OPPOSITION parties have indulged this month in personal attacks on the Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon due to a non-ministerial constituency matter - anything to avoid talking about real means to rescue the Scottish economy and boost our strengths, for example in developing renewable energy, food and drink products and tourism which are so obvious here.

BACK and forth to Edinburgh, and crisscrossing the vast area of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, I spend many hours in the car.

FINANCE has dominated the last 10 days of my work. The third budget of the minority SNP Government was passed last week despite a range of parties' demands and gains.

AT recent meetings of the health and sport committee we have been looking at out-of-hours health cover in rural areas.

SOME years ago my mother had a hilarious message on her BT Call Minder answering service. It was from the oldest of her brothers.

WE celebrate the life and works of Scotland's national bard in what has become known for many years as Burns season.

AS a constituent put it to me: "Well, I know they shouldn't, but it doesn't matter who you are - people will take a chance, won't they?" Very true, I thought - and then I remembered my own mother's tale.

LAST week the two most important decisions of coming prosperity in Scotland signalled green for go.

IT was rather a shock returning to Edinburgh this week - in that the pavements were as bad as in the North.

THIS week I am privileged to attend the Copenhagen conference as a climate change committee member from the Scottish Parliament.

PROMOTING pride in Scots at home and abroad was one of four key aims of the Year of Homecoming, which was enthusiastically celebrated in Caithness and across the land.

YOU can make mistakes. During my recent visit to Lairg Primary School, one of the pupils asked me about security in the Scottish Parliament.

SERIOUS alcohol abuse was highlighted at the regular face-to-face MSP briefing by NHS Highland last Friday.

ONE of the aspects of my work as my party's public health spokesman, or shadow public health minister, if you want to put it another way, is the sheer variety of the meetings I attend.

WHILE most MSPs return to their constituencies on a Thursday night, I had three reasons to remain in Edinburgh last Friday.

I AM partial to haddock and chips - and often when I am down in Holyrood I'll pop into a splendid chipper called L'Alba D'Oro in Henderson Row in Edinburgh's New Town for my "usual".

THE SNP annual conference returned to Eden Court Theatre in Inverness for the first time in several years.

CAITHNESS Transport Forum (CTF) met last Friday, as ever purposefully, with updates on how to make the county more connected in the coming years.

VERY few people will remain untouched by the tragic accident at the Bridge Street level crossing in Halkirk.

LET'S not be churlish, this week's announcement that the Scottish Government will, after all, offer two thirds of the £30 million needed to build a new Wick High School is to be warmly welcomed.

THIS week the word "cuts" has dominated the language of politics in Scotland and across the UK. As the British parties enter their autumn conference season, we see each interpret what they wish us to see.

ON Monday I made it to the battery factory in Thurso just ahead of the enterprise minister.

SHIRLEY Williams (Baroness Williams of Crosby, one of the original "Gang of Four"), Bob Maclennan MP, John Thurso and me... the four of us sat in a row.

THE political reaction from unionist politicians in Scotland has been all too predictable. They play partisan politics with the decision of the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to send the Lockerbie bomber home to Libya as an act of mercy for a dying man.

WHERE did the summer recess go? On Monday, along with Liam McArthur, the Orkney MSP, I visited Dounreay.

AT motorway services en route to Scotland you can find postcards. Not just of the stunning scenery that awaits the intrepid travellers north of Gretna, Carter Bar and Berwick, but ones that show a great cloud bank into which disappears a car and caravan.

MAYBE I missed it, but I don't remember either of the two schools I went to featuring much in the way of art.

THE consultation on the draft bill on crofting is drawing to a close. Those affected need to respond to this consultation even if it is a short response, rather than following the pro forma to the letter.

FOR many years now I have been making a pilgrimage to the town of Quimper on the south-west coast of Brittany in July to meet up with old friends and take in as much as I can of the excellent music at the Celtic Festival de Cornouaille.

IT was the former defence secretary and Chancellor Denis Healey who said that every politician needs a "hinterland".

THE latest session of parliament drew to an end in a blaze of publicity with the unanimous backing of Scotland's world-leading Climate Change Bill.

WICK HarbourFest brought out the sun and the smiles in a relaxed and welcome celebration to make an important Caithness Homecoming.

IF anything could describe this week – the last one before the Scottish Parliament heads into the summer recess – for me it would take two only words: soldiers and votes.

WHAT a month in the break-up of trust in British politics as the European Union election results dealt a near-fatal blow to Gordon Brown's reputation.

