I’ve just run for three whole miles without stopping… I am so proud of myself that I have to write it down. I think I may finally, at a very late stage, have got the running thing. OK, I did run the three miles on a treadmill, so real runners (like my Dad) will just scoff at me. But still, it’s a start.

No, I think the start was about two weeks ago, when I noticed I’d run 3k in 27 minutes on the treadmill and I began to wonder if I could push the distance up and the time down.

So now, three miles in 33 minutes… that’s the latest target to beat.

I’ve always hauled myself to the gym erratically, probably averaging about 12 visits a year or something, but just lately, something has changed. I’ve timetabled three gym trips a week into my diary and I actually go… in fact I look forward to going. This is new. All very new. And it has come on pretty quickly. In March, my trainers and I were still strangers. Now, I’m considering buying a pair of those weightlifter gloves…

I’ve always liked to pump metal, ever since I joined this weightlifter’s gym in London in my 20s. The guys who ran the gym were very kind and encouraging, notching down their weights all the way from 70kg to my puny little 20kg.

Am I the only person who lifts weighs to Madonna, not because I really like the music, but because it keeps my mind focused on the fact that if I work hard enough, I too could have shoulders, biceps and triceps like hers?

Whatever you think about her: that 49-year-old body is phenomenal and there’s no way it’s all down to yoga. She can probably bench press 40kgs, maybe more… her bodyguards must just be for show, she could probably punch anyone’s lights out.

We went fishing at the weekend – a family first. We drove north to this beautiful little loch in the Highlands and it was a day of two halves really (you can tell I have to listen to far more football commentary than is good for me).

In the morning, the wind was bitingly cold and we stood in the grey water forlornly casting, casting and casting again. By the way, casting – flicking the line into the water and pulling it back – is really hard work and I’d thought we’d just be standing about holding our rods in the water… but I still got so cold that when I embedded a fish hook in my finger, I didn’t even notice.

We broke early for lunch, huddled round an Aga and got some feeling back in our toes, before setting off out again.

This time, the sun broke through the clouds, light danced on the blue water and suddenly every view around us looked stunning. Even the prospect of going home without any fish didn’t seem bad, because we’d had such a great day outdoors.

Then, just as we were about to pack up, Claudie’s line began to twitch! With some help, she reeled her little trout in and didn’t have any qualms about bashing his head and taking him home in a plastic bag for breakfast. Poor Sam just about died of envy!

And just to prove what I was writing about last time (Claudie’s spooky sense of style), her fishing outfit which she chose then laid out on her bed for me to pack included co-ordinating pants and a leather hat which she got from the dressing up box. She wore these all day along with her sunglasses, making her the coolest chic on the loch. Although Sam’s slightly serial killer get up of combat jacket, aviator shades and baseball hat came a very close second.

All I can say about myself is that duvet coat with a life jacket? Well, it’s never going to be a good combo now, is it?

Sun! We have sun! For the second day in a row, we have blue skies and a great big golden orb blasting us with heat.

Obviously I couldn’t post a word yesterday, the first officially decent day of the year, because I was doing what every self-respecting Scottish person does at the slightest hint of sunshine: staying outside all day in the skimpiest summer clothes to be found in the back of the wardrobe. Yes, that slightly mouldering pile of things unworn since last August.

Now everyone, apart from me because I am a ‘Mediterranean olive’ type, is already burnt. Can you blame them?? No sun for six, seven months, then a full on, factor 20 blitzer of a day without the slightest warning and no one was going to go off to the chemist’s for sunscreen because they might have missed it. That’s how the weather is here: it could all change in the blink of an eye.

Today, the second official day of sunshine, I have been out and about noticing the alarming variety of confused summer outfits there are out there because no one has been summer shopping and summer clothes are not worn out in a season up here, believe me.

So in just a short tour of the high street I’ve seen more long fishtail dresses (1980s? early 1990s?) than I’d care to mention. Especially bad in olive green. Then there was the girl in the matching printed blouse and printed shorts worn with dark wool tights and MBT trainers… and another in a bright lime green vest dress with baseball boots and the palest Scottish skin you can imagine.

Let’s not leave the men out of this: three quarter length black trousers, sandals, grey socks, white t-shirt, black jacket and monumental beer belly left one third exposed. Mmmmm… you’d think I was making it up, but sadly not.

Personally, I kept my jeans on. It may have been sunny but I wasn’t taking any chances. The weather can change in a blink of an eye.

The only person who looked really good in her new summer wear was my totally style-and-fashion-gifted daughter.

One look out of the window this morning and she went to her three school summer dresses (she bought them herself at last year’s school fete for 50p a pop). She held each one up in turn in front of herself, picked her favourite, then selected white socks with a blue and white check trim and a matching blue hair-clip.

I am constantly learning from her. She always chooses her clothes in a few co-ordinating colours: pink, purple, blue, some red, but nothing else. She is always prepared: buying dresses well ahead of summer and she always cares about the details: the matching socks and clips.

I think the style gene has skipped a generation and gone from my mother, straight to Claudie.

PS The summer holiday is booked…. Cornwall!!!!!!!! (You will have to read the last April post to know why that is tragic!!) No sooner had I booked it, than I was on another writer’s website reading how she’d spent four weeks in Cornwall where it drizzled every single day. AAAAArgh!