Trying to get to work...

Today provided a great illustration of the pleasures and  pitfalls of being the MSP for Argyll & Bute.

The pleasure was the  journey.    Although I had to be up around 6.00 in order to drive to Oban Airport to catch the 8.40 flight to the island of Coll the  road was clear  though the cloud was well down on the hills particularly in mid Argyll. 

At the airport  at departure time the five passengers were told that there was low cloud at Coll and that therefore  we would be delayed and also that the plane would go to Tiree first instead of the other way round which was in the timetable.  However when we  left twenty minutes later  Coll was meant to be clear so the original  landing order was re-instated.   

The journey was fabulous with tremendous views along the Sound of Mull and then  we crossed over the island by Salen, up to Eorsa and Ulva - which is what you can see in the blip.   As I was sitting behind Julie, the pilot, I had a tremendous vantage point.

However  a pitfall was about to make itself apparent.    As we got close to Coll it was obvious that the cloud was back.  The island was visible but only as a dark line , with cloud topping it right along its length.

Julie first flew south along the coast , looking for breaks .    At one stage we were only 100 feet up from the  rocks , which was a little alarming although I feel safer with her as a pilot than I do with anyone else.

Then she flew back north, climbing up to see if there were any visible breaks from above the bank of cloud .  As we did this we passed over the main village of Arringour and I could see, for a moment through the wisps of white, the hall where I was meant to be holding my surgery.

Once we were above the cloud it was obvious that it stretched all the way to the horizon.   Julie had already indicated that the she though Coll was going to be impossible to land at but now this suggested  that Tiree would be closed in too, and indeed it was.    

She flew about for a few minutes longer , crossed the island  once more  and  did a spiralling descent in the clear air, which was just off shore, to check out again if there was any possibility of getting in.   But there was none and so we flew back to Oban, arriving almost exactly an hour after we had left.

I then drove to my office in Dunoon , where Marie Claire told me that the Chair of the Coll Community Council had been on the phone to say that the sun was now shining and it was a pity I didn't wait for the afternoon plane and come that way !     However by the time of the afternoon plane it was raining and misty again , apparently .

In most places it is only the absolute extremes of weather than stop things happening.  But in Argyll - as in most maritime areas - sometimes the conditions just don't allow you to do what you had intended to do that day, and there's an end of it.     Today was one of those days. 

Now I shall have to re-organise my Coll surgery for later in the summer and hope that the weather is a bit kinder.