Lenzie Moss is a designated Local Nature Reserve in East Dunbartonshire, near the city of Glasgow, UK. It is a boggy and marshy area with a history of peat extraction. The Moss now serves as a vital habitat for diverse wildlife, including water vole and bog rosemary, and the green hairstreak butterfly, alongside areas of silver birch woodland. My name is David Overend. I moved to the edge of Lenzie Moss in the summer of 2023 and began to regularly take the 25 minute walk round its border, sometimes daily. I have walked with friends, my children, and once with an expert on water vole habitats. Mainly I have walked alone: as a break from work; to start the day with some fresh air; in search of kestrels and deer. Every time I complete the circle, I notice, learn or experience something new. The walk has become something of a ritual, a way of marking the change in the seasons. Since I started to follow this route, I have had the feeling that there is more to discover and that this repeated circular walk might lead me somewhere. So, I am walking it 100 more times, each time with a different person from the local community, or a visiting artist or researcher with some interest in peatlands. As I share these encounters on this blog, I hope that a co-authored text will emerge, bringing a series of walked dialogues to a wider readership, and perhaps finding a way for the Moss to tell its stories. If you would like to be part of this project and join me for a walk round Lenzie Moss, please get in touch.

Website about my work

Helen Ottaway is a composer, pianist, installation artist and curator. While a student at Goldsmiths’, University of London in the 1980s, she studied briefly with John Cage and up to 1998 worked as a performer, musician and composer with experimental music and theatre groups, touring nationally and internationally. In 1999, with arts administrator Steve Ehrlicher, she formed Artmusic to promote and produce collaborative,site-specific and participatory work. As lead artist she has had extensive experience of working with artists from different disciplines and curating and producing her own and other artists work. As a composer she has received commissions from BBC2, Salisbury Festival, Bath Film Festival, the Bernardi Music Group and others. Landscape, water and nature provide inspiration and and are recurring themes in a style that is predominantly minimalist with influences from folksong and English pastoral and church music traditions.