Paying Ready Attention

It had the worst of views; it had the best of views. - It had rained overnight. Each gust of wind brought down a clatter of drops on the roof and set palm fronds scratching at the window frames.   Cool air fell into the room from the open window, smelling of novelty and the sea.   A book, open to the second chapter, lay on the side of the bed where Sal would normally be.   The pages soft and informal, without the new-page crispness that a book of that age would normally retain.   Maybe, at some time in the darkness, a form of island life has soaked into the pages, making the book feel more at home than me.   There were no children eager for space or fidgeting for closeness.   There was no cat, stamping about, sharp-clawed and busy-tailed, awaiting the departure of humans before settling in for a long day of sloth and idleness.   I picked up my own watch from an unfamiliar bedside table, just in time to see the hands click over to 5....

As a kid, holidays meant a series of day trips that started and ended at our brown front door, the one with the loose brass handle and the glass that rattled in the wind.   Any overnight trips meant camping with the Scouts, returning home smelling of wood smoke and needing a bath. Not that long ago flying was still a novelty for me.   It signified something different, an adventure. It meant that I was no longer tied to the routines of childhood holidays.   That was until I started to fly for work.   Two, or sometimes three, trips a year, interstate mainly, but with the occasional long haul thrown in, soon robs flying of its novelty and thrill.   Work travel is more work that travel, and with a young family waiting at home, I was more likely to feel I was in a lonely place than in a Lonely Planet.   This may sound like whingeing, but an early flight to Sydney followed by meetings and a night in a noisy hotel is travel robbed of the slightest po...

It was almost a year to the day since I had last stood under a Norfolk sky.   As I stepped out of the farmhouse it was not yet mid-summer, though the day was forecast to be hot.   The night before I had been lulled into sleep by the sound of Swallows twittering in the long dusk.   This morning, despite the early hour, they were up before me.   They sat on power lines and fence posts, and darted in and out of the buildings that surrounded the farmhouse.   In a straw topped yard black and white cows – White Park Cattle   – rustled and pushed their slick wet noses through the fence. In the trees down across the lawn, Wood Pigeons looped through their repeating call, over and over, again and again.   Beyond the trees a faint vapour of mist rose from the river.   A Black Bird sang from the chimney pot, and off to the side a Tawny Owl watched from the top of a five bar gate before it flew from sight.   In the distance I could hear the caw o...