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Daily Record
29-05-2025
- Daily Record
The serene secret garden tucked away in the heart of Edinburgh's bustling city centre
The garden is so well hidden that many people don't even know it exists. Scotland is known for its many iconic and spectacular gardens. From the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to Dawyck Botanic Garden in the Scottish Borders, there is no shortage of lovely green spaces. If you are looking for something a bit more secluded, however, there are also plenty of lesser-known gardens dotted around the country. One of these is even found within the Scottish capital, and it is the Daily Record's latest Walk of the Week. For the newest edition of our weekly series where we spotlight Scotland's top walks and beauty spots, we have chosen Dunbar's Close in Edinburgh. The secret garden can be found off the Royal Mile—one of the busiest areas in the city. Hiding in plain sight, Dunbar's Close is a quiet oasis in the heart of Edinburgh. It dates back to the 1970s, though looks significantly older as it is based on a formal 17th-century garden. Located on the left side after you enter the Canongate walking away from the castle, the garden was created by landscape architect Seamus Filor and funded by the Mushroom Trust. Previously an unremarkable close, it was transformed into a lush green retreat. Dunbar's Close is divided into numerous sections that each contain various hedges, trees, and flowers. It was designed to give visitors an idea of what gardens may have been like back in the 17th century. The best time to visit the garden is in spring or summer, when the flowers are in bloom and add a pop of colour to the predominantly green space. During the summer, you may spot flowers such as snapdragons, cupid's dart, honeywort, and marigold. There are also benches dotted around Dunbar's Close, ideally situated for anybody needing to take a rest amidst a busy day out in Edinburgh. You can even bring a picnic with you and enjoy lunch in idyllic surroundings. Read on for a few photos showing why Dunbar's Close is a hidden gem worth exploring. For those looking for further travel inspiration, some of the Daily Record's past Walks of the Week can be found below: The little known Scottish beach that is 'jewel in the crown of secret coast' The perfect Scottish beach near 'best fish and chips in the world' The hidden gem loch just outside Glasgow near 'best fish and chips in Scotland' The hidden gem Scottish waterfall pool you can swim in to cool off during heatwave The Scottish Highlands hike that ends at 'Scotland's cosiest pub' The Scottish city cherry blossom walk near historic pub with beer garden The Scottish seaside beach walk with 'delicious' fish and chips and ice cream shop Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - sign up to the Scotland Now newsletter here. More On Gardens and flowers Walking and climbing Edinburgh Discover Scotland
Glasgow Times
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
How to enter Scottish Wildlife Trust writing competition
The contest, held in association with the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, is now open for entries. This year, the theme is 'From source to sea' and participants are encouraged to submit original works about Scotland's freshwater and marine habitats. Read more: Rising stand-up comedians to perform in Glasgow for first time Entries can take the form of poetry, short stories, journalistic articles, essays, letters, or even song lyrics, and can be written in English, Scots, or Gaelic. Jo Pike, chief executive of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, said: "Following a hugely successful competition last year, we're thrilled to bring back Words of the Wild for 2025. "This year we're focusing on the incredible wildlife and habitats found in and around Scotland's lochs, rivers and seas. "Whether it's a memorable moment on a riverside walk, an awesome experience at a seabird city or an epic encounter on one of our snorkel trails, we can't wait to read everyone's stories." River woodland (Image: Scottish Wildlife Trust) The competition will select an adult and junior winner for each language, with more than £2,000 worth of prizes to be won. Entries are limited to one per person and can be up to 1,000 words in length. Adult prizes include a pair of binoculars from Viking Optical and a selection of nature books from Canongate, while junior prizes include a snorkelling set from Arran Active and a £100 wildlife equipment voucher for NHBS. The judging panel features notable names from literature and conservation, including Scots poet Len Pennie, Scottish Wildlife Trust chair Dr Kenny Taylor, and former Scots Scriever Susi Briggs. The deadline for submissions is Saturday, July 12, with the winners to be announced at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival in October. Read more: Orchestra release new album after collaborating with Glasgow recording studio Dr Taylor said: "Nature has inspired some of Scotland's greatest literary creations, from the tim'rous beastie in Rabbie Burns' 'To a Mouse', to Nan Shepherd's exploration of the Cairngorms in 'The Living Mountain'. "Last year's competition highlighted that this talent and connection to nature is still alive and well in the writers of Scotland, and I'm delighted to be involved once again." Donald Smith, director of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, said: 'Nothing touches us more deeply than our experiences of natural life. "We have to dig creatively into our powers of language and the gift of storytelling to express them. "I am sure that this year's competition theme 'From Source to Sea' will evoke a host of evocative journeys and encounters.' More information about the competition, including details on how to enter, can be found on the Scottish Wildlife Trust's website.
