Wednesday - one day's work left this week

It was Fraserburgh again for me this morning, but, first, I had to scrape the car. Yes, the skies were clear last night and there was a fairly heavy frost on the windscreen - the first this year.

The drive north east was effortless and soon I was approaching the village of Strichen, where Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, has his home - in the heart of his constituency. The signs that greet you tell you that Strichen is a 16th Century planned village. It sits in the shadow of Mormond Hill, which used to house a huge underground NATO monitoring station, keeping an eye on the Russian fleet movements in the North Atlantic in the days of the Cold War.

On the west side of Mormond Hill, there is a prominent White Horse carved out - an unusual sight in Scotland, something more normally associated with southern parts of the UK. There used to be a Stag's Head on the east side of the hill, but it's pretty overgrown now and urgently needs some TLC to restore it to its former glory.

At the western entrance to Strichen the villagers have recently put this welcome sign up:

Nice to see the hanging baskets still here at this time of year.

It was another busy day for me in the Broch - non-stop until I left, going home via Dyce, where I dropped off our architect, who's unable to drive just now due to a recent ankle operation. This, of course, meant I had to encounter the rush hour round the airport area - no fun.

Tomorrow, it's Aberdeen, thank goodness - and we have Luca staying with us tomorrow night as his parents celebrate their anniversary.