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