Merry Christ-moss. Fruiting sphagnums, Bankhead Moss.

“Rudolf with your nose so bright, won’t you pull my [peat sledge] tonight…”

Yule logs, Bankhead Moss.

It’s not just midwinter that’s bleak. June, Isle of Lewis.

Midwinter sunrise, south maltings, Newton of Falkland.

Gathering winter fuel. Peat stacked at Freuchie Garden Centre- “Ye cannae beat a peat heat.”

Underfoot the peat feels different. It is muddy, squelchy, sucking your at boot, trying to grasp you, draw you in- a beseeching, tempting but deceptive lover that lures with sensuous, smooth caressing. False solidity gradually liquifies and using your own bodyweight sinks you deeper into itself smothering until you are overwhelmed, suffocated. Siren.

Midwinter mosses.

Cosagach. A word adopted by the tourism industry to promote the warm glow visitors will feel on experiencing Scotland but which Gaelic scholars say actually means a wee hidey-hole for spiders. We have such a hole in our mantle piece. In their ‘cosagach’ by our fireplace tonight both human and spider families are enjoying a warm Scottish glow from the peat fire.

Winter mosses.