By John Knox Political reporter, BBC Scotland

When St Rule packed a few bones in his bag for a journey to the wild west of Europe he little knew what a burach they would cause 1,500 years later.

We have celebrated St Andrew's kneecap, arm bone, tooth and finger with particular enthusiasm this year.

The SNP have been hailing St Andrew's Day as the dawn of a new era.

Alex Salmond has been trying to make more of St Andrew's Day

"We are repatriating our national day," First Minister Alex Salmond told his audience in Glasgow.

"We are announcing to the world that Scotland is resurgent and great days lie ahead."

Meanwhile, Labour's Wendy Alexander was telling her audience in Edinburgh that she wanted Scotland "to walk taller within the UK, without walking out".

She called for a constitutional commission to reconsider the devolution settlement of 1999, in particular to look at ways in which the Scottish Parliament could raise more of its own revenue.

However, Ms Alexander's St Andrew's Day speech was completely overwhelmed by the row over donations to the Labour Party, north and south of the border.

The way the story unfolded here at Holyrood was less the stuff of legend and more comic opera.

Ms Alexander arrived on Thursday morning with the newspaper headlines asking - "Did she break the rules? Was she caught up in Labour's donations row?"

At question time she said she was submitting her accounts to the Electoral Commission and would await its judgement on whether a donation of �950 from tax exile Paul Green to her leadership election campaign was legitimate or not.

But no sooner had she walked down the steps of the Garden Lobby than she was informed by one of her team, Charlie Gordon MSP, that, em, he'd been misled and in fact the donation was against the law because it came from a non-UK resident.

Wendy Alexander has faced increased pressure over funds

Mr Green lives in the Channel Islands, though he has extensive business interests in Glasgow.

There was then an unseemly media scrum in Labour's "monk's cell" at the end of the Garden Lobby as Mr Gordon announced his resignation as a Labour party spokesman on transport and Tom McCabe MSP explained that Ms Alexander was too "upset" to speak.

At question time, she'd tried to turn the tables on the SNP by saying not one of their candidates in the leadership election in 2004 reported any donations to the Electoral Commission.

"I find that an odd state of affairs from a party now lecturing us on transparency," she said.

Unfortunately she got the list of candidates wrong... mistaking Alex Neil for Michael Russell.

And Mr Salmond was able to hit back with the jibe: "Surely all that proves is that the SNP spent less fighting an election than Labour spent not fighting an election."

Which brings us to the other small matter of the week, the SNP's budget.

The committees have begun serious work on scrutinising the figures in the 151 page document, with a St Andrew's flag on the cover of course.

No fewer than three cabinet secretaries, Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney and Kenny MacAskill, were summoned to appear in front of the health committee on Tuesday to explain how much they propose to spend on the fight against alcohol and drug addiction.

Fourteen per cent more, they said.

Committees have begun scrutinising the SNP budget

In another committee room, Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop was being warned by university officials that they may not have enough money next year to increase student numbers and widen access to higher education.

In still other committee rooms, Scottish Enterprise officials were warning that jobs would have to go as a result of the budget.

The police were warning that the expected efficiency savings could not be found.

And Professor David Bell, adviser to the finance committee, warned that the freeze in council tax, planned for in the SNP budget, would leave nearly two million households worse off because of the knock-on effect on their welfare benefits.

In a debate on tourism on Thursday, the SNP were also warned that the end of the subsidy for new air routes into Scotland would seriously damage the tourist trade, which incidentally suffered a decline last year of 1.3% in money terms.

The SNP's answer to all the criticisms was that they were doing their best in difficult circumstances.

The Scottish budget of �30bn, handed down from London, is only increasing by 0.5% next year, but in each case at least some more money is being provided.

One minute, it's all bicker and battle, the next it's as calm as Loch Lomond

The parliament found room in its budget this week to appoint its first human rights commissioner.

Professor Alan Miller will work with three other part-time commissioners to champion human rights in Scotland and investigate alleged breaches by public bodies.

The appointment comes in the week that Scottish Parliament marked the European Year of Opportunities for All, a campaign to stamp out discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, disability, religion or age.

They might have added "language" because on Thursday evening, the parliament hosted an event for that little known language, Gaelic.

It was the annual Gaelic schools debate followed by a performance from a Gaelic clarsach band.

Suddenly the Garden Lobby was a happier place again after the turmoil earlier in the day.

It neatly illustrated the changing fortunes of St Andrew's land.