The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
SEAL ENCOUNTER STILL SEARED ON MIND’S EYE
A big fan of Summer With Selik – a TV show about an abandoned baby seal – Rab recalls the day he locked eyes and shared a moment with one of the beasties...
H a p p y New Year, folks! To celebrate, I’d like to take you b a c k t o 1995 and talk about a seal.
At that time, I was going through an unusual period in my life: I was settled and contented.
At work, we used to finish early on a Friday and, after a convivial lunch or couple of beers with colleagues, I’d go home to watch a television programme called Summer With Selik.
Yes, summer: I’d almost forgotten about that!
But who or what was Selik? Well, Selik was the aforementioned seal and, as an abandoned baby, he was picked up and looked after by a young Norwegian girl called Katrine.
I should say it’s not usually advisable to get involved with baby beasties, as the parents will usually come for them.
But this one was seriously ailing and only taken in when there was no alternative, after much observation and waiting.
It was taken, I should add, to a house on an island that had a stream and a hastily constructed pool.
It wasn’t a city flat beside a busy roundabout.
Summer With Selik was a charming television series, which didn’t shy away from the hard work involved nor the occasional irritability of Selik, but was infused with kindness and responsibility, not least from Katrine’s quiet, practical and supportive father.
Eventually, they released the seal back into the wild. Selik: “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”
Years later, I got the series – made in 1992 – on video and, later again, on DVD (with bonus film, on clearer print, called Selik & Katrine).
Watching it again recently made me recall my first encounter with seals in the wild. Not that I was in the sea, you understand.
I was on land, trauchling down the banks of a voe, when I saw a head sticking out of the water. And it had eyes. Two of them.
Soon, it was joined by half a dozen others (seals, not eyes), who swam elegantly alongside me as I blundered aboot hither and yon.
The seals found me fascinating.
Recently, I mentioned Youtube nature vlogger The Cottage Fairy extolling the virtues of looking into the eyes of wildlife.
Well, I wasn’t that close on this occasion. And I’m sure that, if I’d waddled seawards, the seals might have skedaddled. But one hears of them playing with divers and the like.
And we were making eye contact, if only at a distance. I often think of how, when I make eye contact with wild creatures, even the robin in the garden, my image is in their brains.
I am in their heads, which must be discombobulating. I find it disturbing enough that I am in my head.
Undoubtedly, birds recognise individual humans. Sometimes, when I’m driving away on an errand, the robin sits on the nearby fence to see me off.
He’s probably thinking: “I wonder when Rab’s going to get a new car?”
I don’t recall going back to that voe much, and couldn’t expect the seals to be in the same spot all the time: Busy lives to lead, fish to catch.
It was winter when I first watched Summer With Selik, and I enjoyed the late afternoon cosiness before my Friday fish supper.
Maybe there’s more of a seal to me than meets the eye.