228. Banging in the morning (1)

The first morning you wake up in the country is magical. It is as if you have entered a different dimension, crossed into an other universe. The sounds you hear, the activity around you, all is natural, nothing is artificial. The faintest hint of daylight is seeping through the curtains. The window is open, the chill of the early morning is brought in to the room by a light breeze. Through the trees I can see hints of the sky, whiteish blue with traces of pink and yellow. It is going to be a beautiful day. That gives me immense pleasure and this is why I am not even cross when I am brutally woken up by a loud noise.

Clank.

I had thought I would get a lie in and had dreamt of a more bucolic alarm clock: Pompon the donkey around 8 or the village rooster around 10.

Clank. 

Something’s wrong. Something’s not right. That is not what the country is supposed to sound like.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

I decide to concentrate and to listen carefully - now that I am truly awake - so as to 1) identify the noise, 2) discover its source and 3) stop it.

It seems to be the test to pass, every summer a new animal nuisance to sort out as if all the animals get together when they see us arriving for the holidays and decide who will bug us this year. They take it in turns. So who is it this year?

Clank.

Silly me! It’ll be the dog’s tail banging against the gaz bottle. Yes, definitely a metallic ring to the sound. And the dog must be impatient to go out. I get feeling bad about not thinking about letting the dog out in the garden sooner.

But when I get downstairs, I see the dog has moved from the rug up onto the armchair and is lying curled up on his back, paws floating in the air and snoring loudly. The gaz bottle is a good 4 or 5 yards away from him and there is definitely no banging of the tail against it.

I make coffee. I am a little disappointed. It means something else is banging. Now that I am downstairs though one thing is clear about the origin of the sound: it comes from upstairs. I quietly creep back up the stairs so as not to wake the sleeping dog. I push the curtains open, the sun is rising slowly. I close the window because it is a little too chilly. And not because I am scared. I go back to bed to drink my coffee.

Clank.