I VISITED Wick High School recently and was really concerned about the state of the building. My impression and that of my colleagues, Peter Peacock and David Stewart, was that a rebuild was a necessity.

EARLY next month marks the move into the second year of the SNP Government and I'm glad to report from our spring conference that one of the biggest challenges, affordable housing, is being tackled next.

TRAINED crowdie-maker that I am – okay, it was about thirty years ago, and it was working for the wee family business in Tain – I thought that I knew about food hygiene. In particular I thought I knew how to wash my hands properly.

AS the new tax year begins, a range of positive improvements kick in. They passed through Parliament under the minority SNP Government with the help of various parties.

THIS coming Monday I am going to do something that I have wanted to do all my life. I am going to drive a train.

I NOTICED a bit of a skirmish in the media last week about whether the Highland Council should be investing in schools or a new museum in Inverness.

THE earliest Easter weekend in many decades saw snow and more snow hit the country.

TWO entirely unconnected events, other than I attended them in my role as an MSP, have caused me thought.

I PROMISED in my last column to report on my visit a fortnight ago to London and Brussels with four other members of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee.

ON my way back from Wick High, having attended the big meeting about the deplorable physical state of the school, just before I crossed the Dornoch Bridge I answered a call on my mobile.

EVERY time the Boundary Commission try to do their job, a common reaction is to say: what do "X" and "Y" have in common for our MP/MSP/councillor to represent?

I HAVE nothing against the Black Isle. Really. After all, my Tain grandmother's family originally came from Cromarty. So I have plenty of Black Isle blood in my veins.

OPPOSITION to the SNP national budget was seen off in truly spectacular style last Wednesday.

"MARINE Energy and the Caithness Economy". That was the name of the conference this week in Edinburgh's Our Dynamic Earth visitor attraction, next door to the Scottish Parliament.

ALL over Scotland residents, businesses and public bodies are being urged by the SNP Government to decide what they can do to help our nation achieve ambitious plans to tackle climate change.

S3W-8811 Jamie Stone: To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with Highland Council regarding any proposal to close the East Sutherland Learning Centre in Brora and, if the council decides that the centre should be closed, what action the Executive will take to ensure that it remains open.

AS the nights slowly shorten, I notice issues furth of Scotland are crowding for as much attention as matters close to home. So first I'll look at some international contacts I've been involved with that show promise.

MY association with post offices, and the people who work there, goes back a long way. Right to the day I ran away from home.

IN this first week of 2008 I wish every reader and your families all the best in peace, prosperity and health.

'ASSYNT Church – July 1905" It's funny how something unexpected can make you think.

I WAS intrigued by the recent spat in the Groat on the merits of the writer Neil M. Gunn.

'NATION shall speak peace unto nation." That's the motto on the BBC coat of arms, and for all I know Lord Reith was responsible for that one.

AT the weekend I was reading about the riots in Paris suburbs and a warning from the journalist Mary Riddell of The Observer contained in the heading, "A French lesson we ignore at our peril."

I WONDER how many of my constituents know that I served for a brief time in the Territorial Army. Not the most glorious period of my life; to be honest I wasn't the best of soldiers, but at least I enjoyed myself and it taught me how to read a map.

THERE'S been a positive change of public mood in recent months. All across Scotland you meet people at events who feel that the pace of Scottish life has gone up tempo.

OF all the cross-party groups that I am involved in, perhaps the Cross-Party Group on Tackling Debt is one of the most important – and a recent constituency case has reminded me why.

HOLYROOD in recent weeks has been peppered by repeated attempts of the opposition to claim the SNP Government has broken its manifesto promises – that is, five months into a four-year parliament the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem front benches are charging around to pour scorn on the sound start made by Alex Salmond's team.

I WRITE this column with some trepidation; but I'll tell you why later.

EARLIER this week, at a meeting held in Glasgow, MSPs and councillors, anti-nuclear weapons campaigners and church leaders gathered to plan resistance to the development of son of Trident.

THE "tattie holidays", as they used to be known... I wonder how many of today's Highland schoolchildren, as they come to the end of their two-week break, know that it was the importance of getting the potatoes lifted that originally brought this holiday into being. Not many, I'll bet.

IT'S a shame that Gordon Brown didn't decide to go for an election this November (not least because the SNP is riding high in the polls).

BARRING the unexpected, I shall not being seeing Hasim Abdul Halim again. This may well come as a relief to the chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

'AND remember to wear something pink on Thursday," Heather said to me on Monday, "for the Breast Cancer Campaign's photo-call in Committee Room 3." Needless to say, come Thursday I had forgotten.

I WAS very glad to take part in the short debate on the Scottish Government's programme for this session.

I PUFFED and blew; definitely too much eating over the summer.

TAKING stock of the first hundred days since our new SNP government was elected shows a whole raft of demands from all the parties in Holyrood for more powers for our young Scottish Parliament.

I DO not refer to the new leader of the Scottish Labour Party when I say that I was in a Wendy house the other day.

