A truly trilling encounter

However, light is not indispensible. This new trade route was once an old trade route in the days when I worked in Akaroa. In June of one year, the hospital nurses decided to go out for a mid-winter feast. Would I mind looking after the hospital? Though unspoken, we all knew the unfathomable depth of my debt to them for all the times they had covered or assisted me during those 1:1 on-call years, so they reckoned they were on to a winner.

They won, though in truth, I was very happy to help and agreed to cover until midnight. On relief, I set out back to Christchurch passing the layby at darkest 1am. It was inky black.

For some reason I got out, perhaps I was nodding off and needed a breather. Car lights off, it was still inky black. No other car on the road. No starlight. Inky black. And out of the blackness a cacophony of bird calls. Ducks, geese, swans, herons and God knows what other waders and warblers, teals and terns, coots and collywobbles (now I’m really showing my ornithological ignorance!).

A cacophony. A symphony. A delightful din of territorial challenges and mating calls. (Or perhaps they were saying to each other, “I can’t see nuffin’. Can you?” “No, I can’t see nuffin’, neiver.”)

My ears were flooded while all other senses recorded complete blanks. Until slowly, 10 to 15 minutes on, the sense of cold began to tug at my sleeve and brrr-call overtook bird-call.

Which takes me to another event far away. Manchester. Old Trafford. A day, late in December 2004. Before the game started we were all asked to stand for two minutes’ silence. Sixty thousand people in that stadium paying respect to the recent disaster of the Boxing Day Tsunami. That was 60,000 rowdy fans and complete silence! Stunning! Just standing and breathing.

Until, 10 seconds into it, nearby a cellphone rang. I was appalled; but at least the owner had the decency to ignore it. And over there another ring, a different tone and another and another and all over the stadium unanswered phones, each with their own tune, were calling like birds in the jungle, like ducks and geese on Lake Ellesmere and it was a totally joyous, magical two minutes of un-silence.

I was enraptured. It still holds me. And I can’t even remember the score. Can’t remember whether Man U even won!