Tom (youngest son), texts me from the langoustine boat. Mum, if you're going to the shop can you pick up some sort of nice juice, I need to drink more water...and make it sugar free. I'm thinking yup, uhuh, OK, until I get to the sugar free bit and then I baulk. OH NO, I'm not buying sugar free anything, not never (apart from Extra chewing gum which I buy alot!). I mean it's not as though sugar is good, but in my instinctive, possibly wrong and humble opinion, sugar- free is

Despite relying on it quite a lot, I find modern technology quite unsettling if dwelt upon for too long. I mean, what web of magic makes your voice come through my telephone? How on earth do blobs of welded metal on a motherboard facilitate a video call from Oban to Oslo? "Waves my dear" I hear you sigh "Frequencies and electrical impulses". Well as far as I am concerned life on the croft is far too short and full of more satisfying distraction than to dwell on the things I