WHEN someone sends a text message from their mobile phone to your landline number a wonderful thing happens. Somewhere in the ether it gets uploaded to a posh female robot who then calls you and announces the message in a voice that’s a cross between a cosy Radio 4 narrator and a “speak your weight” machine.

FROM a distance against the twilight sky it looked as if someone had baked an enormous loaf in the village – perhaps to gain entry to the Guinness Book of Records – and it had risen crazily out of control and risen above the roof-line of the houses. Only the church tower and a few tall trees poked darkly through the creepy giant loaf.

AT THE stone circle at the top of Aikey Brae, some free spirit had obviously thrown caution and their underwear to the four winds. Hanging from a branch of a tree, there appeared to be a pair of white knickers.