Sparrows, Hope, and Rules
Potentially the last newsletter before the baby arrives… This is a season of storm. The birds know it, they are frantic, feeding as quickly as they can before vanishing from sight as the sky drops into the valley and all…
Tag newsletter
The Golden Mountain
Of hammocks and new growth. As with the spring and the mountain greening, the fall of autumn begins in patches. It is first noticed one morning, with two or three trees shunning their former verdancy, in exchange for a cloak of…
The Mountain Greening
All Things Linked Of all the magics I have witnessed, the time of the mountain greening is perhaps that which quickens my heart the most. The bursting of spring is deliciously fresh, the bee drone of the long hot summer…
Free and Reduced Books!
And a discussion about Substack Pro and corrupting the youth. This is the third newsletter from me this month, so I shall keep this relatively brief, covering two topics only, interspersed as always with a handful of my photos. Like…
Whispers of Summer
From a Window The bedroom — my office — window is open, despite the downpour. At this side of the building it mostly flies beyond the eaves, lashing into the orange grove and obscuring all but the nearest hill. Such…
Worlds Within Worlds
Lichens and Habits There are worlds within worlds: look closer and you will see. Here, in The Alentejo, it is the season of rain. Heavy, insistent Atlantic rain, or fine, cloudlike cover, blanketing all in moisture, swaddling in grey. Ridgelines…
Islands of Hope
Waters of Warmth Specks of seedlings are strewn across the empty plant pots on the balcony. The flowers or salad they held are now mostly long gone, with the exception of a single nasturtium and a sprawling and exceedingly hardy…
Sunset, On Quite A Year
But the sun also rises. The air grips the lungs from the inside, mountain-cold and surprisingly dry, despite the thick fog weaving tendrils down streets and throwing a blanket over the valley. There are snow-covered peaks in all directions, but…
Free Review Copies Available!
Finally. Something different. This is not your normal, monthly newsletter — that will arrive early in December; this is a bonus, and something I have threatened for a while. The first in my series (Tales of The Lesser Evil) is…
Notebooks and Enchantments
Distillation and Colour November is usually a time of grey, of bleaching and the last of the chlorophyll leaching away as winter drags her blanket over all. Some stubborn leaves remain, to fall later in gale or frost, others have…