I am a grain of sand: ocean-bred, sun-baked, wind-blown and older than history. Once I lay hidden, motionless below an ancient sea, longing for the kiss of the sun, as a vague and distant prize through the silt. Over time, I grew to accept my abjectness and the complaining of my peers. But the world changed, rocks folded and the heat grew stronger, scalding away my captor: this brought me hope at first but soon the past purgatory seemed nothing against a new hell, as the arid

Turn your light off, he called. Save power! The words rang clear in the pre-dawn. Already, forms were emerging from the landscape, with...

I attended a recent screening of Why Not Scotland? The film was an enjoyable introduction to case studies of applied and natural...

My challenge was to go to work, drive up the road, run to the most remote loch in Scotland, swim for as long as I had heat reserves, run...

The body did not need to create such pain. That is my impression on recovering from a herniated disc, not once but four times in as many...

This was the very first question that I asked my ‘internet girlfriend’ who would, eventually, become my wife. She replied ‘Journey’...

Welcome to Argyll, a different place. It doesn’t match the Highlands with their tall mountains and deep glens, or the Lowlands, where men...

InRealLife, a film about teenagers, social media and electronic addiction.

I just had to write about this story because it made me smile. Appearing on the inside pages of some the regular suspects, beginning with...

During the first few months of 2013, I became fascinated by journeys because of their power to inspire and transform. For my first...

Outdoor education has been shown across time and geography to be an effective and safe means of learning. It’s relevant equally to...

I’ve recently found myself wondering how our infrastructure helps to shape our environment and behaviours. We take most of the built...

In Edinburgh’s National Library, an exhibition on map-making and the Bartholomew dynasty has been showing. This was a superb display of...

The snow was lying low in the Alps for early June, blanching the icy runnels between granite spires, dilly-dallying beneath the treeline....

That wintry Saturday, the snowy corrie that arcs down from Church Door Buttress into Glencoe looked fantastic. The sky was a perfect...

Travelling across Ukraine was an adventure in the 1990s, and being on the move was a source of comfort, even surprise. And if you were at...

Across Scotland, the mountains link in loops and chains and scatterings, from small hills near the cities to giants beyond the knowledge...