I can’t remember when I last sat down in my garden and listened to silence. Tonight I did just that and as well as being very dark, all was very quiet and peaceful. No wind, not even a light breeze to disturb the turning leaves. Warm enough to sit out in T-shirt, I sat and breathed in the oily-scent of  the lavender bushes freshly trimmed. I watched my two cats chase each other through the shrubs stopping every now and then to listen for a frog to catch and tease.

The fountain in the pond cascades through the night and I sat and watched the longer blades of grass edging the lawn gradually bend with the weight of descending moisture. The grape vine is bursting with bunches of ripening fruit and the branches of the apple tree are bending under the weight of a bumper crop of apples. Figs are fleshing out and darkening and the late tomatoes are slowly turning from a hard-green to a softer ripe-red thus avoiding their inevitable transformation into the dreaded green tomato chutney.

Friday night and everyone is home behind closed curtains. Taking stock after the hectic week behind them but preparing for the weekend ahead. Tomorrow will start early as the dawn doggy walkers take Missy, Copper, Amy and Kevin for their daily constitutional. Lawn mowers, pressure-washers and jumpers-for-goalposts will appear as the rest of us get going and start our weekend jobs and activities which will last until late afternoon when preparations will begin for dinner at home, an engagement party next door and the odd late-summer BBQ.

A veritable haven on my doorstep.