A charity is appealing for volunteers to help bring older people living alone in Inverness together.
Contact the Elderly runs more than 25 support groups across the Highlands, including several in Inverness itself.
There is currently a waiting list of older people wanting to join the city’s 10th group – but the charity needs more volunteers to donate their time to help out.
Contact the Elderly runs tea parties once a month in a volunteer host’s home.
The host will welcome a group of between six and eight people on one or two Sundays in a year.
A volunteer driver collects one or two guests each month and joins them at the tea party.
Jillian Walker, development officer at Contact the Elderly, said: “The Highlands is an incredibly busy region for our charity. The groups are so well-loved and we want to extend our reach even further.
“We have a group of older people who would love the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon out of the house once a month but we need volunteers to make that happen.
“We are all leading increasingly busy lives but our social consciences prick when we hear of older people who are isolated. A lot of people may feel they don’t have the time to do anything about it but our model only asks for a few hours once a month, or once a year, to do something incredible.”
Contact the Elderly has been active running groups for older people in the Inverness area for almost 20 years and currently supports more than 70 older people.
Ms Walker said: “Volunteers and guests thoroughly enjoy our tea parties in Inverness and I sincerely hope we can extend the lifeline of friendship to even more older people who live alone in the area.”