There was a peeving little message on my facebook feed this morning from some smart-arse who agreed with W. G. Sebald that when on a journey through the Midlands one passes towns 'each more ugly than the last'. Snobby comments about factory chimneys and slag heaps made me feel quite annoyed -- the person who wrote it is one of those people who think they are edgy and open-minded, but comments like these reveal how they're just precious little reactionary nimbys. So here is a celebration of the beauty of nature hand in hand with lived life, labour, and production. Scotland was battered by storms -- look at the size of these fallen tree trunks (all our walks of late have been accompanied by the sound of sawing as the park rangers tidy up for us). This part of town is built where there used to be working mills, alongside the river. I don't know who carved the 'smoothed rock' sign in the wall of one of the bridges, but it reminds me of how rock, even though it's obviously really hard, is always being smoothed, by man or water.
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