The organist librarian

Sunday June 21st. Drove to John O'Groats where we joined the tour £44 for passenger ferry and coach round island which was excellent value. Glorious sunshine best day they had had this year! Nice coffee shop in Kirkwall. Scapa Flow and the Churchill barriers. Have been pronouncing Scapa wrong - it is a short a! At Stromness excellent crab pie and local ale at Betty's. Found a beautiful small gallery which had Ben Nicholsons and Barbara Hepworths - a gem! Scara Brae the prehistoric site is amazing and well presented and Skalk castle too. Standing stones and then back to Kirkwall to see Earl's palace and bishop's palace both fine ruins and the magnificent cathedral - the festival started today. Ice cream and then to Italian chapel which is lovely. Fish and chips on our return to Thurso which we decided was a bit of a dump!

The longest drive of all to Thurso and a lovely day. We did stop at the beach at Durmess which was gorgeous and passed many lovely places. We reached St Anne's Thurso in time for 6.30 mass. The priest is from Surrey - 4 weeks placement stayed 11 years - he looks after 7 mass centres! The hymn playing was a bit hit and miss. We found the b and b which was in the roof and very nice.