Anybody Home?

Greyer and more hazy this morning with a hint of damp in the air.

Even so it was peaceful sitting outside with the cat on my lap clutching a mug of tea and watching the gulls swooping over the sea.

All the recent sitting outside, 'garden planning' and contemplating the whichness of the wherefore ( I think the poem is quite apt.) got me thinking about the sounds we hear around us and how they affect us. Looking back I can see that for me there has been a steady improvement in the environmental sounds with each new home. 

From childhood to my early twenties my home was under a flightpath to Heathrow with low flying incoming planes every 3-4 minutes. That was something we were used to and I don't recall spending much time outside in the tiny garden. Once married I moved to a flat, a brand new council flat, next to the approach road to the Blackwall tunnel. Lorries bound for the docks at Dover thundered down this motorway class road 24 hours a day though you might get a break in the early hours of Sunday morning. That didn't worry us as we weren't home much and because of the wide road we had open views to the west with amazing sunsets.

Then came the move to our first house, still in London but so much quieter with long back gardens and Wanstead Flats at the top of the road. Children and dogs were exercised daily on those vast grasslands where Peter ran regularily and I rode horses occasionally and it didn't take much effort to filter out the hum of the traffic on the roads around the Flats.

The move to our Devon farmhouse in a secluded valley half a mile from the road with only the stables next door was another level of peace entirely. A peace only broken by the sound of birdsong, the cawing of rooks, Peter's nemisis and the evening hooting of owls. And of course the increasing noise from three lively sons.

Background noise increased when we downsized and moved into town but this was only a temporary stop before moving here to an even more peaceful environment.

We still have road noise especially at drop-off and pick-up times for the school behind us and being in a village we have houses nearby but for most of the time it is so peaceful. The constant twittering of garden birds and the shushing of the waves  makes it hard not to doze off when taking a break. At night the garden bird sounds are replaced by the piping of sea birds and of course in winter the wind howls and the waves crash while we are warm and cosy indoors. Can't complain really.

Today Peter took me to the hospital for a brain scan. The parking there is dreaful so it is best to be dropped off and then collected. (When I asked about parking on FB some people even park in town and get a taxi up the hill to the hospital.) Things run efficiently at this hospital and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. I was never worried about the actual scan but of course waiting for the results is stressful. I was told 3 weeks maximum for the results to get to my GP but it could be a quick as a day.

In the afternoon I pottered around in the back garden, tying up clematis, weeding and watering as the rain never arrived and the wind was drying everything out.

The sun finally appeared in the early evening with the wind gradually increasing throughout the day so I ended up watching the view from indoors.