I had to get two projects finished recently. These were the kind of ideas that open the door, live in your head and won't go away. So I did them. The first is a sound piece on Doric Scots, my mother tongue, almost incomprehensible to non Scots speakers, and often to me, especially the agricultural variety.

I've taken two phrases in which the speaker doesn't understand what the indeterminate other speaker is saying, in this case disnimakonysins, 'it doesn't make any sense' and  cannamakootfityersayin, 'I can't make out what you're saying' (both tracks linked in grey). The Scots speaker is saying, in Scots, what the non-Scots speaker is thinking, in English. 

​I love this stuff. It's a fight back against the onward march of linguicide, the death of a language, and believe it or not Scots indisputably is a language.

The second project is a simple field recording of me making a fire. Moving a grumpy dog, raking out the ashes, fetching the kindling, wood and anthracite and so on. No big deal, just interesting to my ears so I've shared it. It's called make a fire.

Some day soon I'll perform alongside these objects which are inanimate and animate simultaneously.

When I get to rehearsing my first steps will be to find initial boundaries, main ingredients and remember the continual interchange between making, listening and observing. 

Over the last week or so we've been thinking about sites for planters to fill with seeds and eventually edibles. Bob Dawson and I had a walkabout and identified between twelve and fifteen sites around the town that would be excellent places to put planters and maybe some more benches nearby so that people could enjoy the views over the town, the river, the abbey and so on.

We also looked at the Greyfriar's garden with its herb allotments begging to be tidied up and replanted with something approaching the original herbs. So far so good except for a nagging trend for institutions to throw health and safety and other bits of red tape at you when you try to do something simple and beneficial. They always want you to be constituted which immediately bogs you down in time wasting trivia. It probably comes from a hierarchy of people covering their arses but nevertheless. The way I look at things anyone putting obstacles in your way should set out to find solutions and fix it. They are after all being paid. Fortunately we have a new Community Council with good people on board - do-ers rather than paper shufflers - so I'm confident that with this umbrella body we can provide good things for the town without too much bureaucracy.

I also learned about food sovereignty. In simple terms this is defined as a food system where the people who produce, distribute, and consume food have control over the policies and mechanisms of food production and distribution but in practice it's a complex field. ​Obviously we're not near this yet. What interests me is the notion that there's some kind of human right going on whereby people should expect the state and its offshoots, like councils, to provide, facilitate and promote access to healthy nutritional and inexpensive food. I'll pick away at this in the weeks and months ahead because I'm not seeing much from 'above' and what I do see comes mainly from the excellent work of schools and the NHS, as you'd expect from dedicated professionals whose vocation is to care for people and thereby develop a civilised society. The easiest and best thing councils could do is stop junk food retailers from setting up in Borders towns. I suppose you could argue that it's what people want. I know a few middle aged men who want strip clubs and massage parlours up the High Street but I can't see that happening. 

​Here's a rough plan of the sites we identified for veggie planters in 2025. We had the idea of making a sort of accessible trail that people could follow and take rest at various points. The sites are un-named and in blue - hopefully you can distinguish them from the other markers.

​I've been busy figuring out the ins and outs of agriculture and food growing in the Borders, especially around Jedburgh. Here's what I've found out. First, farmers are very friendly and interesting people but they're hard to pin down. Must be part of the job. I did establish a few contacts to talk to later and discovered that some farmers here are looking into regenerative farming, which I assume has to do with soil sustainability and the wider ecology around land use. I wonder if that's why younger people seem to be becoming more interested?

A small group in the town is interested in local food growing, so we'll begin by identifying sites around the town to place planters, tell people what we're doing and then plant food that people can pick when it's ready. What I like about sitting down with others is the different ideas that people come out with. One idea that came up was to eventually establish a trail around the town where you could visit the planters and maybe have benches at some points along the route. There's also been a suggestion to look at growing herbs again in Greyfriars Garden, where in the 15th century Franciscan monks would have grown medicinal herbs and plants for dyes and so on. Maybe even some kind of Physic Garden. There are a few hoops to jump through but so far the signs are positive. 

​I did some historical digging to find out if there were ever any peasant's revolts in the Borders but couldn't find any records. Maybe we could stage and film a (non-violent) modern-day peasant's revolt that makes unreasonable demands of the powers such as sustainable and diverse food growing, care for the soil, wildlife corridors, carbon capture, getting rid of land use for shooting. Then maybe proceed to a suitable field and burn some effigies. Fun and games. 

I’m enjoying the initial stages of the Fallow Project, working with Artwalk Porty, the research and planning within the town and in the hinterland.
 
My first move has been to try to put together a small group in the town to look at how we might start small scale but visible food production. Some call this guerrilla gardening (but we’ll come up with our own name so as not to upset people). The idea is an extension to the amazing flower displays in the town whereby we introduce small planters of food and maybe herbs, attractively presented and dotted around the town so that people can help themselves when the food is ready to eat. There’s a substantial support network in the Borders so the precedents are there. Apart from the polytunnel at the school I don’t know of any small scale food growing in Jedburgh which puts us at odds with most of the other Border towns.
 
I’m also getting in touch with farmers and figuring out what I want to ask them. I’ve been reading a lot about global agriculture and the food ecosystem, in particular George Monbiot’s excellent positioning work Regenesis which offers a fairly bleak assessment of out current position with respect to land use and food production. I suppose what I’d like to find out from farmers is how they see their work within the constraints and conditions imposed by climate, government policies, the global food markets, financial considerations and so on, and what they see as the future of sustainable food growing.  I'd also like to find out what they would see as the future of agriculture if some of the constraints were removed or changed.
 
At the other end of the food chain, the cooking and eating department, I’m pleased to see that there’s a cooking initiative coming to town from a Glasgow based group Outside the Box.
 
As for en eventual art work let’s wait and see but I’m fascinated by Monbiot’s discourse on the supreme importance soil and how we, in his own words, treat it like dirt. He has a podcast on his book on Spotify which is well worth a listen. The things that go on beneath our feet.