Silent Spring

During the lockdown there has been many mentions of a Silent Spring - a phrase that has sinister connotations of a post-apocalyptic world of empty streets and newspaper blown around deserted playgrounds. We’ve all seen the films. 

But that is not how it feels - the opposite in reality. In the countryside birdsong has replaced traffic noise and blue sky the criss-cross of vapour trails. Helicopters, which have an aural footprint so much wider than their implied size, no longer clatter across the consciousness. In towns you hear conversations not motorbikes. You can walk along a country lane with a dog and hardly ever see a car. 

It’s not sinister. It’s beautiful. Remember it.