CAITLIN Conners almost left the Republic of Malawi with more than she bargained for after an emotional visit to the same orphanage which won over music idol Madonna's heart.

LET us dream — a dream that the centre of the City of Inverness is rejuvenated, filled with people meeting, shopping, gathering and conversing in a protected environment.

WITH up to 500 civic receptions a year many Inverness residents will have, at some point or another, visited the city's historic Town House.

TWO rusting petrol pumps just a few miles from Inverness would not ordinarily merit much attention from a historical point of view.

IT may have a chequered history, but Inverness Ice Centre has come a long way since skating club founder Agnes Gordon became the first skater to step onto the ice on 1st October 1968.

WHEN the Inverness and Aberdeen Railway was opened to Keith on 18th August, 1858, passengers from Inverness were at last able to get to Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh and even London by train. The first railway from Inverness went as far as Nairn and was opened on 15th November 1855.

FROM exploring underground vaults and dungeons in Edinburgh to taking a trip on a Loch Lomond sea plane or walking the West Highland Way, the list of Scottish attractions is endless.

IN June 1933, with commercial aviation still in its infancy, the citizens of Inverness witnessed the opening of the town's first airport, the Longman Municipal Aerodrome.

IT was appropriate that 10-year-old Duncan Foxley should choose to read the final Harry Potter novel as he waited patiently outside the council chamber in Glenurquhart Road with his younger brother Callum Ruairidh.

WITH the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games just one month away, China's human rights record is set to come under intense scrutiny — particularly in Tibet which lies high in the Himalayan mountains.

PEOPLE living in Inverness are more likely to land in hospital because of alcohol than the average Scot.

FROM the black board to the white board, the outlawing of the belt for errant pupils and school league tables — Charleston Academy teacher Hamish MacLean has seen it all in a 37-year career.

FOUR years ago prospective house buyers queued up overnight to be first in line for the chance to buy new homes at a Tulloch development in Holm Park, Inverness.

IT MIGHT not be comparable to the Great Gold Rush of 1848 when 300,000 people descended on California in a bid to make their fortune.

INVERNESS could scarcely have been uppermost in first minister Alex Salmond's mind as he raised a toast to Scotland's success in Sri Lanka last autumn after Glasgow was awarded the Commonwealth Games.

THOUSANDS of music fans will arrive in the sleepy Loch Ness village of Dores this weekend for the annual RockNess festival. Andy Dixon finds out what some of the 250 residents really think about the event.

INCREASING oil prices are causing transport costs to mount and pushing up the price of fruit and vegetables at every supermarket in the UK.

SET just above the shoreline of the Beauly Firth, the public telephone box at Redcastle has provided a lifeline for generations of residents.

WITH the re-opening of the newly refurbished Eden Court Theatre, Inverness has reclaimed its ground as the Highlands' conference capital.

IN recent years Dr Andrew McLellan, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, has tried to arouse public concern regarding the serious overcrowding not just in HMP Porterfield but across the Scottish Prison Service (SPS).

FAULTY cabling, overloaded sockets, burnt-out plugs and do-it-yourself re-wiring are just some of the discoveries made by fire officers carrying out home safety checks.

IT is not easy to sit tight and weather a storm but sometimes sheer grit and determination does have its rewards.

SCENIC Bellfield Park on the banks of the River Ness is a hidden treasure in the heart of the Highland capital.

FIGURES prove that Highland Council is just an average performing local authority — no better but equally no worse than the other 31 councils which govern Scotland.

SIMON Crouch makes a cursory examination of a rusty old bike, complete with flat tyre, which has been dumped at the Inverness recycling centre in Henderson Drive.

ON an average week, between 100 and 200 defendants will pass through the doors of Inverness Sheriff Court.

THE mosquito-infested Amazon rainforest is a world away from the smart surroundings of the Heathmount Hotel in Inverness.

