This evening the sounds from the open window were clear and somehow more present than they often seem. The traffic from the road not a hundred yards away sounded almost like the tide on a shingle beach, only not so regular. The birds were quiet, though; the magpie family in the biggest of the hazels at the back of the garden were having a quiet (for magpies) conversation, and there was a blackbird trying a few desultory phrases, but his heart wasn’t really in it. A summer breeze rustled the leaves from time to time.

Sitting by the window, especially in summer, is full of these beloved instants. Even the familiar chair, and the floor beneath my feet, are gifts of love, somehow. Living beside a relatively busy main road through the town, and in distant earshot of the Bristol trains, there are always background sounds, some indefinite as the breeze, and some as clear and unmistakable as the buses that grumble away from the two nearby stops, one on either side of the road – on hot days with their air conditioning units whining with that particular, slightly panicky sound they have.

Somehow these sounds have grown to be as familiar as breathing. They are not noise; there is nothing they are disturbing – least of all me – and yet they are not really background either. I suppose it’s just their place in the dear fabric of what is that holds them there for me. I have learned not to tell stories about them to myself, that’s part of it. What they are is their own whatness; in a sense it is none of my business, and yet I am as much a part of the day as they are. We share this pool of Dorset air, its frequncies and its warmth, the movement of the breeze. We are together while I sit, morning and evening, the sounds and I. What more could I want?