One of our big growth areas in the church recently has been an involvement in outdoor activities. These have ranged from strenuous hill-walking/ scrambling across An Teallach in Wester Ross to much more sedentary (and some say infinitely more enjoyable) events closer to home such as a barbecue held on the beach at St Andrews.

This wide range of activity of course has meant that all ages have been involved at some point.   (Not!) Just good fun  Eating, walking, cycling.... eating, gorge-walking, climbing......eating, swimming, sailing, ski-ing....and eating!

The outdoors is not only a source of enjoyment in itself but also provides the opportunity to talk and get to know each other in a frequently awesome environment - a little different from the bricks and mortar of a normal church. One of the instances when you can't avoid being close to others is when camping is involved, as it was recently in an outing to the Cairngorms; this was of course after cycling to our camp-site into the teeth of a howling wind - there's nothing like a challenge and we found out we're nothing like fit!