#storm floris

It was the middle of September, and the wild west Highlands of Scotland had just experienced the dreariest and most dismal summer that Algy or his assistants could remember… Southern Britain had basked in the hottest, driest, sunniest summer for a very long time, while even the east of Scotland had enjoyed plenty of fine warm weather, and it had seemed to Algy that his own wee corner of the world had simply been overlooked and forgotten…

No one beyond the local area seemed to realise that since the third week of May there had been day after day after day… and week after week after week… and month after month after month… of nothing but cloud and wind and rain. There had even been an exceptionally strong summer storm at the beginning of August which had destroyed most of the leaves on the trees long before their time to fall, turning what had been a lush green canopy, fed by all the rain, into a desolate swathe of dead brown leaves, which quickly dropped to the ground. And after storm Floris had passed, even the hillsides looked totally dead…

And so, for day after week after month, Algy had watched and waited… and waited and watched, feeling less and less fluffy as time went on and nothing seemed to change…

But now the desolate summer was over at last, for the world had turned, and although the wind and the rain showed little sign of leaving the wild west Highlands in peace, this felt rather more normal in mid-September. All of a sudden, Algy began to recover some of his usual fluffiness.

Observing that some of the plants in his assistants' garden had escaped the ravages of the storm, and others had managed to effect some recovery in the six weeks of rain since storm Floris had passed, Algy ventured out on a slightly drier morning and found that there were plenty of green leaves and a new flush of flowers in the more sheltered areas of the garden.

Hopping up into a hypericum bush, whose yellow flowers Algy loved because they matched his hair, he settled down among the damp leaves and began to think of all the friends around the world from whom he had been separated by the gloom of the past few months… and as he reflected on all that had been happening during that time, in the great wide world beyond his home, Algy realised that many of his friends might well be feeling gloomy too, albeit for different reasons from his own…

So, instructing his assistant to prepare to take a pretty picture of him perching in the bush, Algy fluffed up his feathers, lifted up his head, and started to sing to the world beyond, even though he could tell that in his own wee sphere it would very shortly start to rain again:

Bring me all of your dreams,  You dreamers.  Bring me all of your  Heart melodies That I may wrap them  In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too rough fingers Of the world. 

The rambling old downy birch tree, like most of the other trees in the area, had suffered badly in storm Floris at the beginning of August, and all its beautiful green leaves had turned dry and brown long before the end of their natural life.

Algy was especially sorry about the birch, because in previous years he had often enjoyed the glowing autumn colours of this particular tree well into October, but this year there was sadly very little left to glow.

However, on a quintessential September day, in which a rapid succession of sudden showers from fast-moving, ominous clouds was interspersed with very much brighter intervals, there were some brief but glorious moments when the rain and sun decided to confront each other, resulting in a beautiful if ephemeral show of dramatic light and colour, despite the woeful lack of leaves.

So, in one such moment, Algy hopped up into the branches of the venerable birch tree and faced the sun, which by then was sinking low in the west, while another torrential shower swept in from across the ocean. The experience was decidedly drenching, but also delightful, and as his fluffy feathers began to drip, drip, drip, Algy thought:

Come and marvel at the sunset! Lo—a storm is brooding near,— All the thirsty world imploring, In a mood akin to fear. Like a beaker in her fingers Holds the world the valley high, Mountain-lipped and cañon-hearted, To the largess of the sky. But the sky, capricious ever, Hides the storm unbroken still; And the pallid, sun-born nectar Doth the beaker brimming fill. See the weirdly golden essence Lurk along, the shades between, 'Till it drowns and rolls above them In triumphant glare of sheen.