‘Red sky at night – shepherd’s delight’ —

How many times have we heard that old saying?

and is there any truth in the old homily?

Tomorrow should tell —

for this evening we have a red sky in the west.

The weather forecast for tomorrow offers 50mph gales and heavy rain coming in from the east with a significant drop in temperature.

Can’t imagine there will be too many Delighted Shepherds around in the morning but for most it will just mean turning the heater controls up a notch in their air-conditioned crew-cab pickup trucks.

Things have changed since my days in the fields over sixty years ago when my first job on leaving school was pulling and shawing turnips alone in a 20 acre field on that aptly named farm – The Mains of Panholes – next to the sumptuous Gleneagles Hotel and golfcourses. Gloves or even sensible items of weather protection were for sissies or rich farmer’s son’s in those far-off days. My schoolboy hands quickly became virtually useless in the cold east winds. Tears formed icicles on my frozen cheeks and I couldn’t have felt more pain had a miss-judged blow from the razor sharp steel cleek clumsily swung by my right hand – severed the numb fingers from my pulling left to join the all-too slowly growing rows of topped and tailed turnips forming in that god-forsaken field. The never-ending drills of turnips ran down to the main Aberdeen – London railway line and I vowed that one day I would be on a southbound train heading for a magical ‘Somewhere Else!’

In the intervening years there have been many somewhere else’s – some magical – some not-so-much – but none have left me with the bitter memories that being cast adrift on those frozen fields left me with back then.

No worries – something good may come of it – my book was to be called ‘Somewhere Else’ – should I ever get it finished. Research has shown that quite a few authors have used that title – so what! – ‘My Somewhere Else’ has a nice ring to it.