Book Teaser

March 15, 2023March 16, 2023 | Rebecca Gibson

My Slow Travel Guide to North East Scotland will be published exactly two months today! To celebrate what I’m considering to be the start of The Final Countdown (cue Europe), here’s an exclusive sample from the book about the town of Banchory, 18 miles west of Aberdeen.

Banchory is the last major town before you move across the boundary into Aberdeen City, hanging in a hammock of the River Dee as it flows east. Close to neighbouring villages and with the granite torr-topped hill of Clachnaben nearby, Banchory is a handy base for exploring this part of Aberdeenshire. It’s also your best bet for shopping, with a range of gift shops lining High and Dee Streets.

By happy accident, I found my favourite part of Banchory while tracking down the library, located within the pedestrianised Scott Skinner Square. Named after one of the greats of Scottish fiddle music, James Scott Skinner, the square contains a selection of small businesses arranged around a mini amphitheatre of steps.

James Scott Skinner was born in Banchory in 1843. By the time he was eight years old, he was playing the cello at dances across Deeside. Cello playing wasn’t the only string to Skinner’s bow though (pun unashamedly intended). He also trained as a dance teacher and was even invited by Queen Victoria to teach the children of Balmoral Estate in 1868.

In the square is a tiny garden with woven sculptures of a fiddle and treble clef musical note, created by Ayrshire-based willow and steel artist David Powell. One of Skinner’s most famous pieces, ‘Bonnie Banchory’, inspired the creation of three abstract columns around the square’s amphitheatre. On the top of each is a stack of different-sized rods, representing the sound waves of this song.

If you walk south on Dee Street you’ll soon cross the river. Half a mile further along is a T-junction, where the left branch passes over the Water of Feugh. Running parallel to the stone road bridge is a newer footbridge where you can peer down at the Falls of Feugh below. The water surges in two channels around rocky contours before crashing into a slower pool and continuing under the bridges. In autumn, this is a good spot to look for leaping salmon.

Five miles south of Banchory is Nine Stanes Stone Circle, conveniently close to an unnamed road passing through a Sitka spruce plantation. There are six standing stones, a chunky horizontal recumbent and two wonky flankers, making up the nine stones in its name.

When I visited, I’d just experienced an assorted delight of road closures, cafés shut when they shouldn’t have been and insufferable August heat (I have about the same heat tolerance as a Mars bar). I arrived at Nine Stanes a sweaty, irritable mess and, although sitting in the middle of the circle with grasshoppers boinging around my feet didn’t make me any less sweaty, it was a serene way to end the day. Stone circles are good at that.

This one was arranged some 4,000 years ago, used as a burial place and to mark the movement of the moon throughout the year. Its stones now have mossy beards and grassy feet, but after all that time they’re still standing.

As you can see from this sample, Slow guides are just that: leisurely, and written as if the author is walking around with a person wearing a blindfold. I’ve loved writing in such immersive detail, as it’s given me the opportunity to really dive into the nuances of each location I’ve featured in the book. There’s a lot of nature and wildlife, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, but this particular entry gives you an idea of the variety of other things I explore too.

I’m so excited to share the biggest project of my career so far with you all. I’m currently working through the proofs and seeing the pages take shape, so it won’t be long until I can finally hold my first book in my hands.

On The Wing Magazine III

December 21, 2022March 7, 2023 | Rebecca Gibson

Winter is the time to reflect. I love looking back on what I’ve done over the year, and once again I’ve put a summary of my work projects into my own mini magazine. I did this for the first time during lockdown when I was painfully idle and needed a project to distract me. It turned into something I was proud to share and this is now my third issue.

Between research trips for my book, I’ve been busy working on other projects including another mindful creative retreat at home on the Moray Coast, a design commission inspired by Thumbnail Nature, and my second wildlife calendar.

Click here to read my magazine

Beavering Away

August 3, 2022March 7, 2023 | Rebecca Gibson

This summer is zooming by! I’ve been spending the past few months travelling and writing my book, which is now due in three months. That’s quite a terrifying thought actually…

My research trips have involved stomping through Caledonian pinewood, sampling local whiskies and searching for hidden stone circles. I’m absolutely loving this challenging yet rewarding project and can’t wait to see the finished product on the shelves. Here’s a sneak preview of the front cover.

As well as book writing, I’ve been putting together my 2023 calendar. Like last time, it features a range of Scottish birds and mammals that I’ve photographed this year including snow buntings, badgers and even a goshawk!

And finally, I took some time away from the north east recently and headed down to Perthshire to photograph beavers. These incredible animals completely transform their surroundings and it was a privilege to spend so much time with them.

