This week I'll be mostly not hearing traffic

Kikazaru

We've never lived in a house that you could consider to be on a main road. Not until the one we just moved out of. But on Jersey, beggars can't be choosers, and when you are looking for a non-qually 4 bedroom house, you take what you can get. Yes, it might have been convenient for the schools, and a half hour walk to work. And yes, there might have been the illusion of trees and fields and open space opposite. But in reality, we lived in a house on a main road. Traffic jammed up outside from 7am till 9am, Monday to Friday. Pub goers staggered past shouting at each other from 11pm to 3am Friday to Saturday. Nice house. Nice location. Shame about the actual, erm, location.

That house, with its main road and its poorly fitted typical Jersey 'spoil the ship for a hapence of tar' rubbish double glazing, was somewhere you would hear traffic all the time. We got used to it. And then we moved.

This house we are now in is just a couple of minutes down the road. (2 minute drive, 3 minute run, 4 minute brisk walk - we've timed all the combinations.) But it's a couple of minutes in an altogether more rural direction. Where there used to be the illusion of trees and fields and open space opposite, here we are now, slap bang in amongst the trees and fields. As I sit here writing this I can hear ... wait a moment while I listen ... some wood pigeons, some geese, some other birds that uncle Roger would - I'm sure - instantly recognise, the turning of pages of Sarah's book, and a very quiet, very low hum, which might possibly be the St Malo ferry a couple of miles out.

I've already got used to being woken up by the geese at 5am, or the peacock at 5.30. It is possibly almost as therapeutic as the church bells every quarter of an hour at the Rectory in Hatherleigh. Almost.