We’ll Weather the Weather…

Algy found himself a perch in a tree by the lochside and gazed out across the moody water. The weather was growing wild and stormy again, and very soon there would be more rain. He could scarcely remember a day when it hadn’t rained, although he knew that once upon a time the sun used to shine, at least from time to time, and there had occasionally been whole weeks when one dry day followed another. He wondered whether this year was just an anomaly, or whether it would now rain for evermore in the wild west Highlands of Scotland. He was reminded of an old rhyme, which he started to sing at the top of his voice, in defiance of the weather, and for the benefit of any passer by who might happen to be listening:

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

Advertisement

The Fingers of the Storm

Algy flew over to a low rock, to escape the incoming tide, and gazed up at the sky. The storm clouds seemed to be reaching down towards him with many dark, wispy fingers, as though they wanted to snatch him up and carry him away. Clutching the rock tightly, he wondered whether it might be safer to retreat inland until the storm had passed…

Algy hopes that if you are threatened by storms this weekend, you will be able to find a safe place to shelter until the skies clear again 🙂

The Great Sea Loch

The weather was wild and unpredictable, and Algy had flown inland to escape the worst of the coming storm. As he approached the great sea loch he was caught by a sudden gust of wind and swept across the water to the further side. Landing on a slippery pebble beach strewn with seaweed, he perched uncomfortably on the damp stones and gazed at the moody water and the threatening sky. The great loch was behaving as though it were the ocean, with waves crashing on its shores, and he wondered how much more violent the breakers might be on his own beach, which faced the open sea…

The Silver Loch

The West Highland weather was taking a walk on the wild side, but at times it paused to rest and reflect. When Algy was sure that the wind had dropped down to a tolerable level for a wee while, he flew over to the sheltered silver loch and perched on a rock. It was calm and peaceful there, and the lap lap lap of the tiny waves soothed him like a gentle lullaby. Although Algy loved the untamed ocean and the pounding of the breakers close to his home, it was undeniably pleasant to be able to relax for a while in a softer, more serene environment…

It was a beautiful afternoon for a change and Algy felt in need of some sunshine, so he left the lush green of the shady woodlands around the lochan, and flew a little way down the quiet loch to a pebble beach that he knew. Reclining on a rock beside the water, he watched the patterns of the ripples and the passage of the clouds, which were reflected beautifully in the calm surface of the sea loch, and created ever-changing shadows on the hillsides. It was a fine, peaceful, summer’s afternoon, and would have been quite perfect if it were not for that curse of the West Highland summer, the tiny creature known as a midge…

Ceci est dédié au génial couple français qu’Algy a rencontré dans ce bel endroit aujourd’hui. Il espère que vous pourrez voir cette photo, et vous vous souviendrez d’Algy et de vos vacances ici, et peut-être allez vous suivre ses aventures ici sur Tumblr ou sur Facebook à l’adresse suivante:

https://www.facebook.com/adventuresofalgy/

A bientôt 🙂

**Edited** Merci à @themazette for the corrections to Algy’s bad French 🙂 

On St. George’s Day, Algy tries to take special care of dragons, to make sure that they come to no harm. As he flew over the great sea loch, he noticed that a spiny sea serpent was struggling to make its way back out to sea against the tide, so Algy watched from the stony beach to make sure that the dragon managed to return safely to the ocean 🙂

Algy perched on the steep banks of the loch side and looked down into the blue water below. The first fresh stems of bracken were emerging around him, but had not yet unfurled. Other hints of green were beginning to poke through the russet-coloured bed of last year’s leaves and bracken too, but the colours of autumn still dominated the scene. It certainly felt remarkably cold for the middle of May, and the heavy showers that swept across the loch from time to time carried ice in them. It was undoubtedly an unusually cold spring, Brrrrrrrr…

Algy hopes that you will all have a happy weekend, even if the weather is not as kind as you would like it to be 🙂

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…

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…