PEAR TREE LOG

pear tree log: I started this blog to keep my younger son, Jonny, in touch with life in Lincolnshire, while he spent a year working in China. That year turned into five! Now he is home and training to become a physics teacher. This is simply a patchwork quilt of some of the things I enjoy - life in rural Lincolnshire, our animals, friends, architecture, books, the gardens, and things of passing interest.



Thursday 29 March 2012

Peace and Quiet

I sat on a bench in the garden, drinking a cup of tea and listening to the silence all around me, this is what I heard:

The drone of a distant aeroplane in the hot, blue sky
Two cockerels, one testosterone fuelled, the other lazily responding
One trundling old tractor
Two talking dog walkers
Several singing birds (wish I could identify them)
A buzzing bumble bee
Whistling (George, working on the polytunnel)
A caterwauling peacock  from the watermill
One speeding car (wish I had a stinger, it's a 30mph zone)
A chirruped cat greeting from Sparky
The occasional boom of a bird scarer in distant crop fields
The frantic flap of pigeon wings
The bleat of lambs
and
Their answering Mums

One shot from a high-powered rifle
The panicked panting of a frightened dog
Anxiety 
'Silence' shattered
Time to go indoors
and
Calm Toby


....
                                                                                  

17 comments:

  1. this is my kind of post... it paints a picture quite beautifully!

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    1. Hi John, You mean me sitting drinking tea while peg-leg George hobbles around the polytunnel?!! Is the Welsh countryside equally noisy?

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  2. Beautifully written--you have the soul of a poet. The jerk who fired the gun has the soul of a rattlesnake.

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    1. Hi Ms Sparrow, I just find it fascinating - I'm sure there are lots of sounds I missed - but silence doesn't happen very often in the country! The gun gets fired every so often - a while ago someone in the village had a bullet lodge in their porch door... There are idiots everywhere.

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  3. I'm with Toby on gunfire...but does he also ahout "F...ing murderer" as I do?
    Jane x

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    1. Hi Jane, My goodness me no! Toby is far too polite. He leaves that to me. I hate it.

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  4. beautiful... its those blasted crow scarers that get me every time!... Holly's going a but deaf now so it's not so much of a bother x

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    1. Hi Dom, Sometimes the bird scarers do seem to go off incessantly. Toby has got used to those it's just when that numpty starts shooting ...

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  5. Nice written but so many sounds.

    Hugs
    Elna

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    1. Hi Elna, Life in the English countryside is supposed to be peaceful - my ten minutes in the sun showed that it is not!!

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  6. Really atmospheric with all those sounds...hugs to Toby.

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    1. Hi Green Dragonette, It was such a lovely afternoon too. Poor old Toby, he used to be scared of his own shadow but over the years we have calmed him down - high-powered shots like that really set him off. He's much calmer now.

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  7. Hello Elaine...I read it once, and then I read it again. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it as your beautiful prose described the scene. Good job.

    I occasionally hear the crack sound of a rifle or boom of a shotgun. It always stops me in whatever I'm doing.

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    1. Hi Meggie, It was a really relaxing, but so noisy! I just wanted to analyse what the 'silence' was composed of - with surprising results. I'm glad you liked it, because I really enjoyed doing it; eyes closed, mental notebook in hand, making a list of the sounds. Toby was lying next to me and then the 'silence' was gone. Poor old Toby.

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  8. I suppose we don't really notice the sounds going on around us until we take a breather and try to take in the silence. Poor Toby. I hate these maniacs too.

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    1. Hi Molly, The most joyful sound came from the birds - so many different songs highlighting my woeful ignorance on which birds were singing them! It still amazes me that something as beautiful as a peacock makes such an ugly sound. Toby is fine now, until next time.

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  9. Poor old Toby; you can calm him but not cure him. Our Cairns Angus and Fiona would have hunted our local gun shooter down and rended him limb from limb given the opportunity. Of course, they would have done the same to thunder. Our current little Cairn is just oblivious. Lovely little piece about the sounds of the day.

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