happenings

Mon, Mar 23, 2015

It just sort of happened. I emailed the editor of The Scottish Mountaineer, the magazine of the MCofS, asking if he’d like an article on wild sleeps and pointed him to my flickr stuff as examples of pictures. The reply was along the lines of ‘yes but how about a photo feature first?’. And so, in the February 2015 edition, it duly appeared.

Solas, a collection of mountain light pictures, with some Gaiku thrown in. The bivi article is still coming. It’ll be in the May edition and I’ve just finished it (I think). It has Chinese mountain poetry in it and lots of philosophising and beard scratching (not that I have one!)

However, after Solas appeared, a nice lady from the John Muir Trust emailed me to ask if I’d like to have a photographic exhibition at their Wild Spaces gallery in Pitlochry. I jumped at the chance and the landscape/wildlife exhibition will be next spring. I just have to get some existing pics printed to gallery standard and take some more, perhaps with some exploration of traditional print medium. I think I’ll be offering them for sale too. Exciting stuff!

Another pot on the bubble is getting my motorcycle license. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but never got round to it. I rode a 90cc machine a very long time ago on a provisional license, before the days of CBT and it was a hoot going across Rannoch Moor. It could manage 60mph downhill but I could still overtake the odd tourist on the moor. Now I’ve done my CBT on a YBR125, which was immense fun scooting round Inverness and I’ve had some training on a Suzuki GSF650, with mod1 test hopefully next month. It’s a huge step up from a 125 to a 650 but the test will be on the 650 to let me access bigger still. I suspect a 500 or 650 will be fine for what I have in mind though.

Motorcycle? It’s always been there in the back of my mind and I’ve got a project in mind in the next couple of years so I feel it’s time to feed that particular rat. Deep down it touches something that’s been dormant. But why do I like it? The freedom? The skill? The complete responsibility for one’s actions? It’s hard to describe but when you’ve come off the dual carriageway on an unfared bike, slow down and lift your visor, the world bursts in upon you, in its multitude of colours, smells and sounds. You feel like you’ve been on another plane entirely. The wind pressure is off and you feel every part of you alive in the moment. On the open road it’s an immense feeling of freedom and responsibility. There are no dual controls, no instructor sitting next to you to save your recklessness. It’s you, the bike, what limited skill you have and the instructor behind, in radio contact, talking you through hazards, risks, skills. The bike is part of you but you feel as though she wants to ride alone until you get to know her. Someone once said the bike is a better rider than you. She always has something to teach you.

Motorcycling feels to me like ice climbing. It’s not mainstream, it’s perceived as high risk, when you tell people about it they can’t understand why you do it but if you do it, you know.

But my cycling is still there. First love is always the best, even cycling through this winter when the amount of snow has been phenomenal. Unfortunately it’s trashed my disc pads on the MTB with the salt and the aluminium pin has fused to the unit so it’s a bit of a head scratch to get the pads out. But it was fun in the snow! And a bikepacking trip is on the offing. Fatbiking, now that looks fun!

Then there’s the Gaiku book…