‘It doesna bother ye, living here?’ the gardener asks me one morning. I have to ask him if I've understood correctly.

No, I answer, surprised. I love living here!

Isn’t it ironic, how we always have the least appreciation for the place we’re from.

You can live here all your life, the Pentlands on the horizon in red, grey and green, and let them pass you by. Till the paths have crumbled, the trees burned down.

Instead of the roughcast houses and the cold corridors, I see here what I miss at home: a life close to nature.

The Scots like to jest about their country, but at the same time there’s not many who can appreciate it like they do. Maybe not their own homes, but who isn’t nostalgic of nights in a Highland bothy with a dram of whisky.

Where the wind blows.

Near to the wild heart.

In Portobello they appreciate it like no other, the outdoor life – it’s always buzzing, from the old ladies swimming in the sea at 7 a.m. to the runners and dog walkers on the promenade. At dusk, the last canoes return to shore, and campfires are lit.

Will they still be here when the days grow dark?

Or do we say goodbye then to the wild heart?

Like the old ladies, the water has become my haven too. I swim. In the sun-kissed loch. In the fast-flowing river. In the savage sea.

I cycle along the banks of Loch Lomond, I cycle past all the bays of the Firth, to swim there too.

Once a week about a hundred students gather to swim. Among them are Bea the birdwatcher, and Connah, environmentalist and joker. They both find it cold, and yet they come back week after week, to take the plunge. Humans, after all, are utterly sensory beings.

Everytime she hits me in the face, takes my breath away. Makes my nerves tingle. My veins constrict.

I keep seeking it, that cold.

For it reminds me that I'm breathing.

When I fill my lungs, it’s a primal instinct, like a newborn taking its first breath.

In the water I feel more awake than I’ve ever been.

If I stay a little longer, I meld with the water.

The cold encloses my wild heart.

Nothing else can touch me here.

Forever, for a while.

One evening I go to the sauna in Portobello. Four women accompany me in the steamy cabin. They speak to each other in a tender, thoughtful tone that tells me they know each other through and through.

Together we run towards the black sea. Floating in the still water, the lights of Edinburgh reflect around us. We laugh, exult. Dark clouds fly over and the moon rises. It is euphoric.

When I step out the water, that’s when the cold rush comes in, an electric pulse. It rushes through my body. For a moment, I’m ice in a world of fire.

The cold seeps.

Near to the wild heart.

I’m content here in Porty; mornings in the sauna, sipping coffee in the bay window of Tills bookshop. I enjoy my own company, and the little encounters I have. But as the weeks go by, it does starts tingling in me.

The Lomond Hills on the horizon, and beyond them the promise of hills for 200 miles more, all the way to Cape Wrath.

The Highland call.

I have to wait another week then, for storm Amy comes between. But then I go.

And I can finally touch the wild heart.

Photos shot on Ilford HP5 Plus 400 (+1) with my Minox 35 GT.