Oooh, look, an otter...

The Scottish Holiday.

We settled down to the serenity of the castle & its half-a-mile beach with nothing on it except sea-birds and a piece of wood that looked remarkably like a seal...

Another not-seal

Chapter Nine:

"Have you read the castle log book?" asked one of my friends, "someone here says there's an otter in the bay."

That was that then - my artist friend had the same desire to see an otter as my wife had to see some seals. She and her husband walked the beach each morning to see if the otter was around. The word "unimpressed" doesn't quite describe the look she had when another of my friends came back on "Day 3" with an SD Card stuffed full of otter-shots. He was a fan of Monty Python...

"I shall, today, henceforth be known as the Otter-Spotter, there shall be a count of one otter, not two..."

"Shut. Up."

"Wanna see the pics?"

"No"

Number of Otters: One.

"That's not funny."

"Tell you what, let's go otter-spotting when the tide turns."

"Ok, so we're all going to go crunching through the shingle wearing bright yellow cagoules and yell "THERE HE IS" when we see him. I believe they have good eyesight as well as hearing"

"Pardon?"

"SHUT, UP!"

After the glaring match ended, we decided that we would go for a walk otter-spotting.

"But, IF we DO actually spot an otter, how are we going to tell the others without alerting the otter?"

"I know, we'll make a sign like this". My wife waved her arms like an albatross taking off."

"That's not an otter, that's an eagle!"

"OK, like this?" and she waved her hands in front of her.

"Nope, seal."

"Hmm, how about this?" and she raised her arms above her head in the shape of a letter "O".

"Brilliant. Let's go"

Needless to say, no otters were spotted.

Chapter Ten:

On the last night it seemed a really good idea to have a fire on the beach using driftwood as fuel. We'd had a decent meal and had finished up most of the wine and beer ("shame to waste it", "indeed", "can't take it home"). We were, as you might say, reasonably merry.

The cooks left the washing up to the non-cooks and we wandered out to the high tide mark and lit the fire. It was another "bottle it" moment. Not a sound anywhere except the fire crackling gently. Not a light anywhere except the dim lights of the castle in the distance and the red glow of the fire reflecting on the sea. All you could hear was silence and the sound of the otter splashing in the sea about 50 yards away in the gloom.

"(Fuck!)", "what?", "(ssshh, otter!?)", "where?", "(out there!)", "bollocks, I can't see anything!", "(quiet!)", "you're pulling my leg!", "(no, ssshh!)", "don't you "ssshh" me", "(look, again)", "ooh, yeah..."

We stood still, watching the otter - as best as we could in the failing light - fishing.

Then we spotted our wives walking up the path, just barely visible in the darkness.

"(quick, quick, make the otter sign!)"

We all stood, backs to the fire with our arms stretched above our heads in the shape of an "O".

"Oh bloody hell", I heard one say, "they must be p*ssed, they're singing YMCA..."

Here's one we prepared earlier