For the PWS @photosworthseeing New Year Special “That One Moment” – with lots of very fluffy hugs to all Algy’s friends at PWS, and his fluffiest thanks to the PWS team for organising yet another wonderful event xoxo

Algy’s special moment of 2016 was back in July, on an unusually summery day. Algy made his way through a lovely patch of woodland to a beautiful lochan fringed with wild water lilies, where everything was peaceful, calm and sunny – a rare treat in the West Highlands of Scotland! And…

Algy hopped down to the water’s edge and perched on a clump of lush green grass. Leaning forward, he peered down deep into the blue water, trying to see whether he could spot a frog among the water lilies, but although he looked as hard as he could, there was no sign of his amphibian friends. Then suddenly he noticed a wee movement on the soggy ground beside him. Several tiny froglets were making their way clumsily towards the shelter of the grasses, their spindly legs stumbling over the matted roots. Algy wished them well, and hoped they would have a safe journey…

[Originally posted on 31st July 2016]

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It was the warmest day of the year so far, but the sky was overcast and – owing to the unusual absence of wind – the midges were biting. The world was entirely grey and green, and Algy felt tired and indolent. He reclined sleepily on a tumbled tree trunk overlooking the lochan, brushing the midges off from time to time, and looked at the water and the sky. Like all the other flowers, the water lilies were late this year, and so far there were only a few buds showing among the floating leaves. As he gazed up at the leaden sky a large bird circled overhead, and Algy was reminded of a poem he had recently discovered:

Day and night, the lake dreams of sky.
A privacy as old as the mountains
And her up there, stuck among peaks. The whole eye

Fastened on hawk, gatherings of cloud or stars,
So little trespass. An airplane once
Crossed her brow; she searched but could not find

A face. Having lived with such strict beauty
She comes to know how the sun is nothing
But itself and the path it throws; the moon

A riddled stone. If only a hand
Would tremble along her cheek, would disturb. Even the elk
Pass by, drawn to the spill of creeks below—

How she cannot help abundance, even as it leaves
Her, as it sings all the way down the mountain.

[Algy is quoting the poem The Lake by the contemporary American poet Sophie Cabot Black.]

Algy dedicates this post to all his friends overseas who so badly need water. He wishes so much that he could send you some of the abundance he sees here, but alas, he cannot. Every day that it rains here (and that’s most days this year), Algy is thinking of you xoxo