photosworthseeing:

adventuresofalgy:

As forecast, the sunshine lasted only one day and Sunday was dismally grey, with the clouds drifting low over the hills once again. But at the very last minute before dusk, the setting sun managed to break through a wee gap in the heavy bank of cloud, and illuminated some of the ridges with a faint magenta glow. Algy perched on a cold rock to watch for a moment or two, knowing that in just a few minutes more the light and the colour would be gone…

I always love to follow Algy’s adventures and right now I would like to sit next to Algy and listen his stories in this beautiful evening mood. Algy’s assistant Jenny captured this photo and mood perfectly.

PWS – Stephi

Algy was so thrilled to see this adventure appear on @photosworthseeing!

Thank you Stephi 🙂 Algy sends you lots of very fluffy hugs, and says that you are most welcome to sit next to him any time you like, and he will tell you all his very best and fluffiest stories xx

Source: adventuresofalgy

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On Friday afternoon Algy had to leave the woods for a wee while, to take some parcels to the post office to send to those kind friends who had bought things from his crowdfunding campaign page at Sponsume. Once the packages had been safely despatched, he made his way back around the mountain, pausing at one of his favourite lookout points to rest a while, although it was difficult to find a comfortable perch there. But the view more than compensated for the prickly discomfort, and in the silence of the late autumn afternoon Algy gazed in wonder at the sky and the loch, watching the beautiful show of colours as the landscape gradually turned pink and violet in the gloaming…

The year was slowly drawing to a close, and the nights were growing longer and longer. Algy perched on the hillside in the gloaming, in a spot overlooking the horseshoe bay, and gazed into the west. The last glimmers of light were always far out to sea, beyond the clouds, and beyond the islands. As he watched the colours fade out of the landscape, he thought of the opening verses of a poem:

          Come, for the dusk is our own; let us fare forth together,
          With a quiet delight in our hearts for the ripe, still, autumn weather,
          Through the rustling valley and wood and over the crisping meadow,
          Under a high-sprung sky, winnowed of mist and shadow.

          Sharp is the frosty air, and through the far hill-gaps showing
          Lucent sunset lakes of crocus and green are glowing;
          ‘Tis the hour to walk at will in a wayward, unfettered roaming,
          Caring for naught save the charm, elusive and swift, of the gloaming.

[Algy is quoting the first two verses of the poem November Evening by the late 19th/early 20th century Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery.]

As Algy watched the sun sink down, and waves of darkness stole quietly across the loch, he began to observe a strangely hypnotic phenomenon. Of course he was exceedingly tired after his arduous flight along the river, and the light in the gloaming is always tricky and apt to deceive. It’s only too easy to imagine that you are seeing strange things when twilight falls in the West Highlands, even if you are wide awake. Nevertheless, it seemed to Algy that all was not entirely as he might have expected it to be… He was too exhausted to remain alert, or even to stay awake for longer than a few moments at a time, but as he dozed to the rhythm of the flickering light, he wondered drowsily whether it was really entirely wise to fall asleep at this time…

Just like the famous young lady who was transported Somewhere Over The Rainbow long ago, Algy was feeling decidedly homesick, and he didn’t know how to find his way back home. What he did know, however, was that all streams must flow eventually into the sea. So he decided to follow the course of the river downstream, and – as twilight fell – Algy reached the shores of a huge sea loch. It was too late to travel any further that day, so he rested on the coarse beach, and watched the sun sinking down behind the clouds while he wondered what he ought to do next…

And so, as evening fell, Algy found himself back again at his favourite way station by the quiet loch. It was not easy to see in the gloaming, but he thought that the grass had grown a wee bit longer, and more of the bluebells were flowering now. In the distance he could hear the cuckoo calling, and he knew that he would very soon be home again. It seemed almost as though he had never been away …

From the middle of May until July each year, on nights when the weather is fine, the sky glows late into the evening, far out to sea in the north-west. Then the red deer come to browse furtively on the crofts in the gloaming, and Algy sits in his tree in the strange light, and talks to them.

This year another bird is talking to them too, and his rasping call carries all across the land in the still of the evening …

Listen to the sound that Algy heard as he was conversing with the deer.