IN the space of an hour, six people call at the Highland Food Bank in Inverness to collect emergency supplies. They include a single mother-of-three accompanied by a teenage girl whose mother recently died.

IT started with excessively loud noise, escalated to discarded drug needles, prostitution and assaults and ultimately forced a Merkinch woman to move home because she could no longer tolerate her neighbour's anti-social behaviour.

THIRTY years after American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright invented and built the world’s first successful aeroplane, making the first controlled, powered and sustained human flight on 17th December, 1903, air travel was taking off in the Highlands.

WHEN two of his staff were killed in an explosion Andy Gleeson was left deeply shocked.

IN the past marketing Loch Ness to the world was a matter of highlighting The Beauty and The Beast — the beauty of the Great Glen and the beast reputed to live in the mysterious waters of the loch — and tourists would flock to the Highlands.

MONTHS before the new style Highland Council came into being last May, there were predictions from many that Inverness would lose its powers to make decisions affecting the city.

THE gifting of land by Scots kings more than 800 years ago has today left a legacy worth around £25million — the Inverness Common Good Fund.

THE iPod of affordable housing — a must-have for any first-time buyer — is how Inverness architect Iain Bruce describes his proposed solution to the shortage of affordable housing.

SMILING images of boisterous teenagers having fun at a fairground, or taking part in limbo dancing competitions fill the pages of Dottie Grant's photograph album.

INVERNESS may be about to embark on a whole new relationship with its namesake in the USA, if a golf mad mayor has his way. Provost Bob Wynd, dust off that putter and wait for a phone call — things may never be the same again.

IT has been a busy three weeks for campaigners at the Janny's Hoose in Merkinch. Since stepping up their fight to save the flagship health project from closure, they have lobbied politicians, started a petition and even made a direct appeal in a letter to health secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

THE fact the McIvers do not see themselves as special is precisely what sets them apart. Seven members, spanning three generations, live in the modest three bedroomed terraced home in Morvich Way, Hilton and have not had their troubles to seek.

IT will start with 50 unique and inspiring homes, but the long-term benefits of the Highland Housing Fair will be much greater.

STAFF in the control centre of Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service are used to trying to decipher desperate calls from the public.

AS the festive season approaches, a relationship counselling service based in Inverness is bracing itself for its busiest time of year.

DAVID MacIver lists the hidden spots around Inverness where on any night homeless people can be found sleeping.

THEY say that at important changes in our lives we see backwards to those things that have brought us to this present place.

THE dog population in Britain is estimated at around 6.8 million, producing around 900 tonnes of excrement per day, according to the environmental charity which runs the Keep Britain Tidy campaign.

ON 25th March, Europe’s largest regional flight operator embarked on what could be described as its biggest gamble to date.

IN times past, the colour of Saidat Giwa-Osage's skin might have been the main thing she was known for in Inverness.

INVERNESS — there is no way of knowing his real name — was sold as a slave on 18th July, 1803, in Demerara, now part of Guyana, on the north coast of South America.

BETTY Williamson is a 41-year-old divorcee with a handicapped son. Three years ago she was at an all-time low, until she was persuaded to go on a walk with an all-female group, which meets in Merkinch Community Centre once a week.

IN recent months MPs and MSPs have condemned an arrangement which ties almost 20,000 homeowners into a contract with a ground maintenance contractor specified in the deeds of their new homes.

THERE is an e-mail message left by an American on the website of a national newspaper which is bound to raise the hackles of the Black Isle residents of Avoch.

IN A GESTURE devoid of fuss and ceremony, a handful of people gathered in an Edinburgh cemetery on Sunday to place a few flowers on the grave of a pioneering Scottish journalist.

FOR wheelchair user Donald Munro it is not so much the city centre shops which cause him problems but rather just the process of crossing roads and negotiating pavements.

AFTER years of careful preparation, pilot studies, training and lobbying, a group of local farmers and producers bid to supply Highland Council with food needed for schools, care homes, offices and public buildings.

