On the days when I can't go outside, the outside comes to me. A gift blown in through open balcony doors in the days before rain, when all was still heat and dust (and is so again, though we're promised rain again soon). That, and some stationary travelling: to strange houses in Oxford back streets, the stark bleak immensity of Hebridean hills and shorelines, overgrown gardens harbouring strange statues, out-of-the-way places of old cults and old religions, all bathed in penumbral shadows to snare the lonely traveller. There's something too in these tales of those wonderful old travelogues and walking tours by gentleman antiquarians and collectors of folklore, albeit from a modern, Aickmanesque perspective - all evocative, some genuinely unsettling. Really enjoyed this. #peterbell #revenantsandmaledictions #sarobpress #paullowe #weirdtales #shortstories #supernaturalfiction #scotland #hebrides #oxford #isleofman #folklore #geniusloci #books #bookstagram #bibliophilia #summer #dogdaysofaugust