Letter: Otter spotting starts the year

MY WIFE and I drove down to Leith from Edinburgh's Regent Terrace early on 1 January. It was a fine and still morning, but cold.

My wife noticed something in the water next to the old pier with the Antony Gormley sculpture. It was an adult otter, fishing away merrily. A woman and her daughter rode up on their cycles. They were as entranced as my wife and I were and said they had never seen an otter at Leith Docks. I cheekily made up an "old" Scottish proverb: "If you see an otter on New Year's morn, good luck will follow you all year long." Well, it might be true. In any case, it was a beautiful way to start 2011.

Rowan D Story, Melbourne, Australia