Quiet?

All around the garden and in the hedgerows the ivy is now in full flower, it's heady scent is everywhere filling the air with the smell of spice.

This afternoon while taking a turn around the garden I stood for a while beneath an old Hawthorn tree, almost leafless but with a few berries still clinging to it's lower twigs.Climbing thickly up the it's trunk and though it's branches an ivy, wound vigorously it's yellow flowers peppering the ground with tiny scented flowers as the breeze began to freshen.

Our village is a quiet one, and although a road runs through it the volume of traffic is small. and as I happily contemplated the wonderful difference between the amount of noise at our old home compared to that of the new; I became aware of a humming sound above my head:

In spite of the chilliness of the day the ivied canopy of the old Hawthorn was filled with insects, Wasps, Bees and Hover Flies all in search of the sweet nectar; a final orgy of feasting before the frosts of winter either kill, of enforce hibernation upon the tiny revellers:

I thought how wonderful it was to be able to hear the sound which had, for many years been lost to me in the incessant drone of London traffic and the screaming engines of planes landing and taking of at a nearby airport.

A small thing to be sure, but it is such small pleasures which make life in the countryside so sweet to me. The sound of a Blackbird rummaging in the leaf litter scratching about like a farmyard fowl. in it's quest for small grubs. The tell tale snoring of a Hedgehog sleeping away the winter months in the safety of the shelter which Pa and I built during the summer, and the croaking call of Pheasants in the bare wheat fields just below our cottage.

Such riches as these I had not thought to have again, and this makes them doubly precious. Standing in a whirl of falling leaves while watching the smoke from a dozen cottage chimneys caught by the freshening wind I saw a Wood Pigeon flying in a steep curve over the garden, suddenly it gave a snap of its wings and dropped into a rolling dive before dropping down to the ground to peck at some fallen apples.

There was something joyous in this playful rolling flight, as if the bird had carried out the manoeuvre for pure pleasure, and in that moment I knew exactly how it felt.