In 1995 I and my Spanish partner Ana Fortun Garrido travelled down from Edinburgh to Dumfreis and Galloway and because she loved canoeing we both went to a lake/campsite and that believe it or not is me in the canoe..my only time I add….afterwards it a beautiful evening and I picked up the pheasant feather and kept it….somewhere near a famous Scottish Mathematician -scientists tomb..monument..I forget..so there you go….magical days…met William Neill the poet and his wife the next day…unforgettable….so this drawing for him…

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poets/william-neill

I had written an essay on him and another neglected Scots writer.Alasdair Maclean…..yes I did more in poetry in Scotland than I ever have in England..I seemed to fit in there..I do not fit in down here and frankly Oxford and then Nottingham have always treated me like shit….well again frankly there no poets here to compare with any I met up north…..sorry that the truth…..MacCaig, Maclean, Dunn, Tessa Ransford, Duncan Glen,Neill, …..nobody round here comes close..sorry that a fact. I never really got over leaving….I left my poetry up there..maybe that a sign that I should return that feather..after all the latin for feather is penna…pen…..