Upon Seeing Early Swallows.

This is one of my special days of the year, but not because it happens to be 12^th May. This special day has no regular date; rather it is the day on which I first see a flock of swallows hunting at speed over the fields, the lanes, and above the woodland canopy. Today was that day.

I saw them at the top of the lane on which I live, which is one of the two places where I usually get my first sighting. I’m told they always nest at the first farmhouse around the corner on the main road. Unfortunately their aerial habitat offered a grim aspect. There was rain falling and a cold north-westerly wind blowing, but the birds seemed undeterred.

And there was a certain poignancy involved because my first thought on seeing them was to wonder whether it would be the last time that I would be treated to the first sight of the early swallows. I am rather given to such thoughts these days – have been for a few years now – and this morning I’d been woken by a worrying pain that I’d never had before. (It’s gone now so maybe it was nothing to be concerned about.)

No doubt I would be accused of unnecessarily morbid musing if I were to say this to anybody face-to-face, but that’s unlikely because I hardly ever speak to anybody face-to-face. And it has to happen one day, doesn’t it, so why not wonder about it?