At some point during Trinity 1998, the suggestion of a summer holiday was mentioned over lunch one day, with Orkney proposed by Pauline as a possible destination. Not much happened until after the end of term (and Richard's finals), at which point we started investigating travel possibilities.
It rapidly became obvious that hiring a car would be prohibitively expensive, with hire costs being £400 for a fortnight plus an extra £200 per driver in insurance owing to the fact that we were all under 25, insurance companies having an immense dislike of such people. Just as it was looking as though things were impossible, my parents kindly offered us the loan of their spare car. It further turned out that their insurance company would make no charge to add both Pauline and me to the insurance, but it was felt that it might be pushing things a little too far to get Richard added as well.
Pauline spent a busy weekend at home phoning around countless guest-houses and bed & breakfast places, and arranged the entire accommodation for the trip plus the ferry crossing to Orkney from Scrabster to Stromness. By mid-August everything was arranged and all that was left was for us to pack, and for Pauline and me to make our way down to Farnham in order to pick up the car.