It's not completely quiet of course.
There's snuffling for instance,
on a side note:
have you ever heard a snail make it's way
across your bedroom window pane?
Believe me you will lie in bed paralysed with fear
cause it sounds like a horror movie
metal hand scratching at your window trying to get in
to eviscerate you.
And it's loud.
Aside from things like stock trucks
and the early morning trundling by
of tractors with heavily laden trailers
and the odd sheep baaaing or flipping rooster crowing,
it is silent.
No doof doof of vapid boi racers
(2 am, Hamilton)
or street cleaning trucks
(5am, Wellington)
or constant traffic on motorways that
you would think are far away enough to not hear
(all the time, Auckland)
or lumpy bouncing of cars as
they negotiate earthquake damaged roads
(Christchurch - or rolling noisy earthquakes for that matter).
I went to Becks in Central Otago.
Becks is a ahhh.... village?
Does two pubs and a community hall count as a village?
I went to the 75th Jubilee
of the Upper Manuherkia Young Farmers Club.
The night of celebration was hot.
Very, very hot.
Hot enough to make you swear, or rather,
make me swear
but not badly.
As I left the hall at about midnight,
I stepped away from the hall
still filled with people talking and talking about rugby, sheep and
their neighbours,
none of which are areas of my expertise,
into solid, blank, blackness and deafening silence.
It was like being under a very thick blanket
but darker and quieter.
So not very much like being under a blanket really.
I walked/stumbled towards my black car
(a bad choice of colour for a vehicle in Central).
Stumbling because carparks in the country
are gravel covered, pot holed, death traps
(bit like the roads in the Eastern Suburbs).
I kept pressing my keyring,
unlocking my car over and over
so I could see the indicator lights of my little, unassuming car,
it in what seemed to be the distance.
. I headed in it's direction with trepidation.
Not because I was afraid of anything worse than falling over
but because I was afraid of falling over.
Heels and gravel carparks do not mix.
Heels and rugby fields don't do well together.
Sara and heels don't either.
Then I realised it was so dark that no one would see if I fell over
and let's face it,
if one falls over and nobody sees,
does one actually fall over?
Besides it was so hot that the heat
would have cushioned my fall it was so enveloping.
As scary as heels, gravel carpark and intense darkness was,
once I was back at Nessie's place to sleep
the uber darkness and utter silence was bliss.
That and the thick cooling walls of Nessie's elderly cottage.
Nothing like needing an extra duvet when it's 40 degrees outside.
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