Brough of Deerness, Orkney. Summer, 1995.

Brough of Deerness, Orkney. Summer, 1995.

(After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/i/143668758/globally]. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/p/the-third-state-of-the-nest-address] years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Brough of Deerness, Orkney. Summer, 1995. I am partway up the cliff when I realise my mistake. Not climbing in welly boots, nor climbing without ropes—those are normal—but picking a route which takes me too close to a fulmar nest. Usually, I check this but, on this particular day I did not notice the bird, tucked into a ledge, away from view. I see the bird, the bird sees me and, as is the custom of fulmar, it leans forward to try and vomit a foul-scented mess on me. I lean back. Which is, of course, a mistake. Sticky, oily vomit or not—leaning back from a cliff face is unwise. The rock I was holding starts to come away, comically slow. It, like much of this cliff, was loose—held together on one plane, fractured on another. Like so many of us. Something pulls the wrong way, you come apart. I fall. It is not that far to the rocks below, but it is far enough to make me understand the gravity of the situation as I am weightless, attracted by gravity and thoroughly seen off by a cousin of the albatross family. Damn tube-noses. When I was young, Stenness Primary School had two classrooms—the Big End and the Peedie End. I was in the former, and my teacher at that time was the headmaster, writer, Orcadian scholar and collector of stories, Gregor Lamb. I remember a story he used to tell, one which seems fitting to slip into this piece, here. It took place not far from where I was falling, on the now-uninhabited island of Copinsay. A visitor to the island, perhaps someone connected to the lighthouse, or maybe someone visiting during the war years, when the population of Orkney became swollen like the corpse of a beached whale—I forget which—asked to go along with one of the families who still lived there, as they went to collect eggs. Now, collecting eggs in our modern parlance might sound quaint for many. It is something not too many city-based folk have done, after all and, in their mind, probably involves ducking into a chicken coop and plucking out the eggs neatly arranged there. As someone who has actually collected eggs, I can affirm that, yes, this is often the case but, quite often, it is considerably more work than that. The eggs have been hidden. The chickens do not want you to take them. You slip and end up sitting in chicken poop. You bang your head trying to escape the angry hen. However, in the case in point in this tale, the eggs were considerably more free range than this. Copinsay is gently sloping, rising up from the direction of Mainland Orkney and Deerness—where I lived at that time—to the other side of the island, stark and naked to the whims of the North Sea, sheer cliffs, not unlike the one I was climbing. The tourist, the visitor, whoever they were, watched, as the man tied a rope around the waist of one of his children, then lowered them down, to gather seabird eggs. They would scramble this way and that, filling a basket with the eggs and avoiding the angry parents as best they could. It was a dangerous, messy business, but essential for survival, the eggs feeding the family for a long time, able to be traded for other items, all of which needed to be rowed across from the Mainland. Watching this, mildly horrified at the risks taken with the children, the man asked the father, ‘What happens if the rope breaks?’ To which he received the reply, ‘Well, don’t worry, I’ve plenty more rope.’ Of course, this reply would have been in Orcadian dialect, a rich and beautiful thing, a remnant of a past thankfully being guarded for our future. As I fell, I wonder if that story popped into my head. Perhaps. It seems more likely I used that time to try and direct my downwards descent, successfully, as it turned out, landing on the only patch of grass and sea pink amongst a mass of jagged rock. I still badly twisted my knee, but was able to mostly laugh it off. The walk home was not fun, however, and I seem to recall that was the last time I ever climbed in wellington boots. I have also been wary of fulmar ever since and, ever since, my right knee hurts in wet weather or, increasingly—if I’m honest—dry weather, too. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Isère, France. July, 2021.

