‘Thank you’ hardly seems adequate in response to last week’s election result here in Orkney. It has been the privilege of my life to represent our islands at Holyrood over the past 19 years so to receive such an endorsement from voters is truly humbling.
Outside parliament last Tuesday morning, under the watchful gaze of a bank of TV cameras and journalists jostling for position, Tracy Churcher gave me a big hug, wished me luck before heading off with her daughter to catch a train home.
I’m not sure you can make a mockery of something that is already intrinsically ludicrous, but the inaugural winner of the FIFA Peace Prize is having a good go.
Last Tuesday Orkney provided a fitting send-off for Jim Wallace with a funeral service in St Magnus Cathedral that was full of emotion but plenty of laughter too.
Jim Wallace was my boss, my mentor and my good friend. His sudden death last week due to a complication following surgery came as a profound shock, and one that has left me, like all who knew him well, absolutely devastated.
In a desperate bid to dissuade Donald Trump from invading Greenland, Holm FC have generously offered to present him with last year’s Parish Cup.