I AM a great believer in taking the map of the Highlands and looking at it upside down.

ARGUMENTS for and against nationalisation and privatisation are ever present in economic policy.

THIS week has been dominated by health issues. I met with representatives of NHS Highland recently and they gave me information on the C diff outbreak at Caithness General Hospital and how they had dealt with it.

IT was a real pleasure to say a few words and formally open the Latheron Art Show last week.

IT would be just grand to think that the current crisis engulfing Westminster would lead to real democratic change. That's not going to happen by holding a general election as the Tories say.

ON Monday I did something rather different – I spent a day with the Royal Navy.

STANDING on a small island you may be able to see the way more clearly for the whole country. Granted it could be as misty there as elsewhere in the North.

I MENTIONED previously in my column that I'd spoken to Highlands and Islands Enterprise about John O'Groats – I'm therefore delighted to see that the progress it briefed me on is being made.

ON Wednesday a BBC reporter spent the day with me. It was part of the events that are about to mark the tenth birthday of the Scottish Parliament.

A WEEK of grim news in the UK budget reveals how little the Gordon Brown Government has left in our coffers. Also, its intellectual firepower to combat the deepest recession in 60 years seems spent.

ALTHOUGH the letter was dated the 1st of April – it looks as if it is true. I have been done away with.

MARINE spatial planning is much in the news. Its importance to the diverse uses of the Pentland Firth cannot be overstated.

I HAVE been covering Karen Gillon's maternity leave as Labour Party spokesperson for rural development for the last few months.

I WAS talking to my cheese-maker brother in Tain – as I do from time to time – and he was telling me that things are going okay on the "fromage" front.

I WAS delighted to encourage a cross-party group from the Scottish Parliament to visit Orkney and Caithness earlier this week.

THE audience gathered in Mackay's Hotel in Wick on Monday looked a little nonplussed – they would have been forgiven for wondering if their MSP was also going down the Gaelic signage route, albeit this time verbally, when I said: "Hhe – lbcnofne – namg, alsipsclar!"

ON Thursday 5th March we debated National Planning Framework 2 that identifies national planning priorities for the next 10 to 15 years.

I RECENTLY held talks with Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) regarding progress on the regeneration of John O'Groats.

'NO conferring: which other winning teams had ineligible players?" so read a headline in a national newspaper this week.

IT makes your eyes water thinking about the demands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling.

'WHAT holidays do you get?" This was from one of the pupils at Lybster primary school on Wednesday.

NOW that common sense prevails and the Scottish budget can set the path for our public services, parliament has turned its attention to improving the powers we need to meet the difficulties of this looming depression in London and across the financial world.

ONE of the facets of an MSP's work in Holyrood is the way that you have to balance large issues and, seemingly, smaller issues. Let me deal with a large issue first.

HAVE you tried getting a loan from a bank recently? It was always a daunting thought any January after the Christmas splurge.

IN the second budget round of this SNP Government we are thrust into the most difficult times Scotland and other developed countries have faced for decades.

A PHOTOGRAPH of a photograph.

THE year 2009 has to be the year we take our natural and human resources far more seriously.

BY the time you open this Christmas edition of the paper, your MSP will have driven the length of Scotland – to Stranraer, on to the ferry, across the Irish Sea to Larne – and then finally to County Armagh.

THIS 2008 season of goodwill, gifts and presents, of reflection and resolve for a new year ahead, is deeply affected by the downside of debt, belt-tightening and battered self-esteem.

THIS week's transport expenditure statement is a big letdown. No doubt about it.

I AM very disappointed about the decision to close the Wick revenue and customs office.

DESPITE the deepening gloom in the UK and world economies, many Scots bravely joined in the launch of the Year of Homecoming on St Andrew's Day.

THE scene was rather like the famous painting of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow – stooped and freezing figures battling their way through the blizzard.

HIGH speed railways here in Scotland, just like the TGV in France? Still a dream, I'm afraid.

AS I walked from Stockbridge to Holyrood on Tuesday morning, for several seconds I vaguely wondered what the distant "thump" noise was. It sounded like the one o'clock gun.

HBOS has a future, but as yet it has to await the decision of its shareholders and those of Lloyds TSB in a 75 per cent approval vote.

I AM delighted that Stagecoach seems to be listening to views over the change in timetabling which has caused such a problem for our commuters travelling south on the bus.

