Summer recess offers a welcome opportunity to spend time at home, even if the Islands Games and a couple of days watching Ashes cricket in Manchester have put an enjoyable spoke in the wheels of those plans recently.
By strange coincidence, I find myself spending the week surrounded by people from Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and a smattering of autonomous Nordic islands.
The end of term tends to be a time for celebrating achievement and recognising hard work. Certainly the KGS Awards on Monday evening fitted that bill perfectly and it was a pleasure to be invited to be a part of it.
The British public has always had a soft spot for soap operas, which tend to enjoy consistently high ratings. Likewise, the soap operas currently playing out at Westminster and Holyrood will have had viewers tuning in, if only in disbelief.
Pulling out of Eday aboard the Varagen on Saturday morning, it wasn’t long before Dave Gray was helpfully explaining to passengers what to do in the event of an emergency.
I’ve always taken the view that time spent in the smaller isles is good for the soul. Indeed, one of the great pleasures of being Orkney’s MSP is that travelling out to each of the isles over the course of a year is in the job description.
