Icebergs on the Tweed During the hard winter of 2010 I was driving into Kelso and was astonished to see little icebergs floating down the river! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but I think the council was clearing the snow from the roads upriver and tipping it into the Tweed. An unexpected arrival […]

What a Romantic River – canoeing in the ice at winter time with my husband-to-be. [Peebles and Neidpath] In the 1980s I paddled down the Tweed from Peebles to the sea. It took me two days. The Tweed Canoe Club, based in Galashiels, meets in a pond at Tweedbank to teach young people to canoe. […]

Hay Lodge Park, Peebles. Wild Writers Festival, Eastgate January 2026. It was sleeting but I’d paid for my guided wild swim at the Dookits, so I was determined to do it! Ingrid was so reassuring and the whole experience was magical – especially when two deer jumped in just nearby and swam across the river. […]

The old highway to Edinburgh crossed the Tweed near Tweedbank. It was known as ‘Garthgate’, the King’s Road. Between Melrose and Galashiels there was a very old crossing of the Tweed called Pringles Bridge, which has now been completely lost. It was associated with the cannons being taken over the river for the battle at […]

My partner is involved in the Borders Forest Trust, so we decided to go for a walk at Carrifran near Moffat. They said there was a chance we might see golden eagles. At that moment, I looked up and there were TWO golden eagles circling overhead! Carrifran Woodland. [I love] Walking and skinny dipping in […]

I first started creative writing about a year before COVID, enticed by a free Gateshead Council project called Art Diamonds that ran sessions in libraries throughout the borough for those over the age of 50. During COVID our tutor used to send us prompts and we met on Zoom. That particular day, I think I […]