Although it was unpleasantly cold, and Algy worried about the creatures who lived within the water, he was always intrigued when the surface of the pond froze over and the ice was sufficiently thick for him to walk – or perch – upon its surface without risk of a drenching.
Alighting on the shimmering surface with a sideways slip and a slide, Algy stabilised himself as best he could and peered down through the ice, but he could see no sign of animate life. He wondered what kind of wee creatures might be hiding safely in the mud at the bottom of the pool, and he hoped that they would survive the freezing weather, which in fact was quite likely, for temperatures seriously below freezing were rare on the wild west coast of the Scottish Highlands, where the proximity of the great Atlantic Ocean ensured that the environment remained what the experts liked to call "mild", although Algy felt that if his tail feathers were anything to go by, what they really meant was "jolly cold"…
Glancing up at the sky, he could see a huge yellow-grey cloud approaching from the north, and before long he felt the tickle of the first tiny flakes of snow on his face. Algy thought of all his wee fluffy friends around the garden, and was glad that his assistants had a dilapidated old barn in which his feathered cousins could take cover… which reminded him of an old nursery rhyme he had learned as a very young fluffy chick:
The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will cock robin do then, poor thing? He'll sit in a barn, And keep himself warm, And hide his head under his wing, poor thing! The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will the swallow do then, poor thing? Oh, do you not know That he's off long ago To a country where he'll find the spring, poor thing! The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will the dormouse do then, poor thing? Roll'd up like a ball, In his nest snug and small, He'll sleep till warm weather comes in, poor thing! The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will the honey-bee do then, poor thing? In his hive he will stay Till the cold is away, And then he'll come out in the spring, poor thing! The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will the children do then, poor things? When lessons are done, They must skip, jump and run, Until they have made themselves warm, poor things!
[Algy is thinking of the old, traditional nursery rhyme The North Wind Doth Blow, first recorded at the beginning of the 19th century, or perhaps even earlier, and subsequently published in a number of different versions.]
