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Here's the first Fletcher Saga of 2008 - I hope that you've all recovered from the Christmas and Hogmany celebrations.

Just before Christmas we were invited over to a friend's house for some informal carol singing. Apart from some "community" carol singing we heard some songs from Amelia on keyboard then on the guitar with Josephine on the recorder and Tilly on violin; all three girls are under 12 and were a delight to hear. Later Lisa, the mother of Ameila & Josephine, joined the three girls for a couple of songs.

Eileen, an intrepid friend of Sue (Stronsay's postmistress) and her mother, Mary, came north for a short break over Christmas. Her flight from London was delayed but she eventually arrived in Kirkwall on the Sunday before Christmas. Unfortunately there are no planes to Stronsay on Sunday but Sue managed to arrange for a member of the Kirkwall flying club to take Eileen from Kirkwall to Stronsay in a tiny, single-engined aeroplane. Eileen took it all in her stride and arrived safely but, alas, her luggage was still in Gatwick (or was it Heathrow) and it did not arrive until just after Christmas.

There was a good display of the Merry Dancers just before Christmas, there are some photographs on . The Maeshowe webcam for 20 Dec 2007 is available on .

The Christmas Eve service went well thanks to some help from the school orchestra and their friends. This year Jennifer (our minister) managed to keep the duration to just about 45 minutes as there were comments that the 2006 Christmas Eve service was a bit too long. The weather at 11:30 pm on Christmas Eve was perfect, a clear sky and a bright, full moon. In fact the moon was so bright that the candles in jamjars that were arranged on top of the wall around the kirk did not really show up as well as they should.

I miscalculated the heating oil (again!) and we ran out of oil on Jan 02. Because of the awkward re-fit schedule for ferries the tanker did not come over from Kirkwall until Jan 11.. Fortunately we have portable gas heaters and electric fan heaters so we did not suffer in the very cold weather we had during this period. Surrey loves the gas heaters and stretches out in front of them, luxuriating in the radiant heat; when the heating oil arrived and the gas heaters were turned off Surrey spent ages trying to work out where the gas heater's "on" button was located. In the first week of January we had some very strong SE winds meant that early morning ferry on Sat 05 Jan was unable to berth in Stronsay and had to return to Kirkwall. A ferry did reach Stronsay just before lunchtime but it was fully loaded with an enormous mobile crane and ancillary vehicles which were used to perform maintenance on the wind turbines on Rothiesholm. On the same day the evening ferry was cancelled and the Northlink ferries between Aberdeen, Orkney & Shetland were disrupted when adverse sea and wind conditions meant that boats were stuck in harbour at Lerwick and at Aberdeen. However, the Hamnavoe continued to ply between Scrabster & Stromness.

I went over to Kirkwall this week to get the car's annual compulsory safety check (MOT certificate) and to get my new hearing aid. The car passed its MOT and my new hearing aid is fantastic, it's tiny (a digital Siemens Chroma VC) and so light that I hardly know that I'm wearing it. Maureen is especially delighted with the hearing aid as our conversations no longer consist of her speaking and me saying "pardon?" to every other sentence.
(all the Fletcher Sagas are on )