A Fall In Time: Week One

13th to the 21st of September, 2010

Sep 21, 2024

Hello and welcome to the first letter in this limited series, A Fall in Time.

If you have no idea what this is about, or why you are receiving it, head to this introductory piece, or read more below.

The idea is, as this autumn/fall progresses, I shall continue to share daily updates on Substack Notes, posting text and photos and even (very bad) video. You can view each day as a diary entry, telling you what I was doing out in the woods, one fall in time, fourteen years ago.

I am drawing on my journal entries, blog posts, photographs, and also a now-obsolete and private tumblr blog I kept, back in 2012, using these alongside my memory and current thoughts, to bring you this adventure with the added value of more than a decade of hindsight. This year, 2024, I am also using the series of daily Substack Notes I shared in 2023, some simply reshared, others reworked, and others entirely rewritten. I am adding in extras here and there too, especially in the form of letters on the subject, along with bonus images.

I have a lot more subscribers and followers than I did last year, and Substack Notes (and Substack) is a much bigger place after twelve months of growth—it makes a sort of sense to share this again (and helps me with preparing my book proposal featuring this topic).

Each week, I shall send out a letter with collated words and photos from the week’s Notes, and an extra paragraph or two.

Although this particular adventure physically ended in December 2010, it continued to shape me, my beliefs, my journeys and my self, in all the years since, and this is a crucial point to be made here, at the outset of the adventure—sometimes, we need to look deeply into the past to learn who we are, and where we may perhaps go.

Without further ado, here is the first week, covering the period of the 13th of September 2010 to the 21st of September. I have copied the text and added image galleries, and each date contains a link to the original Note, if you wish to head there instead of reading this.

I suspect this email (and the others to follow) may be too long for some email clients, so you may need to open it fully to read the whole.

Farewells

Tomorrow, the 14th of September, I shall begin sharing my limited series, discussing the time I left behind my life and walked out into the woods, to stay out there from September to December, alone.

Fourteen years ago today, I was busy cleaning the rental property I had been living in, saying goodbye to friends, neighbours, and the woman who had awoken something vibrant but confused within me. That and generally panicking that I had made entirely the wrong decision.

(2024 EDIT—along with recently being reunited with my journals, I also discovered/remembered Past Alex had exported all his text messages from that period as a .txt document, which feels a little strange to read, almost like eavesdropping on a much younger me somehow. Some are from friends I am no longer in touch with, and that makes me a little sad and/or nostalgic.)

There is a specific fear that comes with knowing you are going out to wilder places for a long period of time, a fear which is increased a hundredfold if you are going alone. Strangely, I like this sensation, it keeps me sharp—but it can put a lot of people off.

This photo was taken on my old pre-smart phone, the one I later used to take pictures of my handwritten blog posts, to send them to my sister to copy out and publish online. It was one of the last shots I took in the English city of Sheffield, Yorkshire, where I had lived for nearly a decade. I think this is fitting, in a certain way, the night was falling on my time there, but there was light enough to show me the path.

Do click the link and follow along, if you wish to keep up with the adventure ahead (and behind). I am looking forward to sharing this with you.

(This photo was taken at The Lescar pub, in Sheffield.)

Each a Glimpse and Gone Forever

Fourteen years ago today, I was sitting on the second of a series of trains, heading west to Glasgow, after catching my first train, north from Sheffield, at 0529. No one was there to wave me goodbye, which felt fitting. I had slept for about an hour.

Each minute was taking me further from the life I had built over the preceding decade. A life which had included a degree in Archaeology and Prehistory, a marriage, a divorce, friends, lovers, and struggles with trying to find meaning and a place in a world I did not feel was quite right for me.

I had chosen the 14th of September deliberately. Even further back in my days, it was the date I left behind my job at a bank (working with mortgages, would you believe?), to head off to university, the second, more successful time. It made a sense to me, to be able to use a date which mattered, bookending a period of my life neatly, in the way writers are wont to do, creating our own legends.

