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Down Dunnerdale with William Wordsworth
Walking the full length of a Lakeland river, in 22 miles and 34 sonnets [ 2200 words, 10 mins
Nov 19
•
Ronald Turnbull
5
1
Does dying on high mountains have survival value?
Then again, there’s leaping off high platforms with stretchy vines tied to your ankles. A look at the land divers of Vanuatu and other death-defying…
Nov 12
•
Ronald Turnbull
15
4
1
Bacterial sludge: Stromatolites
A tale of two planet-destroying organisms [1700 words 7 mins
Nov 5
•
Ronald Turnbull
12
4
1
October 2025
Scotland's Mountains
Celebrating my 100th Substack post with a words-and-pictures gallery of my home hills
Oct 29
•
Ronald Turnbull
27
4
5
Howard Somervell
He sat down to die on Everest in 1924, then came down again and painted it all in oils. If you happen to be in Grasmere, then grab this exhibition at…
Oct 22
•
Ronald Turnbull
17
9
3
Gordale Blimey!
At the end of October, putting back the clock by a full 200 years, while walking from the limestone to Lancashire [1600 words 6 mins
Oct 15
•
Ronald Turnbull
13
15
4
Is basalt an ocean bottom rock?
An Auvergne investigation along the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail [1900 words 7 mins
Oct 8
•
Ronald Turnbull
15
7
3
John Milton and me
How hard will it be to maintain this Substack feed after becoming a partially sighted person? Poet John Milton managed it okay. [1400 words, 6 mins
Oct 1
•
Ronald Turnbull
20
14
September 2025
Islands in the Stream
Bog problems: continuing the encounter with Rannoch Moor [1500 words, 6 mins
Sep 24
•
Ronald Turnbull
9
10
2
Poems in the MRI Machine
You have to stay very still, while looking at white plastic and listening to loud thumps. One way to do it is to see which poems you’ve managed to…
Sep 22
•
Ronald Turnbull
11
35
2
Crossing bogs
Encounters with quagmires, morasses, bogs, fens, flows, sloughs and other soggy bits. [1600 words 7 mins
Sep 17
•
Ronald Turnbull
15
6
1
Nurikabe, the helper of humanity
I am Nurikabe, helper of humanity. Helper, in particular, by means of my playfully enlarged scrotum. [900 words 5 mins
Sep 10
•
Ronald Turnbull
8
2
3
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