(After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/i/143668758/globally]. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/p/the-third-state-of-the-nest-address] years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Isère, France. July, 2021. Moving through a natural woodland is different from passing through any other environment. You cannot rush, you cannot allow yourself to miss the little details. The more time you spend amongst the trees, the more you realise this and the quicker your pace alters: slow, slower, pause, repeat. Essentially, you return to a more natural state, a rhythm as old as our species itself. You listen, you look, these senses you already know well pulling in huge amounts of data. For most people, the vast majority of their information comes from sight and sound, but spend time in the woods and you learn to touch things—that tree bark, that rock or leaf, for example, you learn to inhale in a different way, deliberately sampling the air and all the varied perfumes it brings. You can even learn to taste that same air, or pick a leaf or fruit and chew. Then there are the senses we don’t always realise exist, let alone consciously utilise. Some of these can be a little unnerving when you first start to actively use and acknowledge them—some people call them a sixth sense which, quite frankly, is silly. We have far more than five senses, after all. Learning to listen to that little voice in your head, the one which tells you something is watching you, or that there’s something ahead on the trail, these things take time, but it is time which is well spent indeed. Of course, this isn’t supernatural at all, but simply your brain processing different information and picking up on tiny details you have consciously missed. Perhaps a change in the air brought a tendril of scent? We often fail to use our noses as we can—try it, now, sitting reading this, open your nostrils wide and inhale slowly and deliberately, you may be surprised what you can sample. Similarly, learning to snuffle like a dog at a scent trail is possible too, involving faster inhalation and sampling, your sense of smell actually being worked properly. Both these things can seem like strange magic, but also seek to remind us how civilisation can dull our own bodily functions. The woodland is a complex machine of many parts. It exists on different scales and even across time. I have walked across Scottish hillsides, devoid of any tree cover, but have known from the wide flourishes of native bluebells and anemones that I was walking through the ghost of a wood. If you look closely at the ground around you, you can often see small depressions, pockmarks from where trees were once blown over, tearing the ground and leaving their mark, long after they have rotted into the soil, eaten by large mouths and small. There exists a special light in woods, it filters through seasons and sun and rain, drifting through lifetimes, whether that of the tiny flowers carpeting the forest floor, your own, or that of the grandest oak. Wooded mountain valleys can maintain microclimates of their own, entirely different to that a stone’s throw away. Each area attracting a differing clientele, a question of scale within scales, Matryoshka-style. One side of a wooded valley is entirely different to the other. Different species of trees allow different understoreys, different flora and fauna, all within a tiny area. You can even teach yourself to know what species of trees are present by listening to the wind—different leaves make different sounds, watch, listen, learn: one rustle for oak and another for ash. To learn about the wood is to learn about life itself. It can teach us as much about ourselves as it does about this tree or that, or who that caterpillar becomes, what chewed those holes, why is this leaf patterned like that, which friend left those tracks? To learn about the wood is to be reminded of what matters, to be rejuvenated, to be healed of those myriad invisible wounds we receive within the urban environment. This process can be difficult for some people, taking a step back, revisiting atrophied senses, sometimes feeling enclosed and claustrophobic, primal and imagined fears rearing their head—but the results are worth it. Once, a friend of mine was concerned about my leaving my job to spend time in the woods on my own, worried about the dangerous lone men in the woods, with their knives and axes. I gently pointed out these men are nearly always fictional, that they simply don’t exist and I would be fine out there. With my knives and axe. Alone. It’s not hard to see how these stories and fears appear—if hikers or kayakers had met me at my wildest, with a long beard, woodsmoke-scented, wearing my axe on my belt, a knife at the other side and another around my neck, then I wonder what they would have thought. In the UK, certainly, these things are no longer common, nor always legal. (As a counterpoint of sorts to the above, I remember one long, rambling conversation with my sadly now dead dissertation tutor, the larger-than-life Professor [and Count, I believe] Marek Zvelebil. We were talking about woodlands, and [human] life in woods, and he explained about Finnish settlers to the mid-west US, and how they would often plant trees all around their homestead, close, blocking extensive views, the wide-open prairie deeply unsettling for them, having come from a place where the woods were deep and all-pervasive.) To me, to walk in a woodland, especially one less-managed, less tamed, is to hear the voices of our ancestors, to understand how we are but a blink in time, connected to something vast and essentially, reassuringly, incompressible. They are our ancestral home and to sit beneath the spreading branches of ancient friends is to step back in time, become something we are perhaps meant to be. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Isère, France. June, 2021.