FOR many years the Territorial Army was seen as the last resort, a force to be called on when the country was at full-scale war and in need of reinforcements.

IN A few weeks time, dietician Fiona Clarke will travel from Inverness to the United States to see how the land of the Big Mac is tackling the issue of obesity.

THE tranquil surroundings at a former Black Isle primary school are in stark contrast to the turmoil suffered on a daily basis by its visitors.

ACCORDING to mythology it was the Greeks who had the Trojan horse attack method first accredited to them — offer something which has the appearance of being a gift but is in reality a strategic instrument of war.

“THAT was then, this is now,” said Councillor Margaret Davidson as she moved a motion to dump an unpopular plan to privatise Highland care homes at last month’s full council meeting.

WE are now six months into Highland 2007, the year of Highland culture and there are conflicting views of how successful it has been so far.

ACCORDING to 19th century America novelist Mark Twain, "golf is a good walk spoiled".

LAST week, The Inverness Courier questioned whether the Highland 2007 cultural celebration was succeeding in raising the region’s profile, citing the lack of large-scale events and the absence of a festival atmosphere in Inverness. Today, Fiona Hampton, the event’s director, begs to differ.

CAMPAIGNERS for improvements to north train services argue there is still an immense need for rail travel over the coming decades, with passenger numbers already at record levels not seen since the 1960s.

THERE is an old saying "Where there's muck, there's brass" .

CLEAR for take-off," said the pilot in my headset. "The burners are kicking-in, the left, now the right."

THE dust has hardly settled on the new Independent-SNP led Highland Council, but we set out to discover who will be the new power brokers in Glenurquhart Road.

THERE should not be anything controversial about a plan to host a sustainable forward-looking architecture exhibition in Inverness.

WHEN many people think of retirement communities they conjure up the image of gated settlements seen on American television shows, complete with security personnel to keep out unwanted visitors.

SMOKE rising from a distant hillside is a common sight in the Highlands at this time of year — but few are aware that these often controlled moorland fires can spread rapidly to nearby forests and housing, stretching the region’s fire service and causing millions of pounds worth of damage.

THOUSANDS of music fans last year made the trip to Dores for the inaugural one-day RockNess festival unaware that the event could have been called off at the 11th hour.

ARCHITECTS and planners could hold the key to defining a 21st century identity for the ever-expanding Highland capital.

IT is hard to predict how Inverness will change over the next 30 years — will Inverness Caledonian Thistle be playing Barcelona in the Champions League? Will holidaymakers be able to fly direct from Dalcross Airport to New York? And will motorists be able to drive from Inverness to Perth in less than one hour?

THE history of Football in the North of Scotland is perhaps a more exciting subject than most would think. A book published in the 17th century suggests the modern game of football may have been invented in Aberdeen.

JOHN Bruce has lost count of the number of elections he has been involved in over the past 21 years.

CHRISTOPHER Balfour could be forgiven for looking up to the sky every now and again as he goes shopping.

IT is easy in the heat of the moment to focus all feelings — whether sympathy or anger — on the prisoner, but it does us all no harm to remember that every offender is some mother’s daughter or son.

HE was about to give up the long fight. Haemophiliac Bruce Norval was only weeks away from ending his fight for answers after 17 years of demanding them.

AS international politicians met in Washington last week to discuss climate change, an intriguing exercise was taking shape at Inverness’s Charleston Academy.

MICHAEL Summers is used to desperate calls from patients worried about superbugs and the risk of infection.

MANY people will know a family in which the children do not go to school and are instead taught by their parents.

A DISUSED cabbage field, for most people, is probably not the most obvious place to bury their loved ones. But it was in such a field that family and friends gathered 10 years ago this week to bury my father.

IN Pictish times, salmon were to be an important and mysterious symbol to the enigmatic people who inhabited the north of Scotland.

