A Solemn Stillness

We are waiting for the storm. All afternoon it has been getting darker and the air feels heavy, black clouds over the hills - 'a bit black over Bill's mother's' as the family used to say. Perhaps it will not break the way storms sometimes don't, but we have had tantalising periods of big fat lazy raindrops; then nothing. When it rains here we can hear it on the roof. There is no wind, the darkness under the trees is heavy and thick, brooding, pensive, real Green Man weather. The paddock behind the house is full of buttercups and daisies as a week ago it was full of dandelions; but the overriding colour is green, heavy motionless and dark.

We went to a short recital by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in Bedstone. Modern music, unexpected, thought-provoking; responding to nature and landscape in raw, unusual ways. The sheer beauty of a viola played live, a demonstration of harmonics; an old haunting sound. And the flute, an instrument I used to play for a short time, played properly and beautifully; and the presence of a harp, so close to the Welsh border, cascades of notes, higher and higher, a gentle fading. Unknown music on a stormy Friday after a working week, fantastic!