THIS Wednesday I ventured far from the North and took part in a debate in the Scottish Parliament about Britain's relationship with Ireland. Why? Well, apart from having a drop of Irish blood in my veins, my wife is Irish – from County Armagh, in fact.

IN recess weeks, regional and party activity never ceases.

"PERHAPS I should declare an interest. I have a small stake in my brother's cheesemaking business. I am a small cheese."

THE subject of free school meals has been very much in the headlines over the past week or so.

'MOST stop-go problems that Britain has suffered in the last 50 years have been led or influenced by the more highly cyclical and often more volatile nature of our housing market.”

AT the end of the 1970s I worked for half a winter in the Faroe Isles. Along with my girlfriend (who was to become my wife), her brother and another friend we gutted, salted and filleted in a fish factory.

CONFERENCE season for political parties can be inspiring, or fretful. Following the gaffes of Lib Dem UK leader Nick Clegg where he promised tax cuts, MSPs asked last week in the Less Favoured Areas debate why Lib Dems wanted more spending on their favourite causes.

LAST Saturday it was a real pleasure to watch the North Highland College's graduation ceremony in Dornoch Cathedral.

BEFORE I joined the colourful, musical protesters from traditional music groups outside Parliament a week ago, I questioned the culture minister Linda Fabiani if monetary support for the traditional arts from the Scottish Arts Council ought to be provided on the basis of their ability to promote the vitality of our living traditions?

THE effects of domestic abuse are often hard to understand if you have never come into contact with someone who has suffered the terrible consequences.

TO set the scene – three MPs and three MSPs are ushered in through the gleaming glass doors of oil giant Conoco Phillips' headquarters in Stavanger, Norway.

MATTHEW Fitt, author of Butt and Ben A Go-Go, science fiction in broad Scots, was one of the panellists in my Festival of Politics slot last Friday.

READERS may recall a photograph that was published in this newspaper a few months ago. It was a photograph of a photograph, as it were – inasmuch as it depicted the famous photographer Mike McCartney, younger brother of Sir Paul McCartney, taking a picture of the world's shortest street, Ebenezer Place in Wick.

LAST week I saw the huge onshore drilling rig at Swiney House, Lybster, for the first time. I've been away from the Far North for six weeks. Far too long, I know, but Siberia and holidays ran hard against the end of the parliamentary session.

WATCHING Prince Charles – or the Duke of Rothesay, as he likes to be known when he is in Scotland – receiving the Freedom of Caithness in the Assembly Rooms in Wick on Monday, I couldn't help but wonder if he knew that his cousin had once been the MP for Wick. Or put it this way, that the MP for Wick was a cousin of the king at the time, George III.

A SUMMER reshuffle? That's just what the journalists want but sorry, it's merely the repositioning of various backbenchers in Parliament committees.

THE end of the consultation period preceding the closure of the Wick Revenue and Customs office is getting near and time is running out to make submissions.

AS the Scottish leadership contest within my own party continues, come the result in late August, whoever wins, I cannot be too sure of my own jobs.

"IT appears that Gaels were in a majority in Caithness right up until the early 19th century, although, of course, there was always a significant English-speaking minority in its north-east corner."

"TO expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect", to quote Oscar Wilde.

AN end-of-term report is due on my experience of the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee. It was a most confrontational experience.

TACKLING the problems caused by alcohol abuse is high on the agenda in the Scottish Parliament. The Government is proposing that anyone under the age of 21 should not be able to buy alcohol in an off-licence. They are also looking at pricing of alcohol and banning special offers.

BEING called Stone, perhaps it was always inevitable that I would take a close interest in geology.

ALL politicians and competitors like to have the last word. Three examples in my parliamentary week come to mind.

MORE on fuel. Now I have nothing against Stewart Stevenson, the Scottish Government's minister for transport, infrastructure and climate change: he's a nice guy and we've always got on well together.

WHEN I first stood for the Scottish Parliament in 2003 I campaigned about the undoubted capacity of the Far North to produce a massive new stream of clean power.

THERE are absolutely no prizes for guessing what has been upsetting constituents of late it is the cost of diesel and petrol in the North.

WHEN I filled the car with diesel last weekend it was the first time I've had to fork out £50 to fill the tank. I'm sure many of you have reached that level long before this because that was at the Skiach Services in Easter Ross, not in the Far North.

I GUESS that it must be pretty well the same for all MSPs – health issues make up a large big part of my postbag and case work.

WHAT a remarkable year it's been.

WEDNESDAY this week – a real first, at least for me: a noisy demonstration while I was making a speech!

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.