We came home from lunch yesterday to find Sparrow, our tiniest pekin bantam (she'd fit in Paris Hilton's handbag if it wasn't for the flapping wings) on the shed roof, as a result of trying to fly clear of the snow (she wasn't around in January, so this was all new to her). We had a hellish time getting her down - every time John put the stepladder up she flew to the opposite end of the shed, so he moved the stepladder to the other end and, well, you get the picture. Eventually I had to knock her gently off with a long stick, which sent her on to the (much lower) fence, from where she jumped into the snow and let me pick her up and carry her home.

This morning no further snow has landed (though there's more promised), encouraging some of the other chickens to explore, with varying results.

Solo flew on to the bonfire pile, and is still there half an hour later, plotting his next move:

Steve Mcqueen got a few yards across the paddock and realised how cold her (yes, she's a girl, but she used to escape a lot, hence the name) feet were and decided to warm one up at least:

And Flash flew up on the door of the chicken shed but didn't like what she saw, so flew down again:

Today, despite all these distractions, I am writing - on to chapter 21, almost halfway through the first edit.

A fall of snow last night, the threat of much more to come, and the landscape is transformed. As is my life. Suddenly, our priorities are those man had way before this electronic age – if you live in the country anyway – keeping warm and fed and doing the same for the livestock.

Keeping warm is partly (and wholly, if the power fails) reliant on a multifuel stove, so more logs need to be brought up from the log store, more coal from the (worryingly low) bunker. The freezer is half full, but that’s mainly with homemade pesto and fruit waiting to be put under a crumble topping.

Feeding and watering the chickens is a nightmare. They’re refusing to come out of their sheds, so everything has to be put in with them, which will end up in an unholy mess as they knock feeders over and scuff up their bedding. Mind you, their refusal to budge is better than what happened back in January. Then, some tiny chicken brains deduced that the white stuff couldn’t go on forever, so – they’re birds, aren’t they? – they’d fly to the other side. The result? Several chickens landing (and getting stuck) in drifts and having to be dug out.

The dogs are fine. Even if we run out of their food they’ll eat whatever we put in front of them, be it baked beans, cornflakes or yoghurt (though they’re not keen on vegetables). Our 18-year-old cat is way more fussy, as cats always are. She’ll only eat Whiskas, and that must be the sort with gravy not jelly (she has very few teeth left). Luckily I stocked up on that a couple of days ago.

My husband was determined to get to work, and having got his van stuck a few yards up the road came back and took the 4x4 pickup. I’m expecting him home soon, as Northumberland, where his current job is, has been affected by the snow even more than we have.

So, will I get much writing (apart from this) done today? I hope so, but there’s no guarantee.

Update, 9.40 a.m. – John’s back already, having been held up by a bad accident which caused him to decide take the day off. The road to Duns is passable, though, so he’s taking me to lunch instead!

Photo to follow, once I charge up the camera.

I’ve been relearning my horse riding skills for the past two years. And, I’ll add, showing very little progress (though I have only fallen off once, and that incurred far fewer injuries than tripping over a pothole in the Summerfield car park in Berwick, head-butting a parked car and ending up in the Infirmary).

Sometimes I enjoy my lessons, other times they feel a chore as once again I fail to coax my mount into a canter. As I’ve blogged in the past, I’ve been determined to persevere, arguing that it’s good for me to do something I’m so obviously not cut out for. But it’s mid-November already, and my self-imposed deadline for getting The Novel edited, re-edited and polished enough to start sending it out is 5 February 2011, when the next module of my OU degree starts. So, I need to get my ass into gear, get my skates on, and all sorts of other ways of saying: get writing. And as a result my horse riding has ceased, at least until the spring, releasing a valuable extra half day to work on No Stranger to Death.

Pictured above is an image from the Bar Lazy J Ranch website. It's a 'dude ranch' (i.e. not a working ranch, so you don't herd cattle like in the film City Slickers) based in the Colorado Rockies. I stayed there for a week in 1996 and have vowed to go back one day.

My visit to Wiltshire (see previous blog) also threw up a minor mystery. ‘I was having a bit of a sort out and found this,’ Mum said, handing me a postcard promoting a restaurant in London (see above). I looked on the reverse and read the following message:

Dear Janet, thank you for all your help. Good luck with university and your move.

The signature is illegible, it’s dated 28 September, and the phone number for the restaurant starts 01 (which was replaced by 071 in 1990). I went to Edinburgh university (for one year only, due to financial constraints) in 1998.

I don’t recognise the writing, I still can’t make out the signature, and I certainly don’t remember helping someone to the extent that they’d write to thank me for it, c/o my parents. This is really bugging me, and I don’t know why.

Perhaps there's a short story in it?

I’ve just been down to Salisbury, visiting my parents. Aside from catching up with friends and relatives, I was also able to spend time doing something I never do at home. No, not watching Strictly Come Dancing, though I did that too, and was delighted to see that not all the female competitors are young and svelte.

I’m talking about playing Scrabble.

My mother is seventy-eight. She left school at fourteen and worked for the next sixty years as a hairdresser. She’s a keen reader and introduced me to Agatha Christie at an early age, for which I’ll always be grateful. She’s also the most ruthless Scrabble player I’ve met, and plays in a local league. That woman can lay down two tiles (one of which is usually a high scorer, like z or x), create three words, and hit a triple word score. One year, playing four evenings running, I was unable to win a single game against her.

This year I managed to win four games. I abandoned my usual tactic of creating the best words and instead went for the best scores – not the same thing at all. I achieved my highest score with a rack of letters which at one stage contained only vowels.

I love words (no surprise there) and reckon I’ve got a pretty wide vocabulary. But the occasional reference to Mum’s Pocket Scrabble Dictionary made me realise what a large proportion of words in the English language are seldom used. For example, do you know what the following are:

• Brolga
• Vly (excellent for Scrabble – no vowels!)
• Zanja
• Xoanon

Whilst looking for an image with which to illustrate this piece, I came across the official Scrabble website, which tells the history of the game. It is sold in 121 countries round the world, and over 100 million sets have been sold in 29 different languages, which makes it easily the world's best selling word game. Much like those publishers who turned down JK Rowling, the many games manufacturers who turned down Scrabble back in the 1930s must be kicking themselves now.

I can’t remember learning to read, and I can’t recall being taught Scrabble either. Do children play Scrabble these days?

I wish I didn’t have to wait for a trip to Wiltshire to get a chance to play. I’ll never get good enough to trounce Mum.