Christmas Days On Holy Island

Clive's Nativity Figures are floodlit in the Gospels' Garden.

Our ad hoc choir sang Vivaldi's Gloria

My sister Sally arrived and slept on the library floor.

Had a staff party at The Open Gate - I brought the Chinese takeaway and Helen and Naomi brought their home made chocolate roulade.

Pauline Warner and friends, ensconced at 'Shalom', had us round for a Swedish Christmas evening

< A walk to the north shore and the anonymous hermit's homemade hut. Left a message in the 'history book' which is kept in a plastic container.

/Holy Island is the only sane place in Britain' someone said. Everywhere else is crazed with shopping addiction. Here there is the sea, the sand, the silence and the Presence.

We climbed Arthur's Seat at Edinburgh, had an eat-as-much-as-you-like four course Chinese meal for £5.49 pence, and enjoyed the 'Sunshine on Leith' musical at the Festival Theatre.

Joyce's funeral. The whole island turned out. She was just back from a Caribbean cruise, asked us to light all the Christmas candles, sing Away in a Manger, and wave to her as the hearse took her to the crematorium. Then we had refreshments at The Crown and Anchor. Joyce is a hard act to follow. On Millennium night she asked me when I would ask her to marry me. 'Maybe some time before the next millennium ' I replied.

Sally leaves and Judith arrives. Karen's plane was delayed a day by snow in USA. She joins Judith to give weeks of volunteer service - to finish cataloguing the Celtic Christian Studies Library that you, dear reader, can benefit from whenever you can make it. Please do make it.