a quick pace, and our conversation matches our passage. Stewart grew up on the Isle of Arran, works in property development, and has lived in Lenzie with his family since 2018. His wife is from the town, and they now live in her old family home. They have three children at the local primary and secondary schools and relatives nearby – in Lenzie and Bishopbriggs. While Stewart occasionally walks their dog on the Moss, it isn’t a place that he spends much of his time, but he is enthusiastic about the chance to walk with me today and to think about the possible futures for this place.

Stewart’s thinking is shaped by a varied career, including ten years as a navy officer and several in a senior banking role, with RBS and Barclays. He is used to being part of and leading complex multi-partner projects. Now, in his current job, he is always thinking about chains and networks and management. What would it mean to manage the ‘project’ of Lenzie Moss differently?

Stewart tells me about the ‘dig once’ concept in urban planning, which encourages the integration of different workstreams. If a gas engineer is digging up a high street to replace pipes, then it makes sense for the telecommunications, electricity and draining projects to come together to use the opportunity to do their work at the same time. That makes a lot of sense, but it requires clear communication channels, effective databases and strong project management. Stewart suggests that these things might be missing here and that they may be key to navigating the multiple interests and requirements of the Moss – from broken benches to hydrological surveys to community access. Everyone needs to have ‘skin in the game’.

We also discuss the funding required to maintain a place like this. Local councils are under severe financial pressure at the moment, leading to increases in tax and difficult decisions about priorities. In the long term, there is no guarantee that the Moss will receive the same level of investment. But if I have learnt one thing about bogs over the last year, it is that they are always changing. As Jackie said to me at the start of the project, without continual conservation, homes could flood and fires could start; the site would quickly dry out and revert to scrub-land, and birch trees would take over.

Stewart mentions the plans for community ownership of Lenzie Public Hall, which I learnt about when I walked with Clare. For community-driven development projects like this, Stewart promotes pragmatism about sustaining the business. Leasing, corporate hires, philanthropy – all these could be key to sustaining the community groups and education activities that people want to see thrive. I think back to my time working at the Arches arts centre in Glasgow, which closed in 2015 after many years of large-scale club events supporting a vibrant artistic community and arts programme. I remember lots of tension between the different uses of the building; every new project involved a negotiation with the different programming teams about space and resources.

We leave the boardwalk and wander across the bog, following the well-established ‘desire path’ that skirts this side of the south woods path. Desire lines have been mentioned several times during this project. These are trails made by people or animals taking the most desirable route through a landscape and sometimes creating an ‘unofficial’ pathway through repeated footfall. In The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane explains that these rough trails establish themselves and become part of the physical and cultural landscape.

There are examples of Scandinavian and North American landscape architecture responding to desire lines. Perhaps most famously, the Ohio State University paved the lines created by student’s repeated footfall over the years, modelling the network of new paths on the lines made by previous generations. It seems that this has happened on the Moss as well, as the relatively new boardwalk includes a short side route with steps down onto the main desire path – just at the point where Deirdre and I noticed the exposed root system, which I took as a metaphor for the entanglement of lines that comprise this project.

The Moss is criss-crossed with desire lines, which are most prominent in the woodland around edges of the bog. The newly erected fencing, placed at intervals along the central raised bank, is intended to prevent this practice from continuing into the centre of the site. Today, it would be difficult to circumvent these structures due to the wetness of the mire. But in very icy or very hot weather, it would be possible to simply walk around them. Elsewhere on the Moss, when barriers are put in place, desire paths form as routes meander round pools and fences. We follow the unofficial lines through the wood to return to the main path, which takes us back to the station carpark.

As we walk up Kirkintilloch Road together, Stewart offers more examples of planning and infrastructure projects, which have shaped his approach to site development and long-term planning. From navy boat docking to aeroplane engineering, medical bookings to large-scale tourist events: Stewart pays close attention to how systems work and applies this thinking to the Moss, too.

What else could Lenzie Moss be used for? What are the alternative funding streams that haven’t yet been considered? How can the different users be brought together to work towards the same goals? How should such coordination be managed? Stewart suggests that we need to ask such questions here. He implies that the Moss would benefit from more ambitious and radical plans. He talks about the importance of listening to the ‘voice of the customer’. By bringing together what the different groups – such as conservationists, dog walkers, and families – actually want, we can define the ‘so what’ and the ‘why’. This would allow the Moss to develop in a way that is intertwined with its users, rather than treating different needs as ‘parallel pillars’.

Just before we go our separate ways, Stewart mentions that his perspective and his way of talking about community spaces isn’t always welcome. To bring a property developer into the room is often to disrupt established approaches; to set a cat amongst the pigeons. I can see how some of Stewart’s terms, questions and suggestions could run counter to the slow, careful conservation that is often preferred for the Moss. But my own thinking about the site has been challenged today and I have valued the many examples and analogies that Stewart has shared with me. Thinking differently about the Moss might be just what is required for more ‘customers’ to invest in its future. Perhaps this is how new desire lines are formed?

