Earth Wondering

Since about November 2008 I've developed a habit of writing a daily 'wondering'. These are short bits of text, usually about something on the croft, if I'm here, or the natural world elsewhere, if I'm not. Some of the wonderings are variants on the theme of 'wow, look at that, isn't that incredible/great/beautiful/splendid/perplexing'. Many are questions, blurts about something that makes me scratch my head and furrow my brows, or mysteries I wish I understood.

For example, here's one of the former variety, from Summer: 'A cormorant surfaces with a fish in its beak, and the mirror-calm loch rolls into a spiral of ripples, widening until the water is a huge vinyl disc, ready to play cormorant waltzes. A tern dips like the diamond-tipped needle – let the music begin.'

From winter, one of the questioning ones: 'A woodcock, invisible until almost trodden on, batters away through a thicket of hazel. How does it not smash into the trees?'

I scratch them down in a notebook, and gradually the pages have mounted up. Last year I took a selection of wonderings I wanted to share, organised them into four sets, one for each season, and created four booklets illustrated with some of Bill Ritchie's wonderful close-up photographs. I gave them as gifts to a few people, who seemed to enjoy them. They are handmade, printed on 100% recycled paper and bound with string.

Now they're for sale, on my website, for £5.50 each or £19.50 for the set. Or you can get them for rather less than that direct from me.