(After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/i/143668758/globally]. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/p/the-third-state-of-the-nest-address] years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Isère, France. June, 2021. Everything is wet, everything is fresh and green, new and spring-like until, almost overnight, summer arrives. And she arrives with the subtlety of someone snatching you off the street, fully-clothed, and throwing you into a sauna. The mountain greening is complete, the summer bleaching coming. The valley in which Grenoble and Echirolles sit holds the heat and maintains the humidity. The pollution builds up here in summer, nowhere near as much as it did in Chiang Mai, but it is noticeable. Mountains are hidden, disappearing behind greying air, the blue leaching from the sky day by day, only to suddenly reappear, cleaned and fresh after a thunderstorm, as though someone has restored the painting. The air is close and full of energy. It is no wonder people leave the city for the coast or the mountains in summer. We shall be doing both. Outside the window the blackcap has started to sing once more, joined by the never-ceasing serin, the great tit, blackbird, sparrow, and collared dove. Sometimes, there are others, such as the black kite I witnessed almost crashing to the ground, mobbed by crows, twirling and dropping to escape. We have been visited by a kestrel, a sparrowhawk, a buzzard and my current favourite—the crested tit, punklike, carrying considerable attitude in a tiny frame. The scent of roses and peonies rises to my floor, my side of the house cooler than the other in the mornings, the air still relatively fresh. I cannot wait for the scent of the mountainside in the morning, or the taste of salt on my lips once more, the wind from the Mediterranean almost ever-present, reminding me of home, whatever that means. Each day, each month, season, and year creates a new tale of its own. There are always similarities with the previous chapters, but as time moves on, so does the story. Those robins nest in a different place, meaning their previous location is now available for the blackbird. That cherry tree is damaged by a late cold snap, encouraged to sleep longer, opening tentative leaves in the middle of June, long after the other two. This means the birds on the feeder are far easier to view. Covid means the shrubs and plants have been allowed to grow longer, wilder, more bushy along the pathways. This gives the birds and other animals more food, more shelter, more room to nest and nurture. Every day, a different story. Every year, different. Now, look at your own location and time, and consider the variables. A vast and incomprehensible web begins to appear, with one strand leading to another, one branch taking it in an entirely different direction. Too often, we forget this. Stories of scale are difficult to comprehend, how one action on another side of the world has a direct effect in your own back garden. We can only control tiny portions of this story, so much is out of our hands—yet it is this very act of accepting we are unable to write the whole which means the tale itself can flourish. Fill the bird feeders. Leave out water on hot days, or everyday. Let a patch of your garden grow wild. Pick up that litter. Choose plastic-free alternatives. There are other actions we can take, each certainly worthwhile but, perhaps most of all, we need to share the differences in our stories with one another—and rejoice in them. We need to show that, by acting individually, we can absolutely change things but, by working together, we can set the world itself on a different, better path. That’s why we tell the tales, for communication is key; communication is telling stories, of course it is, but it is also learning when to be quiet and simply listen. Nature has much to share. Everybody has a starring role in their life. Everybody is the lead character, supported by a wide and varied cast, some family, some friends, the occasional rival or enemy. We all have an opportunity to choose our direction, if we wish to, although it is disingenuous to not mention this is considerably easier for certain groups than others. Our stories are all important. Every moment of every life, how they interact and weave together, how one person can turn the direction of their life and those around them in but a single heartbeat. Too often, it is the voices of despair and misery which are loudest. This is simply human nature; we as a species love a good disaster or opportunity to be glad it is not us suffering. However, as the distances between our cultures and nations shrink, as our ability to travel anywhere on earth within a span of time measurable in hours grows, then it is the natural boundaries which begin to be tested. For the first time in our collective history, we can hear the stories of others if we want to and, crucially and critically, if we do not. This means we can no longer ignore those tales, those lives, as we once could. True, there are those who do not care, those who go out of their way to denounce difference and reject cooperation, and they can shout and rail and scream as much as they like, but it no longer really matters. Change is coming, big change. There is no escaping that, the balance is shifting. Our stories swirl together more and more, threads tangling and pulling in new directions—and do not believe it will definitely end in a dystopian hellscape, there is a chance a protopia beckons. Why not? We, as a species, can dream big. We all need to pay attention, we all need to realise we can make a difference, because all of our stories matter. Let’s keep talking to each other—and let’s keep listening. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it. Although I always read and appreciate these comments, during 2025, I was not as good at responding as quickly as I would like but, seeing as my word of the year for 2026 is ‘communication’, I like to think that will soon change. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Leicester, England. Autumn, 1998.