Mar 4, 2026

March has arrived with birdsong, sunshine and new shoots. Today I am walking with Carol, who got in touch after hearing about the project through Walk Run Cycle East Dunbartonshire. Carol had originally suggested meeting a couple of weeks ago in the hope that her granddaughter would accompany us during the half term school holidays. But perhaps unsurprisingly, the prospect of a wander round a bog with a random researcher did not appeal to an eight-year-old, so only Carol and I will be circling the Moss this morning.

We set off and are soon witness to a drama in the skies, as crows swoop down to the birch trees to fend off rivals. Their ‘caw-caws’ and screeches reach out across the bog. Smaller birds fly off to safer perches. After the stillness of winter, there is a notable change in the land this week. The tiniest of hawthorn leaf buds are visible. The Moss is charging itself up, ready for the explosion of life that comes with the new season.

Carol is recovering from a broken pelvis, acquired while holidaying on the Isle of Arran, after an encounter with a suitcase in the dark. It has been a long, slow process. Carol has been in a lot of pain and has had to return to hospital over the last few months. She is gradually testing how far she can go and while she is fine for now, she doesn’t know whether the pain will return during our walk.

Halfway up Bea’s Path, we encounter a group of women of a similar age to Carol, kitted up with waterproofs and hiking boots. Among them is a friend of Carol’s, who she knows from the Ramblers. They share a hug and while the rest of the pack continue on their way, the two friends stop for a quick chat. The group are Soroptimists – ‘a global volunteer movement whose mission is to transform the lives and status of women and girls through education, empowerment and enabling opportunities’; they are walking for the upcoming International Women’s Day. Carol introduces me and my project. I learn that there will be a talk on the history of Lenzie Moss on Thursday, delivered by Kay for the Kirkintilloch Antiquaries.

The connections that Carol has made through walking mean a lot to her, but it seems that her injury has made it difficult to maintain these friendships. Carol has only lived in Lenzie for about the same time that I have. She moved here from Lancashire to be close to her daughter and granddaughter. I tell Carol that I made the same move, in a way (I lived in the same county for a couple of years when I was a toddler and my younger brother Phil is a native ‘Lancashire Lad’). Carol is enjoying living here but she is spending more time indoors than she would like to and is watching more television than she is accustomed to.

We dodge the huge puddles on the path and Carol tells me about some of her adventures over the years. She spent most of her career as a maths teacher, which included taking part in an exchange programme that allowed her to live and work in Australia for a year. Later, Carol left her job and travelled to Papua New Guinea, where she also worked as a teacher, and she then spent time as a travel rep in the Swiss Alps. Carol notices a plane fly over the Moss, and she tells me that she is less inclined to travel by air these days.

We pass the great oak on the North Woods Path and stop to admire its twisted branches, which are leafless for now but full of potential. A couple of pigeons are roosting high above us. Carol says that she loves trees and has been known to hug them, too. We examine the shapes against the sky and Carol says that she would like to take up drawing again. I wonder if there are any art groups nearby and can well imagine Carol and the Soroptimist women visiting the Moss with sketchpads and pencils. Walking and drawing are closely related since both are actions that create lines and entanglements. Close by, a new plaque has appeared on a tree stump, commemorating ‘Gus “Wee G” King of the Moss 2010-2026’.

As we emerge from the trees to look out across the bog, Carol asks me about the fencing that has appeared here since her last visit. I explain that it is there to block access, and Carol understands the reasons for this. There has been another development, though. Now several of the fence posts have been painted in a thick black anti-vandal paint, which is visible across the bog. A new sign – already blurred by heavy rain – warns potential transgressors away. The sign that I noticed with Logan is now lying in the mud. So, this is the third sign in just a few weeks, and these have evolved from ‘help make space for nature’ to ‘Please don’t walk on the bog’ to ‘Warning anti-vandal paint’. I worry about how these new physical barriers and the dialling up of rhetoric in the signage will be received.

We follow the path back into the woods and as we reach the narrow wooden bridge that is really part of a dam, something splashes into the water. As we move closer to inspect, we are surprised by a pair of copulating frogs! I photograph them and apologise for invading their privacy, but they seem quite happy and entirely indifferent to our presence. Then we balance as we walk cautiously along the plank (Carol is comfortable to do so) and join the path on the other side.

As we reach the end of our walk, Carol notices that she has been pain-free for the last hour. We have made steady progress round the Moss today, stepping over puddles, navigating uneven surfaces and shuffling along a narrow beam. I am delighted that Carol seems to have enjoyed this walk without discomfort. I am sure that she will be out rambling with her friends again soon. Some barriers can be overcome.

Mar 2, 2026