Our lovely English house has been a wonderful place for us. We have tons of wildlife around although the bigger birds have slowly chased away some of the smaller songbirds. We have foxes and badgers, deer and feral cats. No dogs about and no hedgehogs – to my sorrow. We have a wonderful view out the back garden of the first hole of a golf course with rolling hills and majestic trees. But we also live fairly close to a whole plethora of different military ranges, grenade ranges, Sandhurst Military College, gunnery ranges and so forth. So some days there is the distant rumble of artillery shells or gunfire. Took a bit of getting used to at first and every time someone opened up on their course, we’d all come up in our seats – alert – to identify the sounds and how far away. This is not because we’ve ever lived in an area where we were in danger from any such thing but just more of a really unusual experience for us and it took a bit of adjustment.
Part of the normal scenario of being close to military areas are also some helicopters that fly fairly regularly over the golf course and our small bit of woods and the neighbourhood houses. When I’m outside, I always stop to watch them pass. They are huge ‘copters, usually with front and rear rotors. They look like workhorses of the military and while I have no clue on what they are doing, where they came from or where they are going, I do like to watch them because they are so impressive. And you can hear them coming a from a good distance which gives me time to finish my chore and look up to watch them pass.
Lately, they have been passing by more often and seems like the helicopters have either gotten much bigger or they are flying a lot closer to the tree tops. The other day, I was inside when I heard one coming and really had to go outside to see if it was landing – it was so loud! Then last night, after we had gone to bed, we heard one coming. Didn’t feel like jumping up to run outside and see if we could spot it in the dark but as we were sitting there, reading in bed, the helicopter flew overhead and vibrated the entire bed! That seems like it’s flying awfully close to vibrate you and shake you. Next time one comes by at night, I’m going to have to go outside and see if it is flying with lots of lights or if indeed, it is just buzzing by the house in the dark. Rather exciting – sort of, maybe, well, hmm, not sure!
The English Years 