And there it was…

Algy was sitting quietly on the uncomfortable perch within the peculiar shelter, trying to get comfortable, when all of a sudden he heard a gentle thrumming noise. He listened carefully, and decided that it was definitely growing louder. Could it be the transport vessel coming to collect him at last? In great excitement he jumped up, flew out of the shelter, and down towards the bottom of the slipway… and there it was, approaching slowly from around the bend which hid the coastline of the island from view. Algy sat down on the edge of the slipway and leaned back on the hard and rather knobbly surface, waiting and watching, watching and waiting, as the ferry boat gradually increased in size…

Advertisement

Tobermory

When Algy had rested sufficiently to recover from the after-effects of his unnatural mode of transport across the sea, he hopped back into the air and flew across to the far side of the small bay. Finding a supportive if not entirely comfortable perch in an odd bush, he studied the scene in front of him. Although it was not far from his own home, as the seabird flies, it bore little resemblance to the environment he was used to. Algy was accustomed to seeing the hard, block-like structures in which the humans lived, but the ones he knew were either a naturally dirty white, like himself, or built out of plain stone, and they were dotted about the landscape more or less at random. Here, however, the humans had clustered their structures densely together for some reason, and had decorated them with all the colours of the rainbow. The result was most striking. Not only did it brighten up the dull, early spring landscape considerably, but the colours were reflected in the water too, creating a very pretty effect.

At the extreme end of the far side of the bay, Algy noticed the odd contraption which had conveyed him to the island. It was motionless now, and he wondered whether it was waiting to take him home again. But if that was the case, it would just have to wait! He wasn’t ready to leave this strange new place yet – not by any means…

Algy wishes you all a wonderfully bright and colourful Sunday, and if you should happen to be travelling by ferry boat, Algy hopes that it will wait for you…😁

When Algy woke up the next morning, he discovered that the scene had changed during the night. The clouds had descended from the sky, and crept silently down the mountains into the loch. Everything was quiet and muffled in the mist, except for the occasional shrieking calls of the oystercatchers. Algy moved along the beach until he found a slightly more comfortable area, where the pebbles were fewer and scattered over a bed of very coarse brown sand. Resting there for a while, he noticed that there was now a pretty wee island floating right in the middle of the loch. He wondered whether it had been there the day before; one could never be quite sure about these things in the strange West Highland mists…