Hi, I’m a 39-year-old Scottish bloke who works as a physical education teacher by day, goes to the gym in the early hours of the morning out of sheer self-preservation, and spends the rest of my time wandering the hills with my dogs, ensuring the risk of unnecessary human interaction is kept to an absolute minimum. For this reason, I’ve moved to the very remote Scottish countryside, where I have more neighbours of the sheep and cow variety than the human kind.

Scotland is known for its breathtaking landscapes, historic castles and unpredictable weather. You might picture a Scotsman in a kilt, striding through the Highlands, but if you’ve ever been here, you’ll know it’s usually far too cold for that. Can’t even trust Outlander nowadays, it seems. Everything is a lie. Only the Labradors are hardy enough, diving headfirst into freezing rivers without hesitation. Tough.

My job mainly involves blowing a whistle, encouraging children not to give up and attempting to herd them into some sort of silent, organised formation. This is about as easy as herding a group of excitable kittens who have just discovered an unrolling ball of wool—utterly fixated, entirely unbothered by my instructions and determined to chase after it no matter what I say.

Outside of work, my daily routine is strict: wake up before any reasonable person should, mainly because the dogs insist on it, go to the gym, lift things up, move my legs a bit. Not because I’m some Greek Adonis sculpted from marble, but because I’m acutely aware that metabolism is not on my side and will only get worse with time. Exercise isn’t something I love, but I’ve accepted it as one of life’s unavoidable certainties, along with death and taxis. I recently read an article in National Geographic that the human body ages significantly in the mid-40s, so this has now become a personal challenge, a race against time.

I live on a farm, though I do not own the farm. A nice farmer built a nice house on some excess land, and I get to enjoy all the benefits of farm life—vast fields, woodlands, rivers—without the emotional turmoil of dealing with injured livestock. The dogs and I have the freedom to run for hours, explore every inch of the landscape and return home caked in mud until they decide to shake it off inside. I may have a plan for where we’re going to walk, but the dogs have a better one. The dogs will choose the adventure.

Life in the Scottish countryside is peaceful, beautiful and wonderfully remote. It offers solitude, fresh air and a chance to truly disconnect—sometimes quite literally, since the Wi-Fi is so slow I started writing this post in 1999.

When I get a moment, my creative outlet has been found in writing. I have already released one passion project book and am currently plodding along with a second, with no particular timescale, so it may well become my unfinished masterpiece. My writing is not to the standard of Shakespeare, though probably more understandable. It’s not quite Dickens, but it does give me a way to explore my imagination.

Last night, I went to see Dear Evan Hansen on stage, which, not to be deep, had a profound impact on me. It made me realise that spending my days with a vast number of children and dogs couldn't hurt, but perhaps I should occasionally have a conversation with someone my own age. I know, shocking.

So, if you've read this far—well done. You have a concentration span, which is hard to find nowadays. You at least deserve dog photos. Just insert your basic information and the words DOG PHOTOS NOW, and you will be supplied with a wide range of unsolicited dog photos quicker than the genie serves Aladdin.