In my beginning was Dumyat, and so is my end.

Well. Not really. But the grand mini-mountain that is Dumyat that sits above Stirling was one of the first places I walked this winter after coming up to Scotland and reclaiming my - much diluted - birthright.

Fitting then to take a break from the final prep for Italy to conquer the hill again. And much fitter I am between the two reckonings.

There was much to see, a veritable spangling of tormentil, a sky-show of blooming saxifrage, scabious and meadowsweet still going strong, raven, pippit, wheatear, swallow - the latter three hanging on and on until migration strikes their tiny hearts and go they must.

My flitting is more precarious and contingent. But a plan, including a stay in a hotel in the Jura that is called 'the pillbox', has come together and tomorrow I leave for Oxford via a Mucker on the Welsh border. Then a rush to the tunnel on Tuesday morning.

I loved being in Edinburgh and Scotland this summer and walking the nearby hills, going back to familiar faces and new haunts on Mull, the magic of the far north.

I am very sad to leave - deep in my melancholy - but our new Italian chapter is being writ in ever more permanent ink as the house purchase process goes through its necessary and hopefully hopeful gears.

A change on Dumyat Hill - the people/folk have decided to fill the signal brazier with stone. A rebellion against the 'Queen and all her armies' or a mere joke, a prank from the campus down below?

I'll be hasting back, right enough.