Long rail journeys are always perfect for introspection. Beyond the window, the world passes by, this field, that coppice, then a series of villages. All gone in a blink of an eye. One of my favourite poems from when I was a child was Robert Louis Stevenson’s From a Railway Carriage—and it still works enviably, even in this day and age. The title above comes from this poem and neatly encapsulates the way my mind was running through scenario after scenario, memory after memory. What was, what is, and what will be.

At the time, I did not really have a plan. I had not even decided where to exit the train. I just knew I needed solitude and the nature. I needed to rebuild.

I did not know I would stay out there until December.

I have no photographs from this day, the accompanying photos were taken some weeks earlier, during the Edinburgh festival: it makes sense to include these, looking out above Waverley.

Nor did I write in my journal. I did write about the journey a few days later, however, especially about a brief conversation I had, which has stuck with me, years later.

On the very last train of the day, around about teatime, I had settled on where I would leave the carriage and head out into the glistening landscape beyond the window. I had requested the stop—it was not normally in use, unless either asked for, or if the driver saw someone waving from the platform. There seemed to be a romance and mystery to that, a good place to start.

There were others in the carriage, others for whom I made up stories, trying to work out their lives, their motives, why they were travelling this way, and what the landscape beyond the glass inspired within them.

At a table near me sat a young man and woman, and an old, old man. I worked out that the woman was the man’s granddaughter, the younger man her partner. They were doing that thing of the young, ignoring the elderly or giving them scant replies and little attention, at best. I remember being frustrated for the man. He would try and engage them in conversation, shouting loudly over the noise. He had large hearing-aids behind each ear and clearly struggled to make himself heard, in more ways than one.

He looked out of the window almost as much as I did. Then, around about the same time I began to pack my things away for disembarking, he stood and cautiously made his way to the end of the carriage, where the doors were. There, he stood, gazing at the rough and tough country we were passing. I suspected he had been here, a long time ago—his gaze was certainly deep, looking at landscape and, it seemed, through time.

I walked to the door, my ridiculously large and heavy pack dragged along the floor, wooden staff in hand, shoulder bag already pulling me down. The man asked me what I was doing and I gave him a brief synopsis of my rough plan, of why I was out there. He nodded to me, glanced outside, then back again, replying with words which have stayed with me ever since,

‘What you are doing is banking for the future.’

The Bones of the Mountains

My first camp was one of necessity. I walked along a track for a time, then turned off into the woods, following a deer trail down to the coast. Everything was soaked after days of rain, something the west coast of Scotland excels in. The previous evening, quite late, I had staggered to a halt, dropped my pack, and strung tarp and hammock between two oak trees, thick trunks and stretching branches, reaching out inland, away from the prevailing ocean wind.

This entire hillside was rock and oak, with bog, heather, bracken, and the occasional other tree thrown in. All was wet, all was full of scent and sound, whether the owls at night or the eagle, the buzzard, or the raven during the day. There were other birds here, smaller friends and, whether it was night or day, the call of a loon over the sea loch I camped beside.

This landscape grows from the bones of mountains, worn by ice and rain, shattered by frost and fall. The trees that spring from cracks between boulders merge with the rocks themselves, like the oak I share here. Covered in lichen and moss they are almost indistinguishable from one another, overlapping and entwining. I was to spend many hours studying the minutiae of their covering, each tree or rock a tiny ecosystem. There are traces of ancient woodland management all over these hills and it is my guess this oak was pollarded many years ago, cut back to provide timber.

That first night, I slept deeply and long, before cooking breakfast and scouting for a better camp site, one out of the wind and weather, one more hidden, and one where I could take a few days to recover and, crucially, to think.

The long journey north on the 14th had tired me, along with the lack of sleep and the sudden, rather serious exercise, carrying a pack that weighed two thirds of my then body weight across rocks, through marsh and under trees. I was shattered, physically, but also emotionally—I needed rest, I needed time to come up with a plan, and I needed a new camp.

I found a good place, near a fast, bubbling burn (Scottish for stream), with a wide beach nearby, a tidal flat which would perfect for setting up my folding creels and gathering shellfish and seaweed, and plenty of driftwood and dead, seasoned oak for fuel, hidden amongst trees and shadowed boulders. I was tempted to move the same day, but decided another night wouldn’t make any difference, so stayed put, beginning to write in my journal (a new, classic Moleskine, blank paged. Beginning to write, I wondered whether I would fill it: by December, I was to fill it and nearly three other notebooks).

