I am tired of getting up in the morning (and ashamed of being tired of it). It's not that it's early, it's that it's every morning, week-day or week-end. You can't have a lie in without letting someone else down. I didn't realise, just how restorative a week-end is. Maybe as much the idea of a lie-in (on a Sunday, with the newspapers) as the actual having of it.

On Saturday, we went out to a ska night in Galashiels (!) - Sam, Doug, his girlfriend Rowena and I - and I wondered if we'd come home early. But no, last out of the building. We're all up again at 7 am, hangovers and all, as the snow began to fall. Rowena even went riding after the morning routine, whereas I slunk back to bed...

I am ashamed and feel weak. In the mornings there is evidence of nocturnal activity: tea on the Aga; a lamb warming in a box before it. Ruth and Malcolm have been taking shifts overnight in the lambing shed. I want to be part of it all, but don't know how. I'm losing energy and feel sad.