ONE day, over 35 years ago in a junior List D School — what used to be called an approved school — where I worked as a residential social worker, a teacher temporarily left his class of 10 boys, aged between eight and 12.

READERS were asked to submit questions to Danny Alexander MP who responds to subjects as diverse as council housing, road tax and the new planning process.

THE good news for those spreading the religious word in Inverness has to be set in the context of a national picture of a continuing, though slowing decline in churchgoing, according to the latest report from Christian Research.

AS the daylight dwindles and temperatures drop, parents with still a few days holiday left would be forgiven for packing up, taking the children out of school and jetting off to the Canary Islands for a week or two of pre-Christmas rest and relaxation.

DESPITE junk mail’s unpopularity with the public, many of the country’s largest businesses seem increasingly prepared to incur the wrath of customers by arranging for a flood of unwanted adverts to land on their doorsteps every morning.

THERE is no quiet day for Alasdair Christie, newly appointed manager of the Citizens Advice Bureau on Acad­emy Street, Inverness.

INVERNESS, the self-proclaimed Capital of the Highlands, also holds the distinction of being the fastest-growing city in Western Europe.

SIMILAR to the system of interconnected pipes which runs under the city, Scottish Water has a complex network to combat any emergency as efficiently and effectively as possible.

CRITICAL. Vital. Essential. This is how one football chairman describes the importance of outside financial backing at his football club.

PARENTS and pupils at Teanassie Primary School near Beauly are hoping this week will herald good news regarding the longer term stability of the school.

THE person that frees your child from a blazing inferno in an upstairs bedroom or from the mangled wreck of your crashed car could be a joiner, a teacher, a lawyer or a minister.

INVERNESS was thrown into turmoil four years ago when many of the city's roads, housing and businesses were inundated by floodwater.

CLEANING company supervisor Alan Ingram employs eight Poles and is in no doubt they are an asset to his business.

BEING a civilised and just nation, Scotland has had prisons since records began. The Bible gave early hints as to the value of such places and the innate spirit of enlightenment ensured the Scottish people reaped the deterrent value of their tollbooths and jails.

IT is a common sight - young people across the city gathering in open areas or playparks getting the latest gossip and just hanging out.

LAST week, three years of detailed planning and international research paid off when Aviemore and the surrounding mountain communities launched a new organisation to help the area's vital tourism industry to flourish.

YOHMOR is a village set on a hillside next to the Litani River, about 10 kilometres southeast of Nabatiye and just five kilometres from the blue line - the Israeli border.

IT is not easy to talk about your death or the death of those you love. However, by discussing organ donation it could potentially save someone's life.

NEXT year heralds a significant milestone in the civic life of Ella MacRae. The landlady of the Dores Inn on the shores of Loch Ness will have notched up 21 years as a councillor.

WE ARE told Inverness is one of the fastest growing cities in the UK with modern business requirements like the internet and broadband at our fingertips.

IT has been glammed up by a £20 million and 10-year makeover. And, it is preparing for a showbiz role - as Highland 2007's "biggest" venue.

Scotland's deputy justice minister Hugh Henry stopped off in Inverness to highlight the Scottish Executive's anti-social behaviour roadshow. Calum Macleod asked him about asbos and the alternatives.

An extensive door-to-door exercise on controversial proposals to transfer council homes in the Highlands to a not-for-profit organisation has just drawn to a close ahead of a ballot in October. As Highland tenants now mull over the pros and cons before making their decision, the two opposing sides outline their arguments.

Inverness publican Kit Fraser, the driving force behind a new charity which twins the city with a poverty-stricken community in Kenya, describes his visit there.

Where do parents turn for drugs information and help? Donald Wilson finds one Inverness church initiative which aims to open up communication and dialogue within families.

Most weeks bring another donation to Raigmore Hospital. But how is the money spent, are some specialities missing out and is the NHS beginning to rely too much on charitable giving? Val Sweeney reports.