Real life

 

“What are these little brown birds?” She asked.

“Sand martins, like house martins but smaller and browner, all the way from Africa,” I told her.

“Well, I did not know that! You learn something every day.”

The sand martins were circling overhead in little darting flocks. If you stood still near the crumbling clay cliffs the birds disappeared like a magic trick, but when you stood back, there they were crowding the cliff face. This year their tunnel nests have gone.

I sat at the foot of the cliff to rest but the whole slope moved as if there was an avalanche at my back. The cliff is eroding fast and over the winter it has taken the carefully excavated tunnels of the martins from last year. They did not seem to mind though and did their job all over again with excited shrieks helping each other like miners at a coal face.

You see sand martins, if you are lucky, before any of the other swallow family, they are our earliest summer visitor.

There are few birds in our new garden. It is mostly a sea of green. Birds are not keen, but my tree peony, which has four flower buds now, has attracted the robin who likes it as a perch. Then we planted an ornamental elderflower and the blue tit has ventured to our bird table, landing on the elder first for safety. We have put out all sorts of tempting treats, but they do not like flying over the neat green space which is our garden.

There are no insects, of course, except today I shouted excitedly -

“There’s a bumble bee!”

But I think it was lost because it soon disappeared and landed on a dandelion in field opposite. We sit at the edge of our garden and look in envy at the sparkling dandelions jewelling the long grass. Who would have thought that I would love to see weeds?  We have some seats at the fence now for tea and biscuits – not looking into our grass garden but turning our backs, we look longingly from our ‘hobnob’ seats into the wild meadow.

I dialled our Council today with a query. But there was no one to talk to me. Instead, I had to say ‘in a couple of words’ what I wanted.

‘Sorry we didn’t understand, please tell us again.’ I did, and it still did not understand.

‘Sorry the automated service could not be of service today.’

I then had two choices either go to the web site or wait in their very busy phone queue for 45 minutes.

I chose to go back to the hobnob seats to watch the dandelions.

The 'hobnob' seats at the end of our garden, overlooking the fields where all the wildlife lives.