My journal entry for the 15th has the opening line:

“So, I have gone and done it.”

And done it I had.

Traces and Trails

I moved camp in the afternoon of the 16th, carefully. I took my time, knowing that the days no longer held a countdown, as they had previously, times when I only had a week to ten days out there in amongst the nature, then it was back to the office, to artificial light, the smell of worn carpets and even more worn clients. This time, I really did have as much time as I needed and it felt liberating.

As I walked, I startled two deer, both hinds, both on their own. The rut or, as we call it in Scotland, The Roaring, had yet to begin. There were traces of other animals too. Seal bones, badger setts and sign, a fox bark, and something dark that disappeared in the branches. Pine marten?

I was very conscious of the lack of decent path, or a path at all in places. To slip is one thing, to slip with a 155 litre unwieldy beast, filled with over 40 kilos (88lb) of supplies and equipment*, entirely another. The deer track I followed meandered and climbed steep banks, crossed deep bogs and wound through and beneath low hanging tree boughs.

It was a difficult journey, but I made it safely and set my hammock and tarp up with plenty of time remaining to cook and to watch an amazing sunset, the first of many.

I only took two photos this day, both from my hammock before I moved camp. Neither was very good, taken on my not very smart mobile phone, rather than using my camera. Still, this serves as a fitting illustration and reminder of the location.

*One of the bonus pieces I’m working on for paid subscribers discusses this, not just the tools and gear I carried, but the food. I’m not a fan of bland, boring cooking, so I carried more all manner of things ‘normal’ people would never think of taking into the woods, supplementing this with wild food as much as possible.

An Illusion of Wilderness

September the 17th has no journal entry. Fortunately, however, I remember from my photographs what I was doing, snapping fifty-six of them over three hours in the afternoon. (2024 EDIT: it appears I can only post six photos in a Note now, which must be a feature introduced this year.)

This was another day for exploring, for beachcombing. I first walked along the coast, taking pictures, examining possible shellfish collecting rocks, fishing spots, and places to set my two portable creels, all the while gathering neat piles of driftwood to collect later. Then, I ventured into the still-green oak woodland, between the deep sea loch and the heather-clad hills above.

It was interesting how many fallen oaks lay suspended above the forest floor, caught on other trees and the ever present shattered rocks. The resulting grey wood is seasoned, solid and makes excellent, slow and hot burning fuel. I began to consider how it would do the ecosystem good if it were to be once more sensitively managed, perhaps someone using a heavy horse to drag trunks along ancient trails, taking time to thin and choose the right trees, plant new ones, encourage the understorey and, above all, keep the sheep and deer away.

At some point in the preceding two years, those woods had been cleared of the menace of invasive rhododendron. The undergrowth had suffered in the years the native plants lacked sunlight, but it was already making a satisfying comeback. There were still far too many deer, however, with little future for the woodland unless they are removed, their numbers vastly reduced; the deer eat all the young trees, and damage too many of the older ones too.

My own preference would be to reintroduce the wolf and the lynx, but those are contentious issues. Sitting here typing this, in the Alps of France, I know I am not too far from wolf and lynx. Both are now back and doing well, and both species are essential to the ecosystem. Sadly, though, the hunting estates of Scotland, often owned by absentee landlords, many of whom inherited land stolen from the local people, are unlikely to want a reintroduction scheme. Much better to have the rich blast away at the deer, right?

As it was, during my time out on the coast I kept the deer wary. I often wonder what they made of me, smelling more of campfire and salt than the normal human scents they knew. When you cook on a campfire, and boil all your water that way, you can very quickly mask your scent. I had an added advantage at the time as I would smoke hand-rolled cigarettes and, later, a pipe, scents which many animals simply do not associate with humans, even if they know the smell. In Scotland, at the end of summer, this can also help keep the midges at bay. It is now well over a decade since I quit smoking, losing this scent masking agent and midge-repellent, but certainly aiding my health.

