World Listening Day

Today is World Listening Day.  The talk on the radio is of 'acoustic ecology and of going on a 'sound walk.'  We should care more about the way the world sounds.  Those high powered hand driers in most public loos make a lot of people jittery apparently.  Some people like the satisfying clunk of a car door, there's even a man who loves the sound of cars driving over cattle grids so much that he's made a CD called 'Cattle Grids of Dartmoor.'

On may way to the dentist I notice how I tune out the traffic sounds and only respond and look to the sky when I hear a shock of screaming swifts, a dozen swirling over my head.  They'll leave soon.  I'll miss that stop-me-in-my-tracks-sound. 

In the dentist waiting room there's the ubiquitous and unwelcome radio, 'Sisters are Doing it for Themselves.'  I suppose it masks the sinister buzz of a machine coming from surgery number 1.

I visited Cemlyn Bay Sandwich Tern colony on Anglesey last week with Dad.  Now there's a sound to revel in.  A real wilderness noise. I lay on pebbles made round by battering seas, closed my eyes and let the harsh 'kirrik' cries of a couple of thousand nesting birds pierce my ear drums. 

A Short Break - Sixty Minutes from Home

Last week we holidayed all of 60 minutes away from home -  on the edge of the Menai Straits. 

Day one - from Is Helen camp site, a stone’s throw from Caernarfon Castle, we cycled past fields of glossy buttercups and verges fizzing with wild carrot to the windswept beach at Dinas Dinlle, ate mango ice cream, climbed a hill fort, drank tea in Caernarfon airport, watched tiny planes take people for an eagle's eye view of Snowdon.  Back at the campsite we watched swallows swoop for insects, and the sun set over the blue isle of Anglesey. 

Day two -  my reward for cycling to Rhyd Ddu via the Nantlle pass was a cream scone in our favourite tea room and sublime views of Snowdon all the way, complete with ant people and a miniature puffing train.

Day three – over the Menai Bridge to Llanddwyn Island. 

 ‘Nothing wins hearts like cheerfulness,’ according to Saint Dwynwen, the Welsh patron saint of lovers. She lived as a hermit on the island (I wish).  Shelly coves, wild violas, pale blue squill, sea pinks, creaking terns, it’s a special place.

‘Neither sickness nor sorrow will follow a man from Llanddwyn.’ Dafydd ap Gwyllm, 1320 -70

Sixty minutes later, we’re back home, watering courgettes, dead-heading purple pansies, smiling at the memory of crunchy sand, frothy hedgerows, squealing swifts.