Spring draws to a close

May 25, 2022March 7, 2023 | Rebecca Gibson

I’m currently writing a Slow Travel Guide to North East Scotland, which will be out next spring. The thing about writing this book is I’m spending every working moment on it but won’t have anything to show for my efforts until it’s published. Until then it looks like I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. As we’re almost at the end of spring, I thought I’d finally resurface and reflect on what I’ve been up to over the past couple of months.

Inchrye Lodge

At the start of April I travelled down to Fife for a week. This was a particularly special holiday as I returned to the same cottage in the first part of Scotland I ever visited, back when I was eight years old. It was fantastic to be back and I realised just how much my wildlife knowledge has improved since that first visit. During my time in Fife I also visited the Audubon exhibition in Edinburgh, one of my favourite cites, and the incredible Topping bookshop in St Andrews.

Stonehaven

On my drive back up from Fife I got into Book Mode again and stopped off in Stonehaven, a beautiful harbour town south of Aberdeen. I walked around the harbour and along the coast path and found a stone igloo decorated with thousands of shells hidden within Dunnottar woods.

Cairngorms Trip

At the end of April I was off on another book trip, this time back to the Cairngorms. This has been my favourite section to visit and write about so far. Although I’m very attached to my home in Moray and have been so impressed by Aberdeenshire’s coastline, it’s the ancient Caledonian pine forests of the Cairngorms that have really taken hold of me. During my time in Boat of Garten and Newtonmore I visited the amazing Highland Folk Museum, discovered the Green Lochan – so named because the fairies wash their green clothes in the water – and had an incredible hide encounter with four badgers!

Mindful Creative Retreat

At the start of May I had a brief break from book writing to take on another exciting project. Last summer I co-hosted a Mindful Creative Retreat on the Moray Coast. It was a great success so we held another one this year. The guests really enjoyed unwinding from their own work and commitments and dedicating time to nature writing, mindful photography, breath work and even outdoor yoga each morning. I benefitted from the experience too and found the process of slowing down and being in the present moment so rewarding.

Peterhead

And finally, last week I had another book trip back to Aberdeenshire. My friend Kim, who I co-hosted the retreat with, kindly offered me a place to stay in Peterhead, which was a great base for exploring more of my new favourite coastline. I visited Peterhead Prison Museum and Slains Castle (which was inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula castle), walked barefoot through the wind-sculpted dunes of Forvie and even managed to see a couple of distant puffins.

As we move into summer and I carry on beavering away with my book, I hope I can maintain the mindful practices I explored during the retreat and make them a regular part of my routine.

On The Wing Magazine II

January 2, 2022March 7, 2023 | Rebecca Gibson

Happy New Year!

I always like to reflect at the end of the year, and this time I thought I’d summarise my antics in the second issue of my own magazine, which you can read by clicking the image below.

Thank you all so much for your kind comments and support in 2021. I look forward to seeing what 2022 brings.

September Roundup

September 28, 2021May 3, 2022 | Rebecca Gibson

I say this every month… but honestly what a month! We’re moving towards my favourite time of year – there were still some randomly hot days in September but autumn is definitely in the air now. This morning I crunched through my first frost since February and it was finally cold enough for my mittens.

At the start of the month I took part in an art exhibition in my village. The theme was the sea, linking to the arrival of a 10 metre-high puppet called Storm which made its own waves across Moray. I submitted some of my coastal bird photography to the exhibition and brought along my calendars to sell. There were over a hundred works up on the walls and we had visitors coming down for a look all weekend. I haven’t exhibited since university finished three years ago, so it was great to see my work printed again.

A week later I hosted two more nature writing workshops – one in Roseisle Forest and the other along the Moray Coast Path. I enjoyed doing this again later in the year – while the June workshop in Roseisle included more birds, this time it was all about the fungi. When the event started early in the morning, the sun was glistening on dozens of spiderwebs, and amongst the gorse bushes were several wood ant nests. Along the coast, we watched gannets diving out at sea and dunnocks singing in the blackberry bushes. My workshop participants wrote some beautiful things – although we all walked the same paths, the pieces were so diverse and it was really rewarding to hear them.

Last week I had family up to visit that I hadn’t seen in years. Although we had some blustery winds that whipped the bay up into a bubble bath, there were still plenty of opportunities to watch wildlife. My uncle had been hoping to see his first crested tit, and we were lucky enough to see two at once! Other bird highlights included a sandwich tern diving in the estuary and a whole cloud of rooks swirling in the air above us.