The deer would often only leap away when I got close, failing to scent me, surprised, often pausing to look back and see what had startled them. When they did so, and if they saw me, they looked mildly embarrassed, before disappearing into the trees with alacrity.

Looking back, I wonder if that relatively short walk on that day wasn't the first time I began to consider staying in one area for a while, rather than continuing on around the coast. After that scout around my camp, I had a pretty good idea of the resources available to me, of the food options, the fuel situation, and where to gather water. It was an excellent area, away from some of the more heavily-trod paths and trails, with a good distance to the nearest people and habitation.

Nowhere in Scotland is far from a road. Nowhere truly wild. But the illusion of wilderness was strong and it tugged at something within me.

And some other photos from that day:

Peril and Injury

The 18th of September 2010 was another day of exploring, this time further along the coast in the opposite direction. It was not the best weather, but that never matters when you are exploring. I found some excellent spots for the rod and reel, and had now observed enough of the tide to know where would be wise to try and catch some crabs.

In the afternoon, showers meant I spent some time under my tarp preparing firewood, where I somehow successfully cut my thumb down to the bone using my knife.

To add insult to (literal) injury, I cut over a healing scar from where I had dripped molten paracord plastic on my thumb a week previously, whilst preparing my gear for the adventure ahead. Even now, fourteen years later, I realise I can still see those scars.

Fortunately, I always carry a large and extensive first aid kit, so cleaning and patching myself up was not too hard. It was also fortunate that the angle of the cut facilitated quick and easy healing—I heal fast, which is a useful superpower when I am stupid enough to damage myself, a long way from any help.

I used to be incredibly squeamish about these things, passing out at the drop of a hat or, err, blood, but I have had to patch myself and my friends up so many times since that I now work on autopilot, without really thinking about it. Good job really. My brain is a strange thing.

Every adventure needs injury and peril. Or it is not a proper adventure. And this event would not be the last peril…

(I haven’t shared the images of the thumb—I did before, but I don’t think they actually serve any purpose here. As Notes only now allows six images per Note, whereas last year I was pushing that figure considerably further!, I will share the extra photos in the weekly summary, I think. Subscribe to get these extras! EDITOR: See below!)

And some more:

The Hardest Place on Earth to Light a Fire?

It was not until the 21st of September, 2010 that I started keeping my journal with any depth and regularity. In a way, this is a shame, as I have lost out on the thoughts that were on my mind in the few days from the 15th, instead having to be content with the odd line or scribbled note or observation.

I was still taking time to recover, from the days and weeks leading up to my rail journey, but also to rest and think about everything that had led me to that point, all the years of my life. Processing things was to become my new normal—as I processed firewood I also processed emotions and events from my past, as I processed water, I would consider my future. The two—a physical action and a mental one—went hand-in-hand.

I do still have my photographs and my SMS/text messages from those days. As a writer, I like to store these things away and back them up, as I never know when they may come in useful.

Receiving and sending text messages involved ascending to the top of the nearest hill, whereupon I’d wait, send out queued messages and receive others in turn, then spend fifteen minutes or so sorting out the resulting mess, replying where needed, clarifying elsewhere. I eventually learnt not to click send before checking to see what had arrived.

Both photos and messages serve as reminders of what I was doing fourteen years ago; the answer for this day was splitting driftwood and staying out of the incessant rain…

I once attended a fantastic lecture given by Ray Mears and, at the end, there was a question and answer section.*

One of the questions someone asked was this:

“What is the hardest place you have found to light a fire in the whole world?”

Not the most original question, admittedly, but his answer was interesting, considering the man is well-travelled. Without a pause for thought he answered:

“The west coast of Scotland.”

On days like the 19th of September 2010, it is not hard to see why that would be his answer. It is not called temperate rain forest for nothing, you know?

At one point on this wet, dreich day, I suddenly heard many voices, as though a crowd of people were approaching from the west. Eventually, the sea was bedecked with kayakers, chatting away amiably. Not one of them saw me, hanging in my hammock, reading and enjoying the sound of the rain on my tarp. Other than when I went to resupply, this was by far the largest group of people I saw until December, and the closest to me.

