Country noises

I remember the first night I ever spent in this house.  It was soon after the Sage and I were engaged and his parents invited us over for the weekend.  I was put in the spare bedroom, which in those days housed two single beds, a wardrobe and dressing table - probably a chair or two, there must have been a stool at the dressing table at least.  Now, it has a single bed, a large desk, a chest of drawers with a mirror on it, a table and four bookcases, two of them ceiling height.  It is the room above the porch and the windows face east and south.

I never did sleep very well in an unfamiliar place, and I hardly slept at all that night.  It was the noise.  Cows mooed, owls hooted and, at dawn, birds squawked.  Incredibly loud for a town girl.

Mind you, although I did live in a town, and always had, the road was a cul de sac and we had a large garden - and I slept on the second floor (that would be the third floor to Americans) so I daresay it was very quiet.   In later years, when Weeza came to stay here from London, she always remarked on how quiet it is in this house at night, so it's all comparative.

I took Ro and Dora out to lunch today and she asked me about how the Sage and I met, so I've been thinking back a bit.  Not that we met in a romantic way at all, he was a family friend for three years before we started to notice each other in a new light.  Just as well, I reckon, I'm not sure that I'd really have become engaged to someone three weeks after the first date if I'd only just met him.  I may be impulsive, but only when it really feels right.

Sad to say, none of the eggs we were given have hatched and we don't think that they will.  The Sage is asking around, trying to find someone with bantams who could spare some fertile eggs, chicks or even just a young cockerel, but no luck at present.  Too many foxes around, most people who used to keep fairly free-ranging bantams have lost them to the sandy-whiskered gentleman.  We will strike lucky sooner or later, however.  The Sage is good at that sort of thing.