Country Ways

What’s so great about living in the country, people ask me? The nineteenth-century poet, William Cowper said it all in his famous line: “God made the country, and man made the town”.

Here are some of the things that make country life special for me:

• Sheep bleating at night (in the city it’s police sirens)
• Frogs mumbling to each other in the creek
• Flocks of black cockatoos before a rain shower (you can’t get angry at them, even when they’ve littered your lawn with pine-cones and branches)
• A lone bustard (Australian stork) patiently watching for prey among the reeds
• A wallaby doing an elegant jump over a barbed-wire fence
• Newborn lambs and calves at the end of winter
• Tiny frogs as small as leaves
• A baby wombat on the door step late at night
• Church bells on a Sunday morning
• A front-page story in the local newspaper about a lost teddy bear, complete with photo.
• A mayoral election where the councillors’ votes have resulted in a tie, so they draw a name out of a hat
• And people who smile and say hello when they pass you in the street, whether they know you or not

Deborah O’Brien