It’s just us in the twilight field: the white dog and me. There is a pinkness at the edge of the sky and the oaks are in silhouette. The field is a stage and we are in the middle.  No one is about but it is not quiet. There are no visible stars but the sky is so busy, criss-crossed with flight paths. There is a constant traffic noise; no sooner than one plane is out of sight than another flies in on a slightly different trajectory. Only during the pandemic were the skies quiet. Night after night I watched the blue lights of the ambulances going past our house on the way to the hospital.

I watch a jet fly past high overhead; I can see the lights outline its shape on the underside. Suddenly two ducks appear from the wings, create their own flight path and one quonks as it goes over. At my feet I can just make out a line of mole hills marking out a mole’s underground way. A solitary bat heads out into the night. My whippet has his nose snuffled in the thick grass, eating insects. Me? I am searching for the meaning of life in the flight of the duck and the pink tinge of the sunset.

If you could choose anywhere, anywhere at all to live, where would it be?