I'm watching the house martins on the electricity wires by our house. They visit every year, at first just one or two, and by the end of the summer there is a whole flock of them – over thirty as best as I could count this morning. They line up, chattering loudly, then suddenly they all fly into the air, swooping around and then rearrange themselves on the wires, as if to change conversational partners. They have so much to say, and they are very noisy! I love this time of year when I can hear them all from early in the morning, and it always makes me a little sad when, one day, they have all gone without warning, flying off to sunny climes for the winter. It’s usually about the same time that small daughter goes back to school, when everything feels just that little bit different and there’s a smell in the air that heralds the turn of the season.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this time of year feels like the start of a new year for me, and I’ve written about this before. Despite our reliance on calendars, schedules and routines, I think there is something inside all of us that is still governed by long-distant rhythms connected with the seasons – not necessarily religious in any way – but just part of who we are and how we connect to the earth. The climate might be changing but Nature still dances to the beat of her own drum and as inhabitants of the earth, I think it is impossible for us to ignore this, however much we might try.
