Gavin Maxwell Centenary

Because I'm not always as organised as I'd like to be it turns out that it's 100 years and a day since Maxwell was born. Regardless of actual dates I wanted to take a moment to celebrate a remarkable twentieth century figure. Happily for the reading public there is a decent edition of his best known book Ring Of Bright Water from Little Toller, and of the book that remains one of my favourite ever - Harpoon at a Venture was happily resurrected by Birlinn last year. Their edition is splendid, complete with even more pictures than the disintegrating old Penguin I have cherished from new.

Maxwell was a troubled and troubling figure but his writing is magnificent, books which aren't in print are still easy enough to get hold of, read him!

An odd coincidence but as I published this post I looked out of the window to see an otter in the garden pond. I always hope to see them when I'm in shetland - they're reasonably common here, but it's still not often you get one in the garden. Unfortunately the almost simultaneous discovery that sheep had also got in and were happily munching on one of his prized trees meant dad had to rush out with the dog to evict them. It scared off the otter too so no pictures.