very far from berlin...

I am leaning outside the windows of my bedroom at my parent’s house. A ladybird explores my window ledge.

It is quiet except for the distant rush of cars passing on the nearby motorway, and some sporadic birdsong. The birds are deep in conversation. Perhaps he is right, it may be spring after all.

My eyes drift along the plume of smoke I exhale, seeing only one bird perched high in the tree across.

It is orange breasted and moves its head with a quick and sudden sharpness. It seems the most delicate thing. When it chirps the tone rises up like a question. It is anxious. Uncertain, neurotic.

You’re always anthropomorphising everything

He says.

Perhaps he’s right, I am projecting my feelings onto it . It could be perfectly happy there, serene, content. I wish I knew what sort of bird it was.

He thinks I’m allergic to nature. This is not true. I grew up with it. Came of age on long walks, picking berries, sipping nectar out of honeysuckle flowers, collecting baskets full of pine cones to burn.

I liked the lavender in our garden best, not because of its smell, but because the butterflies and hummingbirds would always hover there.

When I first moved back to London, what I missed most about the place I’d left behind was the seasons.

Distinctive seasons, magical for a child.

Snow in the winter that fell heavy from the sky and stuck fast to the ground until it came up to your knees.

Breezy springs where crocuses and daffodils would bravely break through the frost .

the summers were almost too hot but then it meant you could run with your friends through the sprinklers and have fights with water balloons or water guns.

And autumn,maybe most stunning of all , leaves in every shade of the rainbow, I liked to pile them up and dive into them, their softness breaking my fall

I finish my cigarette, its cold now, I should close the window. I don’t know what the bird sings about. I cannot speak its language. But why should I? It’s song is not for me after all.