On the photographs, note the plastic washing up bowl gathering rainwater from a dripline on my tarp (a common joke around that time was that I always carry everything, including the kitchen sink. Later, I began to carry an Estwing plastic gold panning pan instead—multifunctional and much tougher!), the billy can over the honey stove, boiling water for purifying, a pint of tea, the sea lettuce soaking, to eat later, firewood for the stove (processed with knife and baton), and some items I had begun to gather to make other things—such as spoons from the large mussel shells, or needles from the bones.

*My friend Giles asked the final question of the night. To paraphrase, he asked, ‘How large a part of what you do—spending time out in wilder, more natural places, whether alone or with others, anywhere in the world—how large a part of that do you see as a spiritual experience?’ Initially, Ray answered in the negative but then, for the first time that whole evening, he began to stumble over his words. He paused, looked directly up into the audience to where we were sitting, then said, ‘Actually, that’s everything. Yes. It lies at the heart of what I do. It is all.’ Then he walked off stage.

I wish I’d recorded the exact exchange, but that is close enough.

I think this is a crucial point, and one which I shall return to here. Over the decades I have been out in nature I have realised I have moved beyond the question ‘How do I live in wild places as a part of nature?’ to one far more interesting, ‘Why do I (and we) want to live in wild places as a part of nature?’ The why ties neatly with the how, but the former gives us possible answers about the identity of our species and, potentially, our future.

And a few of my camp:

Time, the Deer

On the 20th of September, 2010, I began to write the first of a series of blog posts I was to share whilst out in the woods. As I mention in the introduction to this project, these blog posts would be handwritten, then photographed and sent via my phone to my sister, Lydia Crow.

Sometimes, this process took a long time, with each image taking minutes to send. Other times, the wind seemed to be in the right direction and they would zip speedily away, into the ether and a world I was beginning to feel was before, as I was during. The after, as I write this, is now.

Either way, I did not complain about having to climb—I was sat up high, looking over the sea loch below. One day, a sea eagle lazily swept close by, riding a thermal from the hillside, close enough to see their eye, wings stretched like a proverbial barn door. Another time, an RAF fighter jet passed at the same height, too quick for me to take a photo, but not too quick that the pilot didn’t see me and wave back with a quick flick of his hand.

Small vignettes were beginning to fill my journal. Notes to jog the memory, to flesh out later when I wrote more, whether in a blog post or not.

For example, on this day, there was the time I was laid in my hammock, writing, when I heard a cracking of branches just upslope. My camp was at the foot of a tumble of rocks, below a small gorge, a well-trodden deer trail crossing the top of which at right angles. Looking up, I saw one deer, then another, and another. In total, twelve red deer walked the trail east, none of them noticing me, the smoke from my stove clearly masking my scent, the hammock, tarp, and my stillness disguising my visual presence.

I decided to head them off, run and try to see them again, cutting around the rocks and weaving through the oaks and rowan, the deer hunt scene in Last of the Mohicans very much in my head. Unfortunately, the wind was not on my side, and I heard the lead deer bark a warning which, in turn, startled a golden eagle from where it had been perched on a stag-headed oak. It flew directly over my head, and I could feel the downdraft from its wings as it laboured higher. The deer, by then, had melted into the woods.

After nearly a week sleeping in my hammock, my days and rhythm were melded to nature-time. No longer did I stay up late. To do so would mean a waste of battery life for my head torch. Instead, I began to frequent daylight and the half-light of dawn and dusk, sleeping when it was dark.

I was moving slower, at a pace that nature set—and this is something I shall discuss further, soon. In general, I find it takes around five days to achieve this pace, sometimes a little more if you are not alone, sometimes a little less. It is a state and pace which I believe we should all attempt to achieve—it does something to us, something ancient and very, very real.

The handwritten page in the photos is from the blog I mention, the collage of images showing how I prepared and lit my fire in my portable honey stove. At this point, there was little need for a full campfire, but fuel preparation did take a lot of my time that way.

And the collage:

The title for today’s (20th September) entry into A Fall in Time (Time, the deer) comes from a poem by Somhairle MacGill-Eain, (or Sorley MacLean, for the anglicised spelling), named Hallaig.

