As we now have freesat installed I decided to bring a freeview box back with me and as I stood in the queue for security at the airport I wondered if the combination of laptop, freeview box, i-river, an assortment of chargers and a couple of hard drives together with white powder (in the form of a sherbet dib dab and sherbet fountain, purchased by Richard in a nostalgic moment in a Little Chef) in my hand luggage might lead to me having my bag taken apart - fortunately not!

I have no intention of boring you all with a description of every flight but my latest one on Saturday was quite spectacular. We were about fifteen minutes late taking off so the sun was just rising and there was thick mist collecting in the glens. The effect from the sky was almost prehistoric with the valleys looking like huge glaciers with a backdrop of a clear blue sky and deep red sunrise. A photo through the plane window would never have done it justice - you had to be there.........a note for potential visitors - seat A gives the view of Moy loch both arriving in Inverness and departing.

Some of you will remember the magnificent Christmas cactus which dominated the conservatory each year. Sadly it was inadvertantly left out on the decking at the end of the summer a few years ago and was caught by an early frost causing it to go the way of all frosted succulents - mush!! This was left in Keilingha and I feel is a worthy successor.

I have added 'Making it with Pallets' to my current reading and a 'wrecking bar' (crow bar to the uninitiated) has been added to my armoury. Richard was disconcerted , but not altogether surprised to come back out from sorting out the marble restoration to find that I had talked the workmen into letting me take away the pallets outside and was loading them into the back of the 807. For a tenner and a cup of tea I had another load delivered by a man with a completely unintelligible accent and now have the challenge of taking them apart while preserving as much of the wood as possible. Others may see pallets but I see compost bins and chicken coops and raised veggie beds and ........

In a similar vein the leaves I collected are being stored in wire mesh bins to make next years leaf mould. Richard tells me that it has been quite blustery and the ground is covered again. Last year the snow fell before some people had a chance to collect them and I'm told they had quite a mess to sort out in the spring as a result. I'm hoping that I will make it back in time to avert the same problem this year.

Now that we have completed on the house in Belmont it is time to make a decision as to when I hand in my notice at work in Sutton. It is unrealistic to try and maintain a property with so much land when I am spending more than half my time 550 miles away. With the property market so sluggish this year we were very fortunate to sell the house so quickly and although I will very much miss my colleagues and the unit I first worked in 30 years ago I need to focus on buildinga new life in Moy. Continue to watch this space....