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Who can forget the carnage of 2018’s Beast From The East? In just three days, there were 8,000 collisions on icy and snowy roads which cost lives and caused more than ten million pounds’ worth of damage. Paul Martin’s behind the wheel at Thruxton, the Hampshire race track where Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton cut his teeth. As Paul hits the brakes – and the skid pan – he picks up some top tips on how to drive safely on lethal winter roads.

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In a Countryfile Diaries’ exclusive, Jules Hudson is in Formby to meet Max, the UK’s first squirrel dog. Max is a new weapon in the battle against a lethal pox threatening to decimate our endangered red squirrels. Once there were three million of these enchanting animals, now there are aroundÌý140,000 in just a handful of bastions like Formby. Jules discovers how Max sniffs out the pox and how he’s helping to curb its spread.

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When Helen appeared on Countryfile wearing a bobble hat with a faux recently, lots of people got in touch because they thought she might be wearing the real thing. Since then all sorts of faux fur products on the high street have turned out to be real despite customers and retailers thinking otherwise. Helen meets up with Humane Society International who led those investigations, to find out if she also mistakenly wore real fur.

Loneliness is the scourge of our times, affecting a fifth of the population – particularly the elderly and especially in the short dark days of winter. Three quarters of GPs in Britain say they are handling five cases a day where the root problem is loneliness which can lead to heart disease, depression and Alzheimer's. Steve Brown is in South Yorkshire to investigate an initiative where volunteers with just an hour to spare are making a world of difference to golden oldies like 89 year old Jean Williams who hadn’t been out of her house for a year. Jean remembers how friendly the pit village was where she grew up but how mine closures in the Eighties and Nineties destroyed neighbourhoods where everyone knew everybody.

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Keeley Donovan is on the high seas off the West Coast of Scotland in waters reckoned to be some of the most treacherous in the world. She’s with a team of super-fixers who brave the most vicious of waves and weather to keep our shipping channels open and safe. As she helps to clean a massive eight ton buoy – weighing the equivalent of eight Great White sharks – she discovers the key role these steel giants have to play out at sea, alongside helicopters that keep our lighthouses in tip top condition.

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