I went to the bank in St. Andrews on Friday to do a job for Claire and couldn't take my eyes off the almost-bare legs and classic black heels of the bank assistants, and their clean, close-fitting skirts and carefully made hair-dos, like flight attendants. My hands are already tougher, taughter, than they were six weeks ago, and my fingernails shorter, lined from the front with a thin dark line which is almost impossible to remove (and has seemed increasingly pointless to try, considering its likely reappearance the following day).

I arrived in Edinburgh yesterday, Saturday: on the one hand overawed by the size and the movement of people, by the number of foreign accents and variety of hairstyles, get-ups, costumes; and on the other half-comforted, half-thrown again by the familiarity of the city. As I've said before, to travel is a state of mind (I love the title of a book I found in a 2nd hand bookshop in St. Andrews, 'England, My Adventure', and the quote inside, "No need to go out of England for adventure. Adventure is never anywhere unless we look for it"); reaching a familiar city to stay with friends has knocked some of that out of me. I'm in a state of limbo; 'between farms' I'm still in a sense travelling, but also taking a breather in the rhythm of family life (three children, under teenage) for a few days.

On Thursday, on car-parking duty, meditating in a bright yellow jacket in the sun. Taking entry payment to the estate, I told a RHS member (Royal Horticultural Society), that they get free entry to gardens except in February, July and August. He surprised me: it's March.

On the train on the way to Edinburgh, in the golden sunlight coming through the window, I thought back to my time on North Uist visiting Lucy, and it suddenly felt like an incredible adventure, a very long time ago, that I had reached her house through the mud, surrounded by wild(ish) Highland cattle. It had been sunny then too, but extraordinarily so, like a dream in the middle of winter. On the train now, North Uist and its waterproof clothing, torches and wellies, felt like a very long way away. And it hadn't, on my arrival to St. Andrews. A fundamental change in perspective had taken place between arriving and leaving. More than time and distance I think, although my moving south, onwards towards my fourth farm ("farm") serves to accentuate this change, an emotional shift which takes place in the seasons changing, in that feeling of the worst of winter being over and in the hope of spring.

I've wondered before, whether there might be no such thing as spring; that spring might only ever be the promise of itself, felt in a series of 'firsts': lunch outside, taking a jacket off to dig in the sun, snowdrops. If so, spring has taken place; the sunlight hitting my face through the train window is no longer remarkable; snowdrops are beginning to wither, and fade, replaced by the more colourful daffodils and irises.

Although there is a relief and excitement to it not being Coldest Darkest Winter anymore, as I leave St Andrews and the east coast of Scotland, I also feel the sadness of leaving my wintery adventures, and all the things I haven't done, places I haven't visited. What of the Aberdeenshire fishing villages, the north east side of Scotland, and Sutherland and the north coast? Not to mention the Orkneys and Shetlands... I wanted to experience the extreme edges of things British and rural, but apart from a couple of days on Eigg, it hasn't been that hard; have I done enough? Maybe travelling lightens the experience; you're either arriving or leaving. Maybe I'm tougher than I thought; maybe I've been lucky, missing the heavy rainfall of the autumn and experiencing an incredibly mild January. Or maybe travelling is not farming; farming is living and working in the same place, being prepared to watch the rain fall every day between October and February, sitting out a grey winter and waiting for spring.

I joined the seasonal journey in the approach of spring, January downwards. Working on farms and progressing South has highlighted the movement of the seasons, embodied in the activities of each farm: January a slow month in Ullapool, cleaning, tidying and preparing; February tough on Eigg; then snowdrops on the east coast, further south, slightly warmer. Now what? Lambing will start soon. I visit a family dairy, sheep and poultry farm in March in the Scottish Borders.