MOST people agree that the SNP Government led by Alex Salmond has set a very positive agenda in its first hundred days. Every part of the country has something to gain. Even the crises of a failed terror attack in Glasgow or the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey have been handled skilfully.

IT COST one-and-eleven to go on the bus from Tain to Ardgay.

THE sound of bagpipes reaches many ears each summer as pipe bands parade through our streets, at Highland gatherings and in the cut-throat competition that leads to the world finals in mid-August. During our holiday in Brittany similar sounds were in abundance.

IT IS not helped by my nephew catching his second fish – to shouts of joy – on the other side of the loch.

NOW that parliamentary recess is upon us, we finally have time after a very busy few months to take stock – a fairly formidable task. Everything seems (and I suppose is) different. This manifests itself on many levels.

WHAT was really encouraging about last Saturday was the sheer number of people who turned up at the Castle of Mey.

WHAT a six weeks it's been since the Scottish elections produced a slim SNP victory at Holyrood.

SEVERAL weeks ago, when my party leader Nicol Stephen walked into my (beautiful; more of that anon) Holyrood office one evening and offered me the convenership of the Scottish Parliament's Subordinate Legislation Committee, I was surprised. Nay, I was astonished.

IN the new session I have been given many more committee responsibilities.

HOLYROOD – and the Faroe Islands "Oopsa, tosca, longa." "Oopsa, tosca, longa."

LAST Friday we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in Wick with a charity ball at Pulteney Distillery just as the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, who is in charge of alcohol licensing, was warning of imminent action against the promotion of "buy two, get one free" beer offers at cheaper prices than supermarkets sell individual bottles of water.

I HAD nearly forgotten that I had made a film clip in the Mill Theatre for the Thurso Players just before the election campaign began – during my last hours as an MSP in the last parliament.

"THIS administration will seek to be fair to all parts of Scotland," said Alex Salmond, the First Minister of the first SNP government.

ALEX Salmond. It is right and proper that he was appointed First Minister on Wednesday – for the very simple reason that his party, the SNP, won more seats (by one) than the next biggest party, the Labour Party. Alex has a clear, but wafer-thin, mandate.

THANKS to a swelling band of you, dear readers, the massively improved SNP vote in the Far North has sent me to Holyrood to serve you for the next four years. It is a privilege in our proportional system to be returned.

PERHAPS, now that we have embarked on the Scottish election, I might be permitted a backward look at, in no particular order, four MSPs who will not be returning to the Scottish Parliament.

I WAS delighted to be photographed with Marie Curie Cancer Care workers at the weekend. Their distinctive yellow daffodil badges are sprouting on lapels while their Fields of Hope are blossoming for real in many communities across the land.

ALMOST "like a thief in the night" – so in the first light of dawn, from my car I watched the huge poster being whisked away.

DON'T tell the children, an "experienced and respected government minister for seven years" has been writing to local newspapers telling voters that the SNP intends to cancel the current or future Highland new school building programmes and, if Jack McConnell repeats it at First Minister's Questions, surely it must be true...

MY late father – dead for over twenty years now, and I still miss him – was a wee dairy farmer on the north side of Tain.

LEADING up to the elections on May 3, it seems that self-confidence about Scotland's future is being undermined among potential voters every time the Labour and Lib Dem leaders attack the SNP.

AS most Caithnessians know, decommissioning Dounreay is dogged by financial doubts – not because of the skilled workforce, not because the overall plan to clean up the site is flawed, but because the Department of Trade and Industry in London created an unrealistic funding package when it set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency in law.

IT'S the low winter light, the sun only just above the hills, which makes the colours so beautiful at this time of the year.

WHAT'S the good of the buzz words "community planning" without community decision-making to carry out the priorities people decide?

YESTERDAY saw the final stage of the Crofting Bill. Both Ministers and backbenchers heaved a mighty sigh of relief – for, as crofters in the Highlands know, at times the Bill had a pretty rough passage.

LAST week in Parliament I met up with a delegation from NFU Scotland, whose manifesto I fully endorse. It seeks better regulation, less red tape across all government departments, and a level playing field to sell Scottish produce.

ON Tuesday evening I accepted Jim Wallace MSP's invitation to go along to Committee Room 1 (one of the finest rooms in the Scottish Parliament) to be briefed about the proposal to build a big new ship-to-ship container transfer port in Scapa Flow in his Orkney constituency. It turned out to be an interesting couple of hours.

TODAY we live in one of the officially designated crofting counties, even though there are fewer crofters than 30 years ago and crofting has less impact. And yet the issues of 30 years ago have still to be resolved.

A FEW years ago, at this time of year, the front door bell of my brother-in-law's house rang. Being the only one at home I went to answer it. The young fellow at the door was from one of the butchers in Armagh.

IT would be a very odd festive season without songs and music. Every shopping trip is accompanied by "Jingle Bells" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". We get Nativity plays in primary school, carol concerts and, for the more energetic, dances and clubbing.

I CAN recall my first rail journey from Tain to Caithness quite well.

FACING the dangers of modern life, there's a clear difference of perspective between small nations and the self-important world policemen.