(After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/i/143668758/globally]. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/p/the-third-state-of-the-nest-address] years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Leicester, England. Autumn, 1998. The following paragraphs were a big part of the genesis for my Witness Notes series—the idea of sharing vignettes from my life, whether things originally shared via my earlier letters, years ago, or from former blog posts, my journals, notebooks, or memories. This one, I shared on Substack Notes [https://substack.com/@alexandermcrow/note/c-193496257?r=o064] on Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve), 2025, and it planted the idea of sharing more. I have not shared it as a Witness Note as yet, as I thought it perhaps too long, but I think it is now time to do so. A long time ago, a generation or more (depending on whose definition of generation you take, of course), I found myself waiting for a train from Leicester to Derby. I was with my housemate, and we were, for all intents and purposes, cosplaying Down And Out In The Midlands (of England). During that time, Orwell would have recognised our situation and circumstances and nodded, before returning to scrubbing his dishes or tramping along ancient routes circling and spiralling out from London Town. On this day, we decided to risk the money for the train tickets and spend it in a bar near the station, instead. At that time, we often had to choose between eating, or drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Sometimes, we’d espouse both in favour of cheap alcohol. The bar had a pool table and, because it was mid-morning and no one else was there, the barman let us play for free. We’d bought pints of local bitter and a bag of crisps each for breakfast, and he seemed a benevolent sort, chatting amiably for a time, until he went to check the lines on a couple of barrels. We did not sit down, those chairs and benches looked like they were heavily impregnated with the ash and tar of centuries. The smell, I’m sure some of you remember—I do not miss that. We were busy talking about whether we should somehow move to Berlin, rather than Derby, how we needed more experience of different places to be able to write deeply, with a richness which comes from travel and excitement when the door opened and a man walked in. I’m sure you’ve probably met people like him. One look, and you know he is dangerous. Not the bluster and swagger of the gym-swollen and terminally lacking in sense, but the danger which comes from actually being dangerous. He glanced around the room quickly, noting there was no barman, looking us up and down, and that there was no one else there. We exchanged quick glances between ourselves, then said good morning and got back to the game at hand. Best to be polite. This man was not large, but he was wiry and carried himself with the surety of confidence and experience. ‘Are you here for the match?’ he asked, as we tried our best to shrink and somehow disappear, looking at our still mostly full pints and knowing we could not leave immediately without risking offence. ‘No,’ we replied quickly, in unison, ‘Waiting for a train back to Derby.’ We were not really interested in football and, proclaiming any foolish allegiance to a team in a bar near a railway station is not wise. We silently prayed he would simply let us be, especially as, at that moment, he took off his battered leather jacket and turned to the bar, showing the hilt of a knife in the back pocket of worn jeans. We thought we might have been saved by the return of the barman, who clearly knew and respected this man, immediately pouring him a pint and a double of whisky as a chaser. No money seemed to change hands. The man turned back to us and placed coins on the pool table. We couldn’t leave now, he couldn’t play himself, after all. I think we both thought the same thing—maybe throw that match between us, lose, so as to not have to play the stranger. And I think we both came to the same conclusion—better to play as well as we could, or we’d risk losing respect and setting us on a bad footing for what came next. He’d watched us both play already, after all and, in those days, we were both rather good players, hours spent on the tables at university the preceding years, days spent in bars. I’ve not played pool in a long, long time, now. Strangely, I can’t remember which of us won, but I do recall much of the conversation. At one point, he asked what we did, looking at us closely as he lit up another hand-rolled cigarette from the dying butt of the last, obviously expecting something more than ‘we work for a job agency, taking whatever sporadic, horrendous scraps and s**t they throw our way.’ We answered honestly. ‘We are writers.’ He didn’t bat an eyelid, just inhaled and exhaled then, in a cloud of Old Holborn smoke, took his shot. At another point, I’m not sure when, he took out his knife and placed it on the table, to be able to better bend over and stretch to reach the cue ball. His hands were scarred and rough, tattooed and lived-in. The barman watched us carefully, ignoring the knife, as the man continued the conversation. ‘Tough game, writing.’ We exchanged glances again, familiar with the hardest job in the world sketch in The Fast Show, featuring Paul Whitehouse’s character, Archie The Pub Bore. What followed was surprising, given how he looked and acted. Unlike Archie, he did not tell us he was a writer himself, but began to share advice on what he thought we should do, how we should approach writing and the world at large. It was, wondrously, sensible and carefully thought out. He talked about observation, about not missing a thing, about note taking and diaries and journals, and he spoke of using these things in our fiction—my novels and my friend’s scripts. He ended by talking about how we should ensure we have a strong nucleus of people we trust around us, if we are to stand a chance of making a living with words, people who understand what it means to be a writer. He finished with telling us that, if we were serious, we needed to get an agent, but to make sure we did our research first, find someone younger, who was still ambitious enough to ensure they took chances and also represented us with heart, mind, and soul. Eventually, it came time to leave that pub and that man, after he bought us another drink, not listening to our protestations about not being able to afford to reciprocate, that he had appreciated the company and conversation but, looking back, I wonder how much of that conversation actually included us talking. He did most of it and, to this day, I wonder who he was, what was his story? How did he know so much about what it meant to be a writer, both practically and also much, much deeper than that? I still remember the feel of his hand in mine as he shook it as we left, how strong and how sure it was. He genuinely seemed to have enjoyed our company. I’m not going to end this with a lesson, I’m seeing too many stories churned out by AI here which follow that pattern. The lesson—or lessons, plural—is/are already there, above. What I will say is that, this coming year, I really think it is time I follow that last piece of his advice, and find that agent. Whenever I’ve thought about an agent over the last few decades, I’ve always thought of that bar and those pool games—and it feels good to write down this snippet of memory and finally share it. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Isère, France. May, 2021.

(After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/i/143668758/globally]. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/p/the-third-state-of-the-nest-address] years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Isère, France. May, 2021. 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 days sensuality itself, the roaring of the stags as the woodlands turn red and gold and yellow and russet thrills without exception, and the deep quiet of the snow-thick winter places the perfect hideaway for serious meditation. Yet, for each of the four readily-acknowledged seasons, there are many others shoehorned within their boundaries—and, increasingly, those boundaries and dates are themselves stretched and altered. Winter is not just deep winter, it is first-frost and first-snow, it is the shortest day, and the coldest time, it is when the wolves howl and the skies dance with the magic of the aurora, the sparkle of the stars and galaxies stretching out and out and out, far beyond our time and space. It is full of many things, each a season unto itself, each a moment which is reached, a step on a path winding through our lives. The mountain greening is a small portion of spring. I have been fortunate to be near mountains in spring on several occasions. Perhaps not as much as I would like, but there are other springs in other places, and I do not have that many years to experience every shift of the earth. Other springs, whether by the coast of Scotland and the changing of the birds and budding of the clifftop and dune flowers, or whether the end of the dry season and the coming of the rains in the tropics, the relief of clear air palpable—they are all wonders of their own. Watching that creeping line of fresh, bright green moving up a wooded mountainside, however, is something ancient, something primeval—buried within me so very deeply I cannot help but pause and stare, no matter how many times I look. There are days where the sun coaxes the trees to leaf almost before my eyes, another strata unfurling, pushing higher and higher, only to pause with the night, or a colder or overcast day, resting on this plateau, catching a breath in that corrie or below that ridge, before pushing over and beyond and ever up. Here, in Isère, the mountain greening is well underway, but not yet over. Every morning, as I look out the window at the view of the Vercors Massif to the west, I try and gauge whether the line of trees in leaf is higher than yesterday, whether the yellow tree flowers and catkins on the lower slopes have conquered another elevation, or have decided to camp and recover for a spell. As in Scotland, there are days in which the unfurling is almost visible to the naked eye, and others where nothing moves at all. (The two photos of the same scene below were taken a week apart, on the south shore of Loch Nevis—the Lake of Heaven—in the west of Scotland.) For me, this is true magic. It is not straightforward, it is not a yes/no response, does not follow a strict timetable or plan. Instead, it is chaos, diverse factors acting upon each tree, each branch and each leaf bud. The whole is a metaphor for the year, for life itself—we cannot fit everything into neat bundles of pre-ordained time: life and death happen, whether we want them to or not. The mountain greening also reminds me of something I studied back in the mists of time—the concept of refugia, of places in mountain valleys where life continues, no matter how strong the wind, how high the ice beyond. This is where certain tree species hid and waited, biding their time and outlasting the ice age, spreading forth once more across continents, a slow, inexorable march. Refugia are hope encapsulated. Each refuge an ark of genetic material, each carrying promise of life anew. As I look at the world we live in, how we are failing—or have failed?