The hollow cooing of pigeons on a chimney pot. In the middle of the school week, the animated conjoined noise of children's voices in a playground half a mile away drifts up the hill. On a still night down in the valley, the clackety drumming of occasional trains heading north or south - muted by a mile of distance.
The humming of bathroom fans before their timers mute them. Similarly, the churning and spinning of our washing machine and the gurgling of the dishwasher before it bleeps three times like a heart monitor by a hospital bed.
Occasionally when Atlantic winds surge over this island, you hear slates straining on our roof and the creaking of rafters, whistling windows and a kinetic roaring that falls and rises in gusts. Best heard at night.
These are our familiar sounds but sometimes I miss the sound of the sea. Waves grumbling on a barrier reef or bursting on sands . Chattering over pebbles, sucking at rocky promontories. And when swimming I hear the water's mellifluous lapping as I push it away - rhythmically moving over the deep.
And perchance in my dreams I hear familiar human voices from the past in the echo chamber of my skull. Never to be heard with my ears again. And I hear curlews and sheep and tropical birds and the acclamation of football supporters in a stadium - rumbling.
Music to lift you, reflect your experience, entertain you so that sometimes you lost yourself in it.
And in silence I hear my own pulse, insistent, beating. The internal sound of blood and indeed life itself. How many beats in a day? How many beats in a lifetime? Duh-duh, duh-duh. duh-duh, duh-duh but not forever. Only for a while.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/1VjMshp