Sums up the bleakness

The river's running high and more rain - and snow - is forecast. The countryside is rather unappealing at the moment.

I say that, but as I was out trotting along with the dog today, the birdsong was an aural blessing around and above me. Blackbirds I heard and robins too. The magpies cawing as they took off in front of me. Three of them. Three for a girl.

There remains some confusion over exercise: namely, are you allowed to drive somewhere to run or to walk your dog? I often drive four miles so that I can run in the woods without having to do a mile or so on the road. I find the streets boring and Jabi's feet get sore on the tarmac and concrete.

The exercise though makes such a difference. When I returned from this dismal run - I hadn't driven on this occasion - I did an abdominal workout, accompanied by Joe Wicks on YouTube. And the endorphins did the business. When I stood up after some noticeable pain and strain, I felt better. The fog cleared briefly. All too briefly, but it cleared.

I've been thinking about animals and how different, irrational, ideas prejudice our concern for them. Things like familiarity and cuteness. Apparently, even vets perceive wild animals as experiencing less pain than domesticated ones and big dogs as experiencing less pain than small ones. I wonder how our views about their virtue effect our treatment of them - seeing foxes as cunning and wolves as vicious gives a kind of permission to kill them. Seeing pigs as dirty and chickens as stupid. We have other reasons for harming them: that they're useful, that they're tasty, that they 'don't matter as much as people' but the bizarre prejudices are interesting.

If we hear of a dolphin, elephant or dog saving a person it seems so important to us. Their attempts to save themselves, though, make them 'aggressive'.