I've just hung out the washing - actually it must be ten minutes ago as it has taken that long to defrost my fingers sufficiently to type; it is a wonderfully cold, blowy, dry day and I'm expecting to be able to bring it in dry within an hour. Of course I have had to use my gale pegs which hold on against the strongest breeze, but take a lot of manual effort when it comes to releasing the washing from the line.

It's funny how little things jog memories because as I was hanging out the washing I was transported back nearly twenty years to when I was staying with Becky in Anstruther and we had walked along the coastal path (to Pittenweem, I think it must have been) and I remember seeing all the washing hanging out on rotary clothes lines on the very edge of the harbour and wondering how much was lost into the sea each year. I still wonder. Had they all discovered these wonderful extra strong pegs which I then had not? Were losses just an accepted part of life? Did they all keep special fishing lines (and boats) for retrieving lost washing?

I must go back to Scotland: I've stayed there for four separate weeks (less than one per decade) in Argyllshire, Perthshire and the Kingdom of Fife - I love that: the Kingdom of Fife - but I've never got further north that the southern shores of Loch Ness (where there was never a monster to be seen) and the only island I've visited was Islay (on one of only two wet days twenty years apart - I spent the other in a folk museum somewhere in Fife). Other than that, I remember some lovely houses and gardens, amazing castles, breath-taking scenery, friendly people and some delicious pancakes in St. Andrews.