Before we moved we had made our minds up to be part of the community here and to take part in the various events and organizations that interested us. Two nights ago we went to the first one of these. It was the AGM for the local support group of the RSPB. It was great meeting all the people there and finding out what the RSPB is planning to do in the next few years here.

The next day the local birds responded by doing an impersonation of one of the scenes from the Alfred Hitchcock film in the tree outside our temporary office ( see picture ).

Last night we went to the newly built Kirkwall theatre which is part of the equally newly built and rather splendid Kirkwall Grammar school. We had bought tickets to see a talk by Doug Allen who is a wildlife cameraman who specialises in filming at the poles and has done work for David Attenborough , BBC , National Geographic to name a few. The talk and films were immensely enjoyable and like a lot of these sort of things, over ran a bit. We got back home at eleven that night, just in time for a bite to eat ! (Anna comments:) too late to cook but I had found some rather splendid cheese at the local Italian deli which was enjoyed with a bottle of very nice Italian red.