EARLY MORNING CALLS

I haven't had time to write (or read) blogs recently, having been gripped by yet another mid-life crisis. Happens all the time. My life must have several midpoints, so we're not talking Cartesian geometry.

It's always the same contrary pull, between security and an adventure.

Well, my romantic heart hasn't stopped beating yet - I've decided to leave my job and go overseas again. Despite everything, I still know that time and experience are more important than money. What's the Bob Dylan line about whoever's not busy being born is busy dying?

It sounds a bit Californian and embarrassing, but as long as you acknowledge what your heart says at 6a.m. and don't fight it too hard, you can make the best decisions. My friend reckons that I am a "solution-attracting organism". Good!

On Sunday morning, woke at 3.20am and went with K to a piece of woodland -Blean Wood, I think, by Rough Common in Canterbury - for international dawn chorus day. The woods were pristine, glorious, and bathed in mist. The sky was absolutely clear. And through it all the dots, loops and whistles - identified for once. Something quite magical. We laughed about having become middle-aged, which is obviously not the case, though everyone else was :-) . At the end we saw through the binoculars a nightingale, its little throat and body working with all its might to produce the calls; the sound was unique, like flutes.