11

Class is coming to its end. David has finished his icon, a grave greybeard St Nicholas with a pattern of crosses on his dress. Michael adds the last touches to the picture on his easel. Brian pores over a notebook. Sister sits with Aonghas, who's rubbing out bits of his pencil work, correcting the line.

‘You missed the monks,’ says Patricia when I return later to say goodbye. Patricia, from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, is in retreat at the Marydale skete.

If only I'd known . . . This morning, I've been in Glen Affric and found the car park at the top of the glen thronged. Milling around three white minivans was more than a score of men of all ages, dressed in jeans or leather jerkins or tweed jackets, chattering and laughing. Somehow they didn't look like your average tourists. Who could they be? Monks from Pluscarden Abbey, as I learned later.

Once a year they break free of the cloisters and they'd called at Marydale for the midday office. They sang with gusto – 30 male voices raised in praise. The rafters rang.

Sister says they arrived out of the blue. She thought they might have left a message warning of their visit but she hadn't checked her emails. She's not very practical that way, which figures. Nuns are unworldly – right?