AS OTHERS SEE US

For many years now Robert Erskine has written a Family Newsletter which is sent to family and friends. Activities on Coll frequently feature in these newsletters and this year we are fortunate to be able to reproduce some 'Coll Highlights’

BIRD WATCHING AND A CHAROLAIS BULL

On Thursday Susan and I went on the 'birdie' walk with Charlie Self and a spirited crowd of twenty followers in the West End and actually heard the corncrake. 'They were a mixture of curious islanders, holiday makers. botanists, bird-watchers and foreigners.

One Australian proudly told us he was descended from a convict sent in the first settlement to Australia for poaching in Norfolk.

Charlie took us for two hours over the sand dunes pointing out the major rare flowers and plants and the corncrake survival strategy. We also saw a buzzard and lots of fulmars on their nests on the cliffs by Ben Feall.

On the way home through the field which was the old pre-war airfield Susan noticed a bull on its back, unable to get up, looking very sick and generally in trouble, legs kicking in the air and lots of agonised bellowing.

I was sent hot foot on to summon help from Charlie and together we went in his landrover to the ailing bull. One of his cows was gently licking his face. His eyes were red, stomach very swollen, my goodness she was giving him the last rites!

Luckily we managed to get a rope around front and back legs and gently rolled him over onto his tummy. We had to be very careful not to break a leg. With a lot of bellowing he got up. I was terrified the bull might charge. But luckily the landrover was so near I jumped for my life, but he did not pursue his rescuers.
One Coll farmer will be glad we saved his precious Charolais champion, probably worth over £8,000. I wonder how long he would have survived if left on his back in a mini hollow in the ground?

Charlie wanted to know why I had got so quickly involved in the episode. "With Susan seeing an animal in trouble I knew she would never let me into the house again if I didn't get the animal rescued. It was all a matter of self preservation."

Anyway, later a grateful farmer said he owed us a wee dram, more than a dram he said, a bathtub full of whisky.

COLLAHOLIC MAGIC

This week the social gathering is the Coll Annual Dinner Dance at the Normandy Hotel in Renfrew, where we have free run of the Argyle Suite.

There is dinner for 75, a little down on last year, but all the regular Coll families are in attendance. This year Andy MacKinnon is the President.

After dinner David Moore Junior gives the after dinner speech. He pretends he is a duffer and places a huge luggage bag on the table. He says as he cannot make an entertaining speech he is instead going to give us a wee poem about going to Coll as an annual visitor. The luggage bag is the prompter for him to say what he takes to Coll. This works out a good ploy, as for each verse he can mime a little action as out come the welly boots and the mackintosh and the many changes of clothes.

Coll is depicted as the ever wet island, where the damp gets into ignition systems and cars will not go, where ferries get overbooked and passengers get stranded etc, but still the Collaholic magic lures them back year after year, as lemmings.

There are lots of funny bits and we are in stitches. Inevitably there are a few corny bits emerging from the case - the coup de gras is a sample yards of Margaret's underwear to cope with so much wet weather! She disowns David!

Susan, as usual wins a prize in the Coll raffle. It is a huge box of chocolate items. The band is good and we are doing all the traditional Scottish dances. Susan will not let me head for home 'til I have shed 3 inches and danced the post 12.30 am eightsome reel!