Much as I love to show off how nice Falkirk and its environs are, I cannot deny that Stirling is – well – almost as pretty. The Forth flows through the town – sorry, city, meandering slowly in the wide flood plain, getting where it needs to go in its own good time.

And then in just to the north and east you find the Ochils, the northern wall of the great glaciated Forth valley. Today the cloud was low on the hills, blanketing them in an early morning coating of snow-white moisture through which the tallest of the hills manages to peek.

A perfect place to walk your dog? Well, it wasn’t quite as slow and restful as it looks – my back was just a few metres away from the M9, with cars and lorries racing noisily along the motorway. But that was a small price to pay to be able to watch this languid scene.