Stephen, Oh, my, I should have asked and have no idea what the trees were. I'll have to dig around a bit and try and find out. Actually, I had already wondered about it during the recent discussion, and was a little embarrassed that I had no idea. At the time I was too busy being amazed by the beautiful and exotic looking flowers, and, I guess, the trees didn't seem that unusual to me. We did walk down a road/path that was shaded by many of them. Charles Tait's aerial of Shapinsay shows the large group of trees. It's really quite a forest for Orkney. You don't realize it goes on for so far. I grew up in Iowa where farmers planted long rows of trees on what had been open prairie land to shelter their buildings and animals from all that wind and snow descending upon us from Canada. And, yes, the ducks are still parading at the Peabody. They'll be marching in for the lighting of the giant Christmas tree in the lobby in a few days. I'm afraid the tree is fake, though splendid. The ducks and the water in the fountain are very real. Karen