This is my final column before the current parliamentary session ends and campaigning starts in earnest ahead of the election on 6^th May. My intention had been to share some reflections on the last five years as Orkney’s MSP before making the case for why the next session of parliament must put the recovery first as we rebuild from the pandemic and deal with the climate emergency.

Alex Salmond stopped short of calling for Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation during his appearance before a Holyrood Committee last week, but the implication was clear. “Scotland’s leadership has failed” he declared, while also taking aim at those in charge of Scotland’s civil and prosecution services, as well as the SNP.

The malicious prosecutions of David Whitehouse and Paul Clark, senior administrators at Duff & Phelps, should have red flags popping up to the sound of the loudest possible alarm bells.

Budget statements are traditionally moments of high political drama, where the parliamentary chamber is usually packed and government opponents and supporters indulge in a pantomime of heckling and applause.

Spoiler alert: neither Robbie Fraser nor I have made it into Orkney’s Sporting Hall of Fame.

So you wait eleven years for a recall of the Scottish Parliament and then two come along in a week.

Sacking her Public Health Minister in the midst of a global pandemic can’t have been easy for the First Minister, particularly as Joe Fitzpatrick also happened to be responsible for rolling out the government’s vaccine programme. Nicola Sturgeon had little choice, however, as Mr Fitzpatrick’s position had become wholly untenable, even to many in the SNP ranks.

In case it’s of interest, I can confirm that I would be prepared to receive the Pfizer vaccine live on Radio Orkney. My only pre-condition for this selfless act of leadership in the fight against Covid is that the vaccine be administered by a medical professional and not left to Dave Gray, or even Helen Foulis, notwithstanding her undoubted expertise in dealing with sick horses.

With exquisite timing and no hint of irony, the Prime Minister celebrated National Anti-Bullying Week by giving full-throated support to his Home Secretary, Priti Patel who had just been found in breach of the ministerial code by a Cabinet Office inquiry into, well, bullying.

Like London buses, you wait months for a proper good news story and then two absolutely belters come along at once. Hot on the heels of confirmation that Joe Biden had defeated Donald Trump for the US Presidency came news this week of a breakthrough in the search for a Covid vaccine. For some, such a rapid surge in optimism could see them reaching for the smelling salts.