THE most northerly golf course on mainland Britain is at Durness in north-west Sutherland.

REMEMBRANCE Sunday is, to me, one of the saddest days of the year, particularly this year when British soldiers are so heavily engaged in horrendous fighting in Afghanistan.

I HAVE always had a deep-rooted fear of official-sounding deeds or documents. I think that this probably stems from my school days in Edinburgh, when the very mention of examinations or tests used to bring me out in a cold sweat.

HUNDREDS of staff are to be retrained at Highlands and Islands Enterprise at a cost of almost £500,000 after HIE's remit changed to focus on working with businesses with a "potential for significant growth".

NOT so many years ago, a few days before Easter, a crofter was herding half a dozen donkeys along the narrow road from Rhiconich to Durness in north-west Sutherland.

A SEVERELY injured dog, given up for dead, survived 18 days and nights on a remote mountainside in North Sutherland.

HIDDEN within our souls is a deep-rooted love of the land that gave us birth. Those of us who were born in Scotland, and those who have Scottish ancestors, are celebrating this during the Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebrations.

APRIL saw the 200th anniversary of the beginnings of the Highland Clearances.

FOR as long as I can remember I have always loved the great outdoors and the lonely places of this wonderful land of ours. My friends have been otters, golden eagle and peregrine.

THE other morning, a friend asked me to report a fault on his telephone. Which is when the nightmare began.

A FEW years ago, when I was employed as the archivist for the Skerray Historical Association, we were visited by a researcher associated with Aberdeen University who was preparing a paper on the structure of remote rural communities in the Highlands and Islands.

AMIDST the gathering gloom of the current financial crisis, the Scottish Government still managed to find £12.5 million to contribute towards the purchase of a painting.

'SEABIRDS crash in Scotland", shouts this month's issue of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) magazine ScotlandNews.

I HOPE that Father Christmas was kind to you. He was to me; if you exclude the small packet I received from D.S. MacGregor & Partners, our friendly Caithness vets.

CLAN Sandison will not be able to help Messrs Brown & Darling save Planet Earth from anticipated financial ruin.

IT is legitimate government business to support job creation. But the decision-making process that funnels millions of pounds of taxpayer cash into private company coffers is less than clear.

EVERY moment of every day and every night our actions are being monitored.

A GARDENER I certainly am not. I get butterflies in my stomach even thinking about it. Digging and cutting the grass, yes, I can do that, but when it comes to dishing out some tender loving care to flowers and shrubs or murmuring sweet nothings into the shell-like lugs of herbage, count me out.

ACCORDING to press reports, the Highland Council is currently wrestling with a "massive budget crisis" and faces a shortfall of nearly £20 million with energy bills likely to double.

NOT so many years ago the Far North was almost a desert for fresh vegetables.

ANOTHER day, another price hike. In recent years we, the long-suffering members of UK Ltd, have faced unprecedented direct and indirect government-imposed tax rises, alongside falling house prices and soaring petrol and food bills.

ARE you sitting comfortably? I am, in the garden, on an Adirondack chair built by Farr High School pupils at Bettyhill. It is incredibly comfortable, beautifully designed and fits my not inconsiderable bulk perfectly. The arm-rests are spacious and wide enough to support the book I am reading, as well as a pre-supper glass of wine.

THE only time I ever argued with my sister was when she was given a bigger bra than mine. It wasn't fair and I complained, bitterly.

THE Talisman Energy oil-spill saga continues apace. As reported in last Friday's John O'Groat Journal, Broadhaven residents have complained that the company, who admitted responsibility for the spill, are not doing enough to clear up the mess they have made. Talisman insists that they have acted responsibly.

I WASN'T present at the birth of any of my children. In one instance I almost was, but that was as a result of circumstances rather than as a result of premeditation; the last of our four offspring arrived very quickly and was born before I had even left the hospital. As such, she was only a few minutes old when we were first introduced.

THE earthquake that ended the lives upwards of 69,000 people in the Chinese province of Sichuan in May is almost beyond human understanding. But in the aftermath, the BBC reported that government officials had “imposed tight security in some of the damaged areas, apparently to prevent protests”. According to the BBC, the Chinese media had been instructed “not to cover this kind of story”.

NELSON, our large, one-eyed ginger cat, peered suspiciously at the gap between the dishwasher and the kitchen sink. Every few minutes his teeth chattered expectantly.

THE wide golden sweep of Reiss beach has been polluted with oily tar-globules, and a watch is being maintained for seabirds that may have become contaminated.

THE list of creatures that some lairds would to like to kill because they consider them to be vermin gets longer every day.

MARCH may have gone out like a lamb, but April has brought back winter with a vengeance. As I write, a fierce snowstorm rages round the cottage.

YOU don't get much for a £10 note these days, well, certainly not in London.

A RECENT letter from a friend complained that he was dispirited by that fact that our politically-correct society seemed to be heading towards complete madness.

HARDLY a day passes without more sad news from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – conflicts that most people believe we should never have become involved in.

ONE picture in our newspapers recently did indeed speak the proverbial thousand words: a photograph taken in the Antarctic of a dead whale and its calf being dragged into the bowels of a Japanese processing vessel.