Sounds that take you back
I'm not starting a new meme or anything (though feel free to pick it up if you like the idea) but I did want to write some more about the sound of those wood pigeons, because it takes me right back to a certain point in my childhood.
The place was Zeist in Holland: the house of some of my parents' friends in which we used to holiday while they were away. It backed onto woodland and the wood pigeons' whoo-whoo was the predominant noise. I remember it as being very calming, but so was the house itself - I'd never been anywhere like it.
Nowadays it might seem quite ordinary, but coming from England in the 1970s as I was, it was an oasis of wholesome common sense. The floors were tiled and topped with jute. Things were stored intelligently. There were pictures on the walls the children had done 30 years before - a real family house.
The people cycled everywhere, and recycled everything. I loved the cycle paths through the forests, loved to cycle to the shops. Loved having to think about what to do with each item of rubbish even. They had a real fire and board games I'd never seen before and countless excellent jigsaws.
The chairs didn't match, but were substantial and comfortable. The bathroom smelled of washing soda - it was where their immensely fascinating top-loading machine lived. I can still remember the smell. The bedrooms all had balconies and there was an attic - a proper one, with a staircase. Mmmmm and there was Chocomel...
But the main thing I loved about the Zeist house (apart from the call of the wood pigeons) was the pleasure of living with clean, natural furnishings and decor. My house will never be as clean as theirs was - they had a daily cleaning lady - but nevertheless that feeling is one I've always try to recreate at home as an adult. It's hard to describe, but even as a seven-year old I knew it was the most comfortable way to live.
I haven't done the house justice in this piece, which was just a tumble of childish memories provoked by the recent arrival of our own wood pigeons. It's hard to put an adult description on something you only knew as a child, though we did visit one more time when I was about nineteen. I still loved the house then, but I was painfully conscious that we didnt belong there. I felt the owners had extended a kindness to us that we didn't deserve, because we didn't appreciate it properly. As a child, I'd ran through the place shrieking and giggling, but as a young adult I just thought of the mess we must have made. I wondered if the inhabitants had felt their space to have been at all violated by our presence in their absence. I felt their abundant generosity as a heavy weight, knowing I could never be in a position to return it.
I never even met them, but they taught me how to live.
The place was Zeist in Holland: the house of some of my parents' friends in which we used to holiday while they were away. It backed onto woodland and the wood pigeons' whoo-whoo was the predominant noise. I remember it as being very calming, but so was the house itself - I'd never been anywhere like it.
Nowadays it might seem quite ordinary, but coming from England in the 1970s as I was, it was an oasis of wholesome common sense. The floors were tiled and topped with jute. Things were stored intelligently. There were pictures on the walls the children had done 30 years before - a real family house.
The people cycled everywhere, and recycled everything. I loved the cycle paths through the forests, loved to cycle to the shops. Loved having to think about what to do with each item of rubbish even. They had a real fire and board games I'd never seen before and countless excellent jigsaws.
The chairs didn't match, but were substantial and comfortable. The bathroom smelled of washing soda - it was where their immensely fascinating top-loading machine lived. I can still remember the smell. The bedrooms all had balconies and there was an attic - a proper one, with a staircase. Mmmmm and there was Chocomel...
But the main thing I loved about the Zeist house (apart from the call of the wood pigeons) was the pleasure of living with clean, natural furnishings and decor. My house will never be as clean as theirs was - they had a daily cleaning lady - but nevertheless that feeling is one I've always try to recreate at home as an adult. It's hard to describe, but even as a seven-year old I knew it was the most comfortable way to live.
I haven't done the house justice in this piece, which was just a tumble of childish memories provoked by the recent arrival of our own wood pigeons. It's hard to put an adult description on something you only knew as a child, though we did visit one more time when I was about nineteen. I still loved the house then, but I was painfully conscious that we didnt belong there. I felt the owners had extended a kindness to us that we didn't deserve, because we didn't appreciate it properly. As a child, I'd ran through the place shrieking and giggling, but as a young adult I just thought of the mess we must have made. I wondered if the inhabitants had felt their space to have been at all violated by our presence in their absence. I felt their abundant generosity as a heavy weight, knowing I could never be in a position to return it.
I never even met them, but they taught me how to live.
posted by Gill at
06:28
4 Comments:
Aw Gill, how nice to read you have such a wonderful memory of my home country! I know Zeist very well. My father was born in Rotterdam, but grew up in Zeist. I used to stay there, with my grandparents, when I was young. I've cycled on those cycle paths, I've been in those woods, I'm sure I've heard those wood pigeons :).
I'm off to Holland in a few days - family circumstances I'll blog about in my boudoir - and I wasn't looking forward to being there again. But your post has softened my heart. Thank you!
Mieke! Such a nice coincidence :-) But I had a feeling you'd know the place. I hope your trip is as enjoyable as it can be xx
My own happy memories of childhood have great meaning to me, and this is why I have always helped to 'make' happy memorable occasions for my own kids. In the years to come, when things may not always be lovely we can hold these memories and they can keep us warm, comfort us and remind us that life isn't just a bag o sh**e.
The sound of wood pigeons cooing is very evocative. They have such a peace about them.
For me the childhood birdsong that takes me right back is of a lonely blackbird at dusk I used to hear when I was in bed early as a kid. As in 'sent to bed' for some misdemeanor. Whenever I hear a lonely blackbird I am taken right back to those senseless and fruitless banishments with only a distant and invisible bird as contact. LOL.
Just recently we've all been breathless and silent listening to the owl that comes around our house: "Too! Too wit-too woo!" it says.
Then to a chorus of "I can hear it! I can hear it!" from the kids.
The bird song is deafening in this forest, and I love it.
EF x
efdiary.wordpress.com
"The bird song is deafening in this forest, and I love it."
I'm starting to as well. Are they extra loud this year, or is it that I've only just started listening?
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