This month I’ve also been working furiously on my master’s degree, which I’ve just finished. My final portfolio was 20,000 words and although I started writing it last summer, I was still scrabbling to finish it the day before the deadline. My portfolio is called ‘Finding Home’ and it’s about my connection with Scotland, beginning with my first visit when I was six years old. Gathering all these pieces together has made me realise how many different ways my new home has inspired me, from memoir to folklore to fiction. Although it was rewarding to write, I’m glad it’s done now…

And now for the most exciting news: I’m going to be an author! This has been in the pipeline for more than a year and now I can finally tell everyone that I’m writing a Slow Travel Guide to Northeast Scotland. The book will be published by Bradt Travel Guides in spring 2023.

Back in February 2020 I attended a National Geographic travel writing masterclass and got chatting with the MD of Bradt about the possibility of a Slow guide for Moray. We swapped emails and a few months later I was asked if I was interested in writing a guide not just for Moray but for Aberdeenshire and the Cairngorms National Park too.

Slow guides are all about getting away from the ‘top sights’ and looking for the hidden gems of a place, enjoying each forest, café and stone circle at a leisurely pace. They cover nature, history, geology, food and culture, encouraging walking and cycling to experience the destination more thoroughly. Northeast Scotland is packed with potential Slow content and it’s an honour to be able to share its beauty and charisma with other Slow travellers in this book. I’m going to research, walk and write my socks off to make this guide the best it can be.

An excellent month’s progress. Bring on the dark half of the year!

Magazine Launch

January 31, 2021February 10, 2021 | Rebecca Gibson

I’m so excited to share what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks!

Things are difficult for us all at the moment. Trapped at home with very little to do besides work, I decided to start a passion project and create a mini magazine of my recent writing and photography projects. On The Wing magazine features a range of stories from autumn and winter 2020 including waxwings, orcas, red squirrels and a surprise woodcock.

I love designing magazines and it was so exciting to see all my recent work in one creative showcase. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it. I’d also really appreciate any feedback. Was there something you particularly enjoyed? Maybe there’s something you’d like to see in a future issue! Let me know in the comments.

Read the magazine here!

On The Front Cover!

June 22, 2020September 8, 2020 | Rebecca Gibson

Recently I was very pleasantly surprised to see an email in my inbox from the editor of Pay Our Planet magazine asking me to write a feature for them. I hadn’t heard of them because it was going to be the very first issue. I leapt at the chance and decided to write about red squirrels, which are an animal very close to my heart. During my time at university I was lucky enough to have some very up-close encounters with red squirrels in Lockerbie, and can now spot them quite regularly in the forests near where I live.

I was particularly taken by how environmentally aware Pay Our Planet is. Studies have shown that mangrove trees store carbon at a rate of four times that of mature tropical forests, so Pay Our Planet have partnered with the Eden Reforestation Project to plant mangrove trees in Madagascar. For every subscriber of the digital magazine, Pay Our Planet plants 15 trees each month. This makes that subscriber carbon positive, meaning their actions remove more carbon from the atmosphere than they put into it.

It’s been such a privilege to share the story of one of Britain’s most well-loved species to an international audience. I’m so grateful to Pay Our Planet for giving me the opportunity to not only write a feature for the magazine but also for putting my photo on the front cover!

A Review of ‘Sky Dance’ by John D. Burns

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 | Rebecca Gibson

I discovered ‘Sky Dance’ while looking for non-fiction titles in the Scottish Interest section of my local Waterstones. In the past I have struggled to engage with a lot of rewilding books and often been intimidated by the political conflict. But after reading the blurb I realised that ‘Sky Dance’ was actually a novel. The story follows two hill walkers who get caught up in a row between conservationists and landowners about the reintroduction of lynx into Scotland. There is a fictional island called Morven and a landowner who ticks all the stereotype boxes of a tweed outfit, upper middle-class pomposity and a disregard for any animals besides grouse.

It is a strange book in many ways – especially the surprising ending – but I enjoyed the unorthodox approach. Acknowledging a potentially heavy topic such as rewilding through the medium of fiction was intriguing. ‘Sky Dance’ conveys important messages while remaining full of action. There are a few too many side stories which muddled the plot for me, but the main narrative about the lynx was an engaging one.

It would be fantastic if the reintroduction of a long-lost predator into Scotland could one day be a reality and not a piece of fiction. Burns explains that lynx would pose no danger to humans and only have a very low impact on livestock. If famers were compensated for these small losses then lynx would undoubtedly make a valuable contribution to the restoration of an unbalanced ecosystem that is currently overflowing with deer and damaged trees. Wolves and bears raise more difficult issues, but I believe lynx should definitely be brought back to the UK. John D. Burns paints quite a haunting picture of what the Scottish Highlands could look like if we started to reverse the damage we’ve caused by hunting apex predators to extinction.

Published in 2019, ‘Sky Dance’ is John D. Burns’s third book. He has spent over forty years climbing mountains and fifteen years writing. To hear more from John, visit his website for blogs and podcasts.