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Easter Sunday. Lunch-time(ish! The leg of lamb can go in about 4pm and slow roast). Been awake since 6.55. You-tubed the Easter Sunday service streamed from our local village church. Jenny and I biked around Puxley and Wicken for our permitted hour (Skylarks galore!). Read the weekend papers. Just sitting on the patio finishing a 'killer' sudoko.
“Can you hear it, Jen?”
“Hear what?”
“Silence!”
There was no aeroplane noise. No cars going up or down the Drive. No traffic drone from the A422 barely half-a-mile away. Nobody talking. No kids playing. No electric drills. No electric saws. No lawn mowers. No Kärchers. Silence!
But it wasn't all silent. It was human silence. All I had noticed was the noise that I expected had gone. We listened again.
The constant ‘chilp, chilp, chilp’ from the dozen or so House Sparrows that inhabit the hedge and Rowan trees. The metallic, rattling tick of the Starling that sits rapidly flapping its wings on the apex of next door’s garage. Another Starling splashes vigorously in the bird bath; another joins it (can’t be much water left now); and three more squabble at the bird feeder. One of them drops down to the lawn to pick up the pieces. It twitches and cocks its head sideways to look up as a Red Kite circles overhead.
Two Jackdaws ‘chack, chack’ at each other.
One of the largest bees I’ve ever seen (mainly black with dark orange at the front – no white) hums around, ponders and inspects the Grape Hyacinths. A wasp, seemingly in a frantic hurry, zooms by.
Even the repetitive ‘hoo-hooo-hoo-hoo’ of a Woodpigeon on the roof and the reply from its neighbour four doors away are no longer annoying. Two Collared Doves fly in, squawking at each other.
Further away, at least three Blackbirds are competing for the best and loudest song.
A Goldfinch lands in the top of a Rowan and gives out its skippy little song.
All this in our 10m x 8m back garden.
Reality returns as an ambulance speeds through the village, siren wailing. A new, perhaps, harsh reality for someone or even a family. Who is it? What’s happened?
It brought me back to my own reality. But this had been reality! And I harkened back to a Julie Burchill article I had read in the paper less than an hour ago. She writes about the ‘hopers vs the mopers’ and that us hopers ‘can’t wait to rush out and throw our arms around our wonderful world…’