I feel slightly guilty about this, but my life feels pretty normal. According to reports from the other side of the world, where I live is in the grip of apocalypse -- plague, blizzards, terrible accidents. You'd think I'd be suffering. But no. I was slightly annoyed by the fact that my newspaper wasn't delivered two days in a row, and the rubbish was collected a day late. Oh, and the deadlines at work have been moved forward. But that's it. Hardly chaotic.

Joking aside, it's very nerve-wracking for my farming friends -- there are two suspected cases of foot & mouth disease in Scotland, one in Dumfries and one in Grangemouth, near Edinburgh. There was one suspected case at a pig farm in Aberdeenshire, but it turned out to be frostbite. Yes, it's very, very cold in the north, and the poor pigs live outside. I was surprised that the virus can survive such intense cold, but apparently it thrives in winter conditions, it's heat that kills it, even sunlight. The last outbreak lasted from November to April.

The snow is still lying and a little more fell this morning. Just a powdery sprinkling, nothing serious. It's bitterly cold, so nothing is melting. Apparently the main road between Glasgow and Edinburgh is bordered by tall icy drifts. When I came in to work today the city looked magnificent: Arthur's Seat was brilliant white and bathed in sunshine, and the dark crags of the Castle looked dramatic silhouetted against it. I always get a thrill from the beauty of Edinburgh, even after 10 years.

Ten years ... good grief ... that fairly flew by. In fact it's nearly 11 years. Jings.

I dragged my sorry carcase to the gym today and took a little light exercise. I'm trying to get into running, with the eventual aim of jogging in the outdoors. For now what I do is brisk walking (on the treadmill) for a few minutes, then running for one minute, then go back to brisk walking. I am severely unfit due to joyfully embracing car ownership, so a minute's running is a much bigger achievement than you can imagine. There were other people in the gym, so it was an even braver deed. The good thing about the little village gym though is that the clientele aren't as scary as at the gyms I used to go to in town -- more baggy trackies and t-shirts, less lycra.