Scotsman
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Everyone into the mountain! Nan Shepherd's enduring legacy
Shepherd's continuing influence can be seen in several contributions to There She Goes, a new book of travel writing by women, writes Roger Cox Sign up to our Scotsman Rural News - A weekly of the Hay's Way tour of Scotland emailed direct to you. Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... When Nan Shepherd's dazzling hymn to the Cairngorms, The Living Mountain, was first published in 1977, shortly before the author's death in 1981, it made very little impact. In the years since it was rescued from obscurity by Edinburgh publisher Canongate in 2011, however, and republished with a glowing introduction by Robert Macfarlane, it has made a significant mark, not just on the booming genre of New Nature Writing, but also on attitudes towards outdoor recreation more generally. Looking west from Ben Macdui, Cairngorms National Park | Roger Cox / The Scotsman How much of a mark? It's impossible to say exactly. Academics use citations to track the importance or otherwise of a piece of research; literary writing, by contrast, doesn't require the citing of sources, so while an author might be heavily influenced by Shepherd and her thinking, they might never say so explicitly. What we can do, however, in an attempt to apportion Shepherd some kind of non-scientific impact score, is to look at her most important ideas and assess how often these seem to crop up in the work of contemporary writers; and judging by a new book of new travel writing by women titled There She Goes, edited by Esa Aldegheri, her philosophy is alive and well and having a major influence on some of the leading non-fiction writers of today. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Perhaps the best-known aspect of Shepherd's worldview, and certainly the most frequently quoted, is her preference for walking 'into' mountains rather than walking 'up' them. In The Living Mountain she explains how, in later life, she learned to ignore the summit fever she experienced as a young woman – 'the tang of height' as she calls it – and instead just enjoy the feeling of being in the mountains – 'merely to be with the mountain as one visits a friend, with no intention but to be with him.' Nan Shepherd Clearly this presents a challenge to the vast majority of existing (and mostly male-produced) mountain literature, which typically casts mountain-going as an ego-driven slog to 'conquer' peaks, during which the hero (occasionally the heroine, but usually the hero) must endure great suffering and overcome seemingly impossible obstacles in order to prevail. Shepherd undercuts all this at a stroke by effectively asking: 'does getting to the top ever really matter?' One of the most thought-provoking pieces in There She Goes is written by Lee Craigie – a former mountain bike champion who applies this same logic to the hard-bitten world of endurance cycling. 'After a career of full-time mountain bike racing,' she writes, in 'Rewriting the Hero's Journey', I felt compelled to stop and consider whether my life-long passion was now serving me. Only when I took this step back from the intense focus on timed laps and beating others over a finish line did I find the space to remember the reason I fell in love with riding bikes in the first place: I had always loved the journey.' A walker on the Cairngorm Plateau | Roger Cox / The Scotsman Craigie could of course have reconnected with her love of the journey simply by setting off on a long-distance bike ride by herself. Instead, however, she and a group of female friends decided to enter a (male-dominated) 500km race called Further Elements, starting and finishing at Corrour Station on Rannoch Moor, but forgoing much of the required suffering by not sleeping outside and riding in a group as opposed to solo. At the end of it all, they announce that they want to be disqualified from the race standings. 'This ride had not been a race to the bitter end for any of us,' Craigie writes. 'It had been a test of empathy, mutual care and respect for our surroundings.' Inevitably, perhaps, when they post their story on social media they draw a fair bit of flack – 'Why did you enter a race and not race?'; 'Did you not feel you had undermined the spirit of the event?' – but this had been the point; in a sense, their ride was The Living Mountain in performative form. Rather than respond to their critics, Craigie writes, 'we preferred to leave these questions hanging in the air for others to reflect on.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There's a similar, Shepherd-inspired conclusion to Marjorie Lotfi's contribution to the book, 'How Far My Body Can Go'. Ostensibly it's an essay about her preparations to run the New York Marathon; however, the real moment of revelation comes not from completing the race, but from her realisation that, in the process of training for it, she has come to feel very much at home in the Pentland Hills near her adopted home of Edinburgh. 'Up there[...], miles from the nearest road, I felt more at home than I'd ever felt in Edinburgh,' she writes. 'I felt like myself in those woods, and in the reservoir where I would go on to dip and stretch at the end of my run.' This not only chimes with Shepherd's 'into the mountain' philosophy, but also her emphasis on the value of coming to know a place intimately – visiting the mountain 'as one visits a friend.' And surprisingly, perhaps, for a book of travel writing, this idea of returning again and again to the same, often local corner of the natural world until it feels like part of us crops up multiple times in There She Goes. In her essay 'Stay At Home,' Sarah Thomas writes of how her daily journeys to a heronry during lockdown allowed her to both 'travel deep and stay at home'. Shepherd herself could hardly have put it better.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
All Fours by Miranda July audiobook review – the frank, sexy novel everyone's been talking about
In the second novel by writer, actor and film-maker Miranda July, a nameless Los Angeles-based artist who has had success 'in several mediums' leaves behind her husband, Harris, and their young child, Sam, to drive across America. She is due at a meeting in New York and has decided to get there via a leisurely road trip. But what starts off as a fleeting break from the mundanity of marriage and motherhood turns into a wild and wonderfully odd unravelling. Just half an hour into her journey, she impulsively leaves the freeway and checks into a scruffy motel. There she is electrified by a younger car hire worker who has 'a Huckleberry Finn/Gilbert Blythe look that I used to flip out over as a teenager.' After the two lock eyes while he squeegees her windscreen (not a euphemism), she decides to pursue him in an unusually chaste love affair. All Fours – which has been shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for fiction – is narrated by July whose pacy, hypnotic reading skilfully evokes the internal monologue of her protagonist, who pinballs between drily funny and existentially bereft. The book has been called a menopause novel on the basis that it centres on a 45-year-old dismayed at being halfway through her life and past her peak (both her grandmother and aunt killed themselves and she worries she is next in line). But there's more than just dwindling oestrogen in this frank and subversive tale which reflects on desire, freedom and creativity, and shines a light on the complex inner life of a woman. Available via Canongate, 10hr 13min Maternity ServiceEmma Barnett, Penguin Audio, 1hr 50min The Today presenter narrates her manifesto for rethinking women's maternity leave based on her own experiences on motherhood's 'frontline'. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Character LimitKate Conger and Ryan Mac, Penguin Audio, 15hr 20min This blistering behind-the-scenes account of Elon Musk's catastrophic Twitter takeover is read by Edoardo Ballerini.
