6 to 1 gets you snow suggested the sporty Mr Bett; 60% chance of snow claimed Teletext offering worse odds than the BBC Weather Centre's tipster of the week. Huttonian should have put money on as we had 100% chance of snow for an exciting twenty minutes this morning. Prospects of being properly snowed in in Fortress Manse quite literally evaporated within half an hour as the wretched sun came out, the clouds hurried on towards Hexham and there was enough blue in the heavens to knot jackets for a whole boat load of matelots.

As you can see from the image of Cocky pecking amidst the snow we got of very lightly around here with all of northern Scotland brought to a halt. I wonder however if our Pheasant is living on borrowed time. Come the Bird Flu courtesy of our French neighbours he may have a problem. One of our neighbours who is not in a position to bring hens and cockerels inside has already sent their little flock to the great chicken run in the sky. Much as we love Cocky and his friend Ollie I am not going to put them in the spare bedroom if the Flu hits these shores and I fear they will have to go on the run if an open Pheasant season is declared. And what about Rosie the Cat and her friend Boots? If Aviator flu' can spread to moggies in Germany it can do so here but with the neighbourhood chickens RIPing in some deep freeze the risk to the local cats is that less. Apart of course from Cocky and Ollie-they and the cats are on friendly nodding acquaintance but who knows what acts of intimacy take place in the wee small hour-according to the German animal husbandry gurus such acts are a necessary part of transmitting the virus-although they were not talking about swans to cats but cats to humans.

We were congratulating ourselves on escaping the worst of the weather (the news was full of doom and struggle in northerly blizzards) as the weatherman took us through the shape of things to come with icy blue graphics dominating the scene. But as he finished the sound cut out just as he gave smug watchers from the Borders a long hard look. His lips moved menacingly and it seemed that he had a message just for us. I may be wrong but I think he said:
'You're Next'  ¶ 1:04 PM