It is a poem I love, capturing the soul of the western Highlands of Scotland, and echoing, as it does, both the nature and a sense of departure—a melancholy which, when you know where and how to look, is everywhere—following the enforced clearances of the 19th century.

The poet translated his work into English and it is this version which appears in the link to the Martyn Bennett take on this, from his album, Bothy Culture. (Bennett was an artist who was far ahead of his time, and very much missed.)

Seeing as I can only place one link here, I’ll pop the Gaelic version and translation in restacks, along with a different translation into English, this time by Seamus Heaney, in case you are interested.

Youtube Link Here

This link is super if you like Scottish poetry:

Scottish Poetry Library Link Here.

And here’s Heaney’s translation:

Link to The Guardian, Heaney's Translation of Hallaig, Here.

Of Mice and Me

I awoke on the morning of the 21st of September 2010 to find something had raided my supplies, chewing a couple of holes in the dry sack which housed food and munching on nuts, cheese, and pasta, before deciding to also chew through the small bag containing my condiments and help themselves to a stock cube.

(Whenever I go out into wilder places, I always carry various herbs, various spices, salt, pepper, chilli, oil, and vinegar, at the very least—a little goes a long way in outdoor cookery, and the weight is negligible.)

I repaired the holes, patching them as best I could and trying to find a way to stop further raiding. There were definitely mink nearby (a scourge, released from fur farms by well-meaning people, who had not done their homework—the American mink has had a catastrophic effect on UK wildlife), and they are renowned for thievery. In this case, however, I was later to discover it was a wood mouse. Bears, in Scotland, are not a problem. Mice, however, are a problem just about everywhere.

The day was grey and humid, but I decided it was a good opportunity to take the long hike to the nearest small village and replace my chewed supplies, topping up other items too, and generally stretching my legs.

I chose to go out of my way to view Arisaig House, which was the Scottish headquarters for the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. A strong argument can be made that it was upon these hills and shores that the idea of special forces was born. It is a tough landscape, ideal for training saboteurs and resistants, those brave men and women who would be parachuted, or dropped by glider and boat into hostile territory.

I also had a look at Bonnie Prince Charlie’s cave, not far from Arisaig House, where the Prince (whole name: Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart) hid before awaiting French aid to flee Scotland. He never returned.

This area was strongly tied to the Jacobite cause. It was where Charles arrived in Scotland, where he left, and also where seven caskets of Spanish gold were unladen, to assist with the efforts of the uprising. No one really knows what happened to that gold and, if you wish to read more, look up ‘the treasure of Loch Arkaig’, the lake where it was rumoured to have been taken.

I never found any gold but, I guess, I was not really looking for it. Instead, over the weeks and months to come, I found gold of a different kind, whether in the changing colours of the leaves, or the riches I was gifted by living out amongst nature for so long. Treasure comes in many forms.

When I got back from my long day’s hike I ate well and slept deeply. It already felt strange, to see and talk to other humans, even if only to say hello, and thank you—a feeling which only grew as I stayed out there. I was on my way to becoming a much wilder version of myself.

On To You

Last year, when I shared a version of this adventure, the weekly recap email letters contained embedded Substack Notes, through which readers had to click to see the whole. This year, I am copying and pasting the text, adding photographs (and extras) as images and galleries in the body of the letter, with no need to click away to read it, should you wish.

I already have all the text, whether identical to 2023, subtly altered, or entirely different, saved in a Scrivener project, so copying and pasting it does not take long at all.

I think this format might also encourage those of you who subscribe but do not use Notes to read more of this adventure. Each weekly letter will be long, but that might not be a bad thing.

If you have enjoyed this, please can you share it widely? This might mean forwarding the email to friends and family members, perhaps those who love nature, or Scotland, adventure, history, or bushcraft, or it might mean heading to Notes and restacking, or sharing on other social media channels. I would greatly appreciate this, thank you: it would be fun to have as many people reading this as possible as I post the different days and weeks.

Finally, I welcome questions and comments, and try very hard to respond to all of them (this can take time, but I do reply eventually).

What does this letter make you feel? Do you know the west coast of Scotland, or long to visit? Have you ever spent a long period of time alone in nature?