While most of England spent the week following Bank Holiday awash or chilly, I was in T-shirt and shorts, enjoying hot days and cloudless blue skies on Mull and Islay in the Hebrides.

With sea eagles aplenty, golden eagles pouring from every crag and more buzzards than you can shake a stick at, Mull was a birdwatcher's paradise. Not that I'm a twitcher - I prefer to view the antics of the camera and binocular fraternity as they stand, sit or crouch in decidedly uncomfortable places to catch glimpses of their feathered prey.

There was a noticeable flutter of excitement when one tall, bearded man, armed with a camera attachment that would not have seemed out of place at the Greenwich Observatory, spotted a pair of golden eagles mating on a promontory. All eyes, binoculars and cameras in his group turned skywards.

If the action above gave as much satisfaction to the eagles as it did the watchers below, then feathered and non-feathered had a memorable time.

Showing ignorance when it comes to matters ornithological, I asked one enthusiast from Barnsley how to tell the difference between a sea eagle and a golden eagle.

"The sea eagle is like a flying sideboard," he said.

Hardly a scientific description, but when one flew over, threatening to blot out the sun, I got the idea.

In Tobermory, now part of pre-school life as TV's Balamory, children gave parents a tour of the brightly coloured houses occupied by the programme's characters.

I asked one elderly Tobermory-born man what this 21st century fame had meant to the island's capital.

"A lot of people got their houses painted for nothing," he replied with a satisfied grin.

There was a multi-national invasion of Islay for the annual Malt and Music Festival when distilleries and local culture combine. Germans, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Japanese, Scandinavians - you name the country - filled hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses and campsites. We Brits seemed outnumbered, while meeting a young English couple, Marianne and Robert, from Woodstock, was a rarity to rank alongside that of spotting flying penguins on Mull.

But this was no boozing binge. These were experts on all things single malt. Had they drunk as many bottles as they drooled over, Strathclyde Police would have had to draft in every bobby in Britain.

They bought the stuff, but to take home, some as investments, some as exhibits for their drinks cabinets. A bottle costing £500 was not unusual.

In the bar of the Port Askaig Hotel, I eavesdropped on an impromptu international debate on the merits of the eight Islay distilleries. It was cerebral stuff.

"Which do you prefer?" I quietly asked one local man perched on the stool he invariably occupied each evening.

"Oh, they're all fine - and expensive," he said. With that, he asked the barman to pour me a dram of his usual'. It was a blend of several malts, all from Islay, and cost £1 a tot - as opposed to £3-plus.

Another canny Scot.

Ailsa and her husband wanted to rear their small daughters in peace and safety. A couple of years ago, they crossed from the mainland and set up home in picturesque Bowmore.

She took her science degree and experience of working as a chemist in London with her and pondered how to put them to use.

The answer was soap - but no ordinary soap. The spirit used in giving the product its clarity was malt whisky and now each distillery sells its own soap, made by Ailsa, scented with its own brand, in its visitors' shop.

Yet another canny Scot.

You can keep a superannuated reporter away from newspapers for only so long. With the nationals not arriving until near lunchtime, I turned to the islands' community newspapers.

While violence seemed non-existent, there was betrayal in the council chamber, planning department treachery, rife nimbyism', dog mess fouling streets and parks - all too familiar.

Now where is that bearded twitcher . . .