In keeping with a sense of duty, loyal readers, I pen this from start line of a week’s holiday.
Of course, the chief’s power could have been invoked and delegation directed towards another member of Team Angus to step into the breach.
But no way was I going to risk that for fear of regulars noticing a prettier face, an obvious uplift in the quality of content and the resultant calls to deny me the weekly opportunity of heading off on Monday Matters’ tangential trip.
So here we are, awaiting the arrival – holidaying or not and whether at kitchen table or sitooterie – of the Beast from the East.
Due from Russia with not a lot of love and a chilling title to boot, we’re reliably informed this Beast will bring the country’s coldest February finale in five years.
That’s bad news for all, but especially if you’re in the winter boots of the folk charged with looking after our roads.
Scotland’s carriageways are decades behind the investment needed to bring them up to scratch, but well in the grip of a bitter financial climate where winter maintenance and road repair budgets are taking an annual battering.
In Forfar, a manhole in the middle of Market Street has become the cundie-with-a-cone for local drivers.
And this is far from only an Angus problem.
There’s an A90 southbound stretch between Tinkletap and Tealing that might soon be a suspension testing ground for car makers.
Head into the Kingdom and you’ll face craters on the Guardbridge road at the end of the old RAF Leuchars runway as big as what 43 Squadron may have left if they’d used it for a farewell bombing training run.
On social media a well-worn meme made one of its regular reappearances.
It says: “In Scotland, we used to drive on the left of the road.
“Now we just drive on what’s left of the road”.
We’ll see what the Beast from the East has to say on that this week.
