Sounds of the World

The last few days have been absolutely fantastic weatherwise. Not a cloud in the sky, very sunny, a little bit of wind but ot too much. For mid May and almost winter, it's really nice. My house is very sheltered from the southerly winds so as far as I was concerned, with the sun pouring into my living room, today was a hot day.

I needed to go to the Supermarket, and also wanted to go for a walk, so I pulled out my red 'Granny' trolley as my daughter calls it, and left my car at home and walked up to the supermarket. Aren't I a greenie??

It was no peaceful walk though. The first thing I heard was the digger - some contractors are digging drains over the road. What a racket. Then the trucks came and took it away. They were noisy too - from their motors and their beeping warning when they were reversing. Buses whizzed past me, and a kid on the bike also. He had a squeaky wheel. Squeak squeak - it was most annoying. I felt like pushing him off his bike and telling him to oil it!! It was a very high pitched squeak though, really not pleasant.

Half way up the road I came across a mynah bird telling me off for invading its territory. On and on she went, like a nagging housewife with curlers in her hair, and a cigarette out of the corner of her mouth. I'm sure it was swearing nasty blue words at me.

Up past the school. It was breaktime there or 'playtime' so lots of noisy yelling kids, laughter, chatter, balls bouncing on concrete, running footsteps - all the sounds associated with children, but lots of them at once.

And then the supermarket. Why did I get a trolley with a squeaky wheel? I think the squeaky wheels are coming after me, like alien monsters or something. Or do all supermarket trolleys squeak and I just didn't know it?

Topping up my trolley, I heard the satisfying clunk of bottles, of cans, the rustling of plastic packages, people talking, toddlers crying, mother shushing them. I purposely went over to the bulk bins and poured out jaffas just to listen to that sound. Put them back though as didn't want to spoil my walk with sweets!

At the checkout counter, I heard the operator say hello. I told her not to worry about packing anything as I had my own 'basket' and didn't need any plastic bags. She said 'What?'. I told her again. She said 'okay' and kept packing them in plastic bags. I said - you didn't understand me did you? She laughed and carried on. She didn't understand me - not deaf, but absolutely no comprehension of the English language as she was chinese.

This is a real bugbear of mine - but we won't go into that today!!!

Packing my red granny basket, I listened to the rustling of plastic as I took them out of the bags to pack into my own trolley. I heard the cat biscuits roll in their packaging, and squeezed them on purpose to make more noise. I shook the milk slightly and heard it slop around in the container.

On my way out, I heard the sliding doors squeak open - Does everything squeak around here? And then I was chased up the road by another squeaking bike. Ohh thats right - oil is too expensive!! I listened to the dead winter leaves scrape along the pavement in the cold southerly wind. The sun still shined, and the grass sparkled and the leaves on the trees glittered.

Back past the school but this time all was quiet. Just a little rustling in the trees from the wind. Back past the contractors, but now they were taking a break and it was peaceful and quiet too.

Up my driveway, and there were my two burmese cats racing out to greet me with loud meow's. What a fantastic sound.

Only two months ago I couldn't hear any of this. Life is pretty damned good!