—to contain great change ahead, I remember these places, every spring a flush of green joy, every leaf a reminder that we have been mislabelling climate change for too long. The idea of global systems failing, of huge swathes of the earth becoming uninhabitable or too dangerous to live in is, of course, too esoteric, too obtuse—it does not engage the individual, or the tribe at large. Every civilisation before ours has been sure they would continue on and on. Every civilisation has looked at those before their own and deemed them lesser developed, less hardy, surmising their own had fewer chances of failing. Every civilisation has been wrong. Ours is no different. The real peril of climate change is not to the earth itself—the planet operates at different timescales remember, vast, vast timescales very difficult for the untrained to comprehend—no, the real peril is to humankind. If we relabel the battle to save the planet as the battle to save our species I suspect more might be done but, honestly, throughout all this, I simply prefer to remember the mountain greening, the refugia—those species which will survive beyond ours. It is a curious sense of hope, one entangled in a web of death and extinction and violent change—but it is hope nevertheless, and that is something joyful. Well, that turned out a little longer than intended. I had planned on merely sharing the joy of watching the mountain turn green, but my brain decided you should instead hear my wider thought-process. Sometimes this is the way, similarly with my fiction—what I think will be a quick scene turns into something more, something more dense, more chewy... [EDITOR’S NOTE, May 2026: This particular month marked the point when my briefer vignettes, those I’ve been sharing as my Witness Notes, began to take on a different appearance, longer, more entwined with the world and the events shaping all around us. I toyed with the idea of editing this down, just to include the place- and time-specific, but that felt reductive and a little sad. There was—and is—a reason why I talk about active hope and the great upheaval our species is creating and receiving both. As such, I have left the piece as it was, taking other parts of the same letter (separated by the photos) which followed on with the same theme. There will be other Witness Notes, shorter scenes and observations, but I think I need to share these as they were crafted, with only minor alterations, in order to do the words justice. I hope that they are still of interest.] It is May, my favourite month of the year, not because it contains my birthday, but because it is the month where new growth and new green consistently gathers pace and pushes the year forward into a burst of life. At least here in the northern hemisphere, of course—I do not forget there are many millions of people for whom May means something different. Although there are obviously other months with 31 days within them before May in the calendar, this is the first month I see as truly long. I suspect this is because the daylight continues to lengthen (again, up here in the north), and the sun works its magic upon me after the winter and early spring. The world we live in is at a point of great change. All too often, people assume things will continue along the same path they have in recent history, but recent history is just that, a snapshot in time. Move the scale a little and it is hard not to notice how we as a species are still relatively new. All of civilisation itself has occurred within a tiny timeframe, the portion since the industrial revolution even more microscopic. Yet, it is this portion which is altering our planet at a ridiculously fast rate. It is easy to place our heads in the sand and ignore the damage, ignore the issues. It is easy to overlook the changes, to simply focus on the day-to-day, the simple acts of making a living, eating, sleeping, rinse and repeat. And this is how you can be controlled, how you can lose a sense of your own individual power. Some people think about the changes in the world and then give in to despair, they do not see how they can make a difference. It is all too easy to lose hope. However, remember the refugia? Those small mountain valleys where trees rested, biding their time, to once more spread out across a continent? I would suggest we all take some time to acknowledge the good things in our lives: good food, the connection we feel to a powerful story, those lateral shifts in our brains when we play a game and, above all, perhaps, that sense of belonging we can achieve through the study of the nature around us. Take these things and consider yourself a mountain valley, a refuge of one—and reach out, spread your joy at a movie, your delight at identifying a species of fungi for the very first time, or the fact you can vote peacefully and safely in your country. Share it. Show others who may either have their heads buried in the proverbial sand, or may have given in to despair, to ‘I’m one person, what can I do?’; show them, and offer them something powerful. We are all refugia, we all carry the potential of hope, the potential of joy and rebirth and love. Times are perilous, times are changing—but I wholeheartedly believe we can all make a positive difference, nevertheless. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it. Although I always read and appreciate these comments, during 2025, I was not as good at responding as quickly as I would like but, seeing as my word of the year for 2026 is ‘communication’, I like to think that will soon change (I’m getting there!). Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe [https://alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]