HALF A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ......

This is my typical day when there is nothing special to do - well, this was my day today:

7.00am  Wake up to the sound of the central heating / boiler starting up. Daydream for about half an hour. Look out at the garden to check the weather. My first frost!

7.30am  Stretch out for my book (A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks) and read whilst waiting for the heating to permeate.

9.00am  Get up. Have bath - this is not a preference, rather a necessity as there is no shower, but the bathroom is the warmest room in the cottage so it is not a hardship either.

10.30am After breakfast (which is NOT oats) I pull on thick socks, boots, scarf and warm jacket and stroll over to the village hall to pick up some more wool - I have now completed 6.5 squares and run out of pink double-knit. Peter was at the hall (as it is Petrina's day off) and he kindly pulls all the bags of wool out of the store cupboard for me. I select a ball each of dark pink and grey. He tells me that the knitting circle is the most successful project run by the hall and attracts the largest amount of people. I tell him he should join. He looks askance at me. Stop off at village shop on way back to cottage to collect The Scotsman as the posties are on strike again, but it hasn't been delivered yet. So I buy foil, a dishmop and coconut cream (who needs Tesco). Have a long chat with Marie who tells me about a marvellous walk and cafe in Blair Atholl. I promise I will go.

11.00am Back at the cottage I set up the printer that I ordered online and which was delivered yesterday. No USB cable. Rats.

11.30am Pull on boots, scarf and warm jacket, start up the car, the heater takes forever to get going so I fish in my pockets for gloves. Off to Blairgowrie for USB cable. It's 1.5 celsius. I find BBC Gael on the radio, spoken all in Gaelic, and I listen to it all the way to Blairgowrie even though I cannot understand anything except 'karoake' and 'Stornoway' but I like the guttural growly sound of it. Tesco (this is not just a supermarket, this is a lifestyle) has a USB cable. To make the journey worthwhile, I buy cheese and plums too.

12.45pm Get back to the cottage, park car, and stroll back to the village shop in miserable cold rain for my paper. Apparently the posties are no longer on strike so it will be delivered to the cottage. Have a chat with one of the knitting ladies who asks if I am missing the warm weather. I charmingly reply that I had not come for warm weather and wasn't that a lovely frost this morning?

1.30pm. Set up printer on the floor and make a mental note to see if Jeanette has a spare table in her attic I can borrow.

2.00pm Read The Scotsman over lunch, and put aside Episode 10 of Alexander McCall Smith's new Scotland Street book to devour later. I have four Episodes to read. I missed the first six because I was (maddeningly) reading The Times until I changed my paper order. For those of you who may not know - McCall Smith (of No 1 Ladies Detective Agency fame) broke new literary ground in 2004 by writing a chapter a day in The Scotsman of a story set in Edinburgh which follows the lives, loves and eccentricities of an eclectic group of individuals (most notably Bertie, aged 6). These daily 'episodes' were later published as a novel entitled 44 Scotland Street, which sometime later I stumbled across and read, and instantly fell in love with all the characters. I've read the subsequent four books in the series so I was ecstatic to discover that the sixth book has just gone into daily serialisation and I get to read it in its original publishing environment. Every day!

2.30pm Write blog entry for the day.

3.30pm Post blog, and off to make a cup of Earl Grey tea before turning my attention to my book. Yes! I have started putting pen to paper - or should that be fingers to the keyboard?