03/02/2026
2025 was a bloody massive year. It was a big birthday year, I celebrated 5 years of Storywalks, decided I was going to go all out, and generally worked my socks off.
Conclusion: a really wonderful, rich, busy year but I'd quite like to keep ma socks on for 2026 - there wasn't much room for breathing or processing.
It was also the first time I applied for funding for Storywalks. Being able to work on projects I've had humming away in my head for years was a treasure, and I hope it's the beginning.
Projects (still ongoing!) are...
🌿 My Place project with , funded by , working with racialised and marginalised young people living within the Strath, to create a zine of their experiences of living here.
👉 ZINE LAUNCH IMMINENT!
📍Unmapped places of the Cairngorms: Stories from a living landscape, funded by and the Williamson Trust/. Recording the everyday placenames that people use for places, which haven't been mapped previously - highlighting relationships, connections with and types of knowledge of the mountains, as the climate shifts and land use changes.
👉 ONLINE MAP LAUNCHING IN NEXT MONTH OR SO!
🌳 Undertook my first joint residency, with , in Glen Tanar, focusing on quieter or hidden voices to record their connections to and reflections on the place. Watch this space!
Collaborated with...
- on re-imagaining landscape stewardship
- on an EU-wide Culturality project exploring the value of craft and cultural heritage in rural tourism
- Scotland and to organise a Land Justice Gathering on what was Brewdog land just outside Aviemore (if you'd like to join the local Badenoch & Strathspey chapter of Scottish Histories of Resistance drop me a message)
- at their conference, and brilliant annual Hill To Grill community festival
- to run a Storywalk at RSPB Abernethy
And, contributed to an ongoing /Uni of Stirling project to decolonise the Scottish history curriculum.
Also contributed to a soon-to-launch project led by highlighting women in the landscape - their voices, stories, experience and knowledge.
Ran plenty of public and private Storywalks across the Highlands and Moray, for students, teachers, elders, and visitors.
Travelled to Stornoway to attend the Saoghal Mòr Farsaing emigration conference and hear good pal and neighbour .ziz speak about her PhD research in Tiree! (And spoke lots of Gaelic!)
Travelled to Perth to attend the always brilliant conference, on Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Continued the Storywalks interweaving Palestinian and Highland folktales, and co-organised a community event in Kingussie with our local Badenoch & Strathspey group supporting Palestine, the Olive and the Pine - around 200 people attended and raised over £1,500 for children's charity .
Learned new skills, and songs, and connections, from so many folk.
Fell deeply in love with new places, and even more deeply in love with old ones. An entire mountain, or a clump of moss, or where a deer lay.
Went to lots of gigs, danced a lot.
Took myself away to the mountains of northern Pakistan to celebrate my birthday (a long-held wish since I worked there 15 years ago). Dust and samosas and stars and dargahs and reading and glaciers - what's left of them. Spent my actual birthday day with a glorious group of people in a stormy Skye, walking from Broadford to Glasgow for land justice. The day was spent camped in a dripping, alive hazel wood sheltered from the winds, and a silent walk down to the cleared village of Boreraig.
Aye it was quite a lot for a year, on top of 'normal' Storywalks and a day job...
