If peat is being sold to us as a great way to capture carbon pollution how come those who trumpet that message are as addicted to using fossil fuels as the rest of us? Grass cutting with petrol strimmers and fuel guzzling diesel diggers on Flanders Moss.

“Particular prominence was gained with “Water Peat” (Gidrotorf, 1920) a documentary about new techniques of peat extraction that was screened to Vladimir Lenin in October 1920, purportedly initiating a stronger support for Russia’s moribund film industry by the Bolshevik leadership.”
p.763 Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema, Peter Rollberg. Scarecrow Press 2009

Peat Wars: Sci-Fi Soviet peat cutting tractors.

Wind.

Closest, closer, close.

From ‘The Merry Muses of Caledonia’ (partly written, partly collected by Robert Burns).

“…Her kittle black een they wad thirl you thro’.
Her rose-bud lips cry, kiss me now;
The curls and links o’ her bonie black hair,
Wad put you in mind that the lassie has mair

An armfu’ o’ love is her bosom sae plump,
A span o’ delight is her middle sae jimp;
A taper, white leg, and a thumpin thie,
And a fiddle near by, an ye play a wee!

Love’s her delight, and kissin’s her treasure;
She’ll stick at nae price, and ye gie her gude measure,
As lang’s a sheep-fit, and as girt’s a goose-egg,
And that’s the measure o’ Muirland Meg.

Close. Closer. Closest. With only a phone camera you have to move in slow motion to photograph the common lizards who move as quick as a flash on the Flanders Moss boardwalk.

This bird shit on Flanders Moss is a beautiful mauve.

 The unleashed Irish Setter was allowed to cavort mindlessly all over the nature reserve by its mindless owner making a redshank yelp like a dog as it protected its nest- until the bog called the dog to heel, bringing its yelping, red shanks under inescapable, peaty control.

Despite the silence of the photo, a year on the sound of this lapwing defending its nest above the moor at Arnol on Lewis still echoes in my head.