Between blizzards ...

...There were moments when today was actually rather beautiful. Look at the colour of the sea, in this view from my window: it's wonderfully greenish under the suddenly blue sky, and rippled with white horses in the scudding wind.

There were moments when today was simply awful too. The sky would darken - you can see how, in that big grey mass heading for Glasgow - and there would be horizontal hail. There was also some very wet rain, and the wind gusted in the chimneys and sounded dismal and threatening. And it was cold.

But that was a beautiful moment - and I could see that the northern hills were once again a pure white.