I was supposed to meet the Gaunyersel Airways flight returning from Vancouver at 7am on the morning of Thursday February 25th at Inverness Airport.

The pilot thought that they had blown a tire on take off from the refueling stop at Goose Bay and decided to divert to Prestwick.

The emergency landing was textbook thanks to the skills of the pilot Captain Simon Masey of Interflight Air Charter.

I did need to talk to the pilot and crew and set off from Inverness for Prestwick driving an S-class Mercedes.

I left Inverness at 8am and reached Aviemore by 9.30am. I did not see a single snow plough on the A9. The roadway was covered by 1 - 3 inches of slush which could easily have been cleared.

The slush on the roadway created dangerous driving conditions on the non-dual parts of the A9 since traffic in the opposite direction caused the slush to obscure the windscreen.

Later in the day, I spoke to two police officers who had driven from Inverness leaving at 7am and they had not seen any snow ploughs.

Bear are the contractors responsible for road maintainence on the A9. "What do Bears do in the winter? They hibernate." The joke among the Chivas tanker drivers who bear the brunt of this failure to meet the basic requirement to - Keep Scotland's roads open

Ultimately, this is a failure of the SNP Government. The roads of Scotland were closed in the week of 22nd February not by snow but by a lack of equipment and determination to deal with the problem.

I got stuck in the snow trying to leave Aviemore. Done in by a combination of no snow ploughing and a Mercedes that is not programmed to deal with snow.

So, I spent a day in Aviemore that was not part of my original plans.

The ski industry in Scotland has spent the past few years complaining of lack of snow. On Thursday 25th February, there was plenty of snow. But the ski area was closed because the access road to Cairngorm was closed.

The equipment exists to deal with this amount of snow effectively and quickly. Any Canadian city manager can describe what is needed.

In Scotland, we don't deal with the problem. We close the ski area.

Another failure of the SNP Government.