The Strathearn valley

And Turleum looked down, first day of the year, sun and thin, cold air. And Turleum turned into the Ochils, grander, greater, gradually spreading south and east and west, and beneath the range, nestling in its hollow, in the valley of its history, the town of Crieff rolled into another year and Jack rolled with it and Ash rolled with it and Emily rolled with it and Carmela rolled with it and Joss’n’Jules rolled with it and Kester rolled with it and Bob Kelty rolled with it and 1985 began as it would end, with sorrow and strife and love and romance and all the pain and all the joy that resides within the margins and life turns in that figment before future and after past, in that figment where, if only you could capture it, you could shape your lives the way you saw fit, but you can’t, you won’t, you never could, and life runs past without you and all the while Turleum watches with impassive beauty the folly unfolding beneath.