Margi Bryant

Yes, it was good! I liked your blog notes but you missed out Steven Lipscombe from @rewildingbritain.org.uk who came up with my fave phrase of the week "people and the rest of nature". Although "love your bogs and scrub" from @ianthewildside.bsky.social was a close contender.

Stimulating time last week at www.ukeconet.org/wilder-future-for-the-uplands.html. Inspiring work going on but I'd like more focus on people as part of the process. Great wording from Steve Lipscombe @rewildingbritain.org.uk, not "people and nature" but "people and the rest of nature" #naturewriting

That's good to hear! That kind of wall/fence (of which there are lots around here) isn't good for deer. Should be either a proper high angled deer fence or a traditional drystone wall. They often knock a hole in walls but I've helped repair many such holes, glad they got through without injury.

Did the stag jumping the fence get over all right? I've seen them not quite make it and get stuck on that kind of wall/fence combo.

Happens to us all! Reminds me of the year when all teaching went online in 2020-21. Nightmare!

Looks lovely, whereabouts were you? I look forward to reading your new book!
Hope to say hello to you at the Paper Boats "Refuge for Nature?" meeting in Callander next month.

My brilliant daughter-in-law created a triptych of erasure poems for part of her MSc. The underlying text is Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, but the poems and images subvert and critique growth-based economics, referencing #1 colonialism, #2 degrowth and #3 reciprocity. Thoughtful and beautiful!

Yes of course, "the century's corpse outleant". Thanks! I must have been thinking of "In time of the breaking of nations", which is actually more positive re continuation of basic human activities and emotions.

I've known this poem since my teens but not reaiised how much it represents right now! Was it written around the time of the outbreak of WWI? How great that you're teaching it. I just wish I could be party to the "blessed hope" that the thrush knows.

Really heartfelt congratulations! You kindly signed a copy of this last year for me to give to my son and daughter-in-law, who had followed "Lost Rainforests" up and down the west coasts of Wales and Scotland! They loved "Lie of the Land" just as much.

Isn't Restore Trust associated with the collective of far-right think tanks based at 55 Tufton Street, which draws on support from various disreputable forces incl the fossil fuel industry? I know that sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory, but sometimes conspiracy theories are, well, conspiracies!

True, housing cost less, if you had access to it. But if you were a single woman it was virtually impossible to take out a tenancy agreement or mortgage. And if you were a single women with a child, god help you!

Well you're a poetically gifted writer already, so unless you fancy the other option...
But I think I'll definitely risk it one day!

Loved this! Cadair is my favourite Welsh mountain. I've always meant to spend a night up there, which is reputed to make you either mad or poetically gifted. I wonder which I'd be?

I've always thought of them as a complement to my cats! Not as cute when young, not as independent from the get-go (but they get there eventually), but they can (also eventually) unload the dishwasher.

Conference: A Wilder Future for the Uplands For those of you interested in the uplands, UKEconet and the South Yorkshire Biodiversity Research Group are co-hosting a three-day conference in Sheffield in October. The conference includes two d…

Key themes: management & protection of temperate rainforest, natural regeneration, Curlews, peat cutting, grouse moors, rewilding.

Oct 1-3, Sheffield. Booking now open.

Details 🔽

raptorpersecutionuk.org/2025/08/24/c...

Finally quit my university job and spent the week helping out with a survey of moorland vegetation. I can now confidently distinguish between bilberry, cowberry, crowberry, cranberry, assorted heathers and multiple grasses, sedges and rushes. Nice transition to a life more focused on #naturewriting

Definitely a listening priority for me. When I worked for Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, we were negotiating with farmers to protect the coastal heath and its insect populations, which are choughs' main food supply. Looks like it worked, with nearly 100 breeding pairs last year!

Looks wonderful! "Weeds" are a cultural construct.

But there's a clear recent uptake in city-dwellers wanting to "be in nature", especially since the pandemic My own research in the Peak District shows that the vast majority of visitors come from nearby cities - not travelling far, not spending lots of money, and feeling very connected to place.

Excellent protest walk today across part of the Duke's trashed moorland. The mismanagement is not just "alleged", it's glaringly obvious. And it's not only about wildlife: degraded peat moorland releases carbon and contributes to climate change, and heather burning causes the majority of wildfires.

Trying to convince these two that this is #internationalcatday but they're not too impressed. With their very different personalities, it took some cunning (and strategically placed treats) to lure them into the same space for a photocall. But they're a roller-coaster delight every day of the year.

I was by the river a while ago with an elderly lady who loved kingfishers. She had prints of kingfishers on her walls, stone kingfishers on her gateposts, but had never seen one. We paused by a bend, and there was that flash of blue. But she was looking away, and missed it. I felt so bad for her!

Very wise words from you, Nic, about transaction and tropes. Just before the Salt Path furore, I decided that the nature memoir I've been sporadically working on for a year was uncomfortably formulaic. Now exploring other approaches, drawing inspiration from other peoples' work, including yours!

You might as well wish for piggies to take wing! Believe me, I work for a Russell Group university.

Yet, ironically, they've pinched the report title from the 1991 Countryside Commission review of English & Welsh national parks! You'd think that might have been a reminder of the importance of access to green space and nature.

Thank you for such a thoughtful piece! Very close to my own trajectory of involvement with nature writing. But I hope the Salt Path fiasco hasn't done irrevocable damage to other stories and aspirations - and I'd love to have read the book you didn't write!

Marloes is glorious but you need to watch the tides. The rock buttresses create coves which become pinch-points when the tide is high. I was once caught in one of these, attempted to escape by free-climbing the cliff, got stuck, and had to be rescued. Mortifyingly embarrassing!

I've signed up to the FB group!

Taken some time off for an inspiring week at Moniack Mhor (moniackmhor.org.uk) where @kathleenjamie.bsky.social was guest writer, followed by a glorious wander round the Ardnamurchan peninsula, combining (if I can steal some earlier Jamie-isms) enraptured solitude with blethering to the locals.