Edgelands

Forgot my camera on the evening walk, but as it was such a beautiful evening I thought I should take a few snaps with my phone anyway.

The stretch of the Kelvin walkway between the aboretum and the canal has enchanted me for years. It's usually very quiet, and never feels completely safe. It's in a deprived area of Glasgow and the authorities don't put as much effort into its upkeep as they do the more gentrified sections of the river. The overgrownness, and the sense of abandonment, adds to its magic. These patches of urban wilderness that Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley describe as 'edgelands' were the setting of my childhood imaginings (and many of my favourite children's books), and when I walk in them I feel like a child again, in this space beyond ordinary grown up life, where there is room for the wonderful and uncanny to bloom amidst the weeds.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edgelands-Michael-Symmons-Roberts/dp/0099539772 -