THIS is stark staringly obvious to MSPs and all who work in the Scottish Parliament – but what some people do not know is that every single thing an MSP says, while sitting formally in committee, or in the Chamber, is taken down and recorded, and then published word for word.

PARLIAMENTARY business has focused on planning law and transport issues recently.

THE extreme weather of Thursday, October 26 resulted in unprecedented damage and destruction throughout the North. Over the past couple of weeks I have been meeting with constituents who have been directly affected so that I can see for myself the extent of the damage that has been caused.

THIS Sunday, in a wooded glade behind Invergordon, a single shot will be fired from a shotgun. Two minutes later another shot will break the silence.

IRAQ and Afghanistan overshadow yet another Remembrance Day as our troops cope with near-impossible tasks in hostile lands.

EVERYONE is saying the same thing: in living memory people haven't seen anything like it. From Strathnaver, to Wick, to Tain, it is the same story.

THERE are good reasons why Swedish dentists have been seeking work in this country. Their people have achieved one of the best records for oral health in the world, so Sweden needs far more dental hygienists than dentists.

"YOU'LL take the fish?" Well, yes, I suppose we would – not least as pretty well that was it, as far as the menu was concerned. Or you could, conceivably, as an alternative have had the boiled potatoes and carrots without the haddock...

TWO Wednesdays ago I had to sum up for the SNP in the Food Chain Enquiry debate in Parliament. Often you have to reflect in such speeches on what others have already said. However I had plenty of material to add to the tally.

IN the Highland press much column space has been devoted to onshore wind farms with strong views held on both sides of the argument. What cannot be denied is that climate change is with us and this has definite implications for the way we live.

ON Wednesday, when I was in the midst of wrestling with the exact wording of two motions I have just tabled (about the future economy of the North, and about locating the new National Energy Technologies Institute in Caithness), a large party of schoolchildren walked past my office door.

THE UK party conference season has been in full swing, though I detect fewer and fewer MSPs attending their UK counterparts’ events. We in the SNP has decided to move our annual conference to an October recess spot from the 11th to the 14th in Perth.

WHAT would the modern image of Ireland be like without the annual bash on St Patrick’s Day that is held around the world? It’s a day to celebrate an ancient nation with a distinctive language and culture that today is recognised as the Celtic Tiger. Against the odds, Ireland has clawed its way up to boast a higher gross domestic product than the UK, from which it fully seceded in 1937.

THERE has been a spate of alarmist headlines in the tabloids concerning fears over what will happen next year when Romania and Bulgaria (currently termed acceding countries in Eurospeak) join the European Union. We will be “swamped” (the word used) with Romanians pouring into Britain, all eager to work at any kind of task and under miserable conditions for extremely low pay.

SHOULD North of Scotland customers of Scottish Water agree with the Scottish government that the public utility is delivering for our needs? That’s what Highland MSPs have been asking for years, and were able to ask Scottish Water’s top brass in a cross-party meeting held in Inverness on Wednesday.

WHEN I was first elected to serve this constituency, I was written to by a couple who had moved up here from southern England.

AT the very time the Caithness Socio-Economic Strategy Group has been consulting on the way ahead for the county’s economy, my party has been consulting on its proposals called Let Scotland Flourish. Both are sustainable growth strategies – one for the Dounreay travel-to-work area and the SNP ideas for every part of Scotland.

MY father was a great man for development. I remember the light in his eyes when the Invergordon aluminium smelter came; I remember the huge interest as the Nigg dry dock was dug out, and as the first steel bones of “Highland One” rose into the Ross-shire sunlight.

A JULY break abroad, in my case in Brittany, returns me reinvigorated, and some holiday reading also added zest.

I DON'T want to say much here, for it has already been covered in the local paper, but the Wick gala was very much up to expectations. As ever, the wife and I loved every minute of it.

THE long-awaited strategy for Caithness and north Sutherland landed on my desk this week and it underlines the enormous potential the area has in terms of scientific and engineering skills for attracting outside investment both into research projects and into manufacturing and construction.

A WEEK Saturday will see an event that my wife Flora and I always hugely enjoy – the Wick Gala.

THE end of term, whether at school or in parliament, is hectic. Since we try to be a family-friendly establishment, schoolchildren and MSP parents can spend some holiday time together.

THE last days of a session of the Scottish Parliament are always a whirl of activity. This week, the last time the Scottish Parliament sat before we went into the summer recess, has been no exception. We have been busy.

A GREAT deal of heat was produced 10 days ago in the Holyrood chamber by a short debate on the Student Fees (Specification) (Scotland) Order.

EARLIER this year you might have wondered why there was a picture of me in one of the more sensationalist Sunday newspapers - a picture of me with a flowerpot on my head. The caption was something like "Stone Gone to Pot".

LAST week's announcement by the Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell of tax cuts to be made on the back of environmental taxes simply does not make economic sense.

ON my travels I sense a growing mood of confidence about our diverse culture and languages in the Highlands and Islands. That's a sure sign of a wider optimism for our economic and social prospects.

MY early-morning walk - 35 minutes in rain or sunshine - from my digs to my office in the Scottish Parliament gives me my theme.