It's so quiet you can hear things!

February 2012

“It’s so quiet you can hear things!”

You see I can’t get away from things like “Clever Words” or quotes of the month and although when I said this and claimed it as my own; my greatest critic, cynic, love of my life and pourer of scorn said, and I quote “I expect someone said it before!” But, although extensive research has unearthed a number of songs, notably: “It’s, Oh, so quiet” by Betty Hutton and later covered by Björk, “So quiet in here” by Van Morrison and “Lately it’s so quiet” by OK Go, none of them include “my line!”  Then there are famous quotes such as: “It’s quiet now.  So quiet that can almost hear other people’s dreams” Gayle Foreman (author), “The world is quiet here” Lemony Snicket (pen name of novelist Daniel Handler), “It was so quiet you could hear a pun drop” Bugs Baer (American journalist and humorist ~ Arthur “Bugs” Baer) and the closest I’ve found to date; “The quieter you become the more you can hear” Baba Ram Das!  So I’m claiming it, now I need to know how I can be credited with it for posterity!

I uttered this evocative line as we sat down to have lunch outside on our terrace for the first time this year, in bright February sunshine, barely ten days since daytime temperatures were struggling to get above minus 3 or 4!  Ok, we were still in long trousers, shoes and socks, a two or three layers on the top and the neighbours thought we were strange, but then they thought we were strange eating outside everyday in the summer last year.  It appears alfresco dining isn’t always the norm in France, certainly for our neighbours it seems to be for high days, holidays, stinking hot days or when simply the dining table isn’t big enough for their extended family – they have five children, at least 20 grandchildren (petits enfants, however big they become!) and a number of great grandchildren.  Thankfully, they also have a number of large undercover areas, should on the day they have all been invited the weather proves unkind!  It has just been, today, officially announced that February was one of the coldest on record!!

We sat there quietly chomping on our French bread – it was the soft, par baked variety, rather than the crispy baguette, otherwise the world might never have got “the line!”, and it suddenly struck me that in our hammeau tranquil it was indeed intensely quiet, so much so that those sounds that were around could be clearly heard!  First there were the sheep on the neighbour’s lawn, let out of their field, partly to find pastures new, but also to avoid them having to get out the lawnmower and certainly the mellow baaing and plaintive calls of the lambs, now quite big as they were born before Christmas, was preferable to the harsh mechanic sound of the petrol lawnmower.  Then, the chickens in the next field could be heard clucking and cock-a-doodling, although thankfully they don’t seem to be early risers, heralding in the dawn each morning – were they, then coq-au-vin springs to mind!  The stream then bubbled into hearing, no longer the raging torrent of the winter storms and settled from the melt water of the recent snow, now a peaceful, murmur reminiscent of the first chapter of Kenneth Grahame’s famous book; Wind in the Willows ~ "The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea."

And, as the stories flowed from the river, more a babbling brook, but worthy of a name ~ Ruisseau de la Sauvagère, that’s almost as long as the stream itself!, circling above us and mewing loudly as they soared high on the rising thermals were a pair of buzzards obviously enjoying the weather as much as us!

A tractor then rumbled by on the road at the top of our hamlet, echoing through the valley and heralding the end of lunchtime, just as the low roar of a passing aeroplane invaded the peace and quiet as it made its way to who knows where, but still fascinating to think of all those people thousands of feet above us travelling at vast speed and all, like the river with stories to tell, be they exciting, mundane, mysterious, sad or simply fantastical!  Our tranquillity was then totally destroyed, by the sound of excited children and although at times I’m heard to utter that when out walking and passing a school at lunchtime when the children are out at play, does give me pangs of nostalgia, just at this moment, I couldn’t help but think that actually “It’s bloody noisy here really!!!”