Dust and telephone poles.

We have just moved from rural country into rural village, and I am trying to find my feet in a rather quite and well swept part of rural suburbia. Country life is quiet, unless you realise, like I did very quickly, that one can play one's own type of music full ball all day and there are no neighbours close enough to complain.
At any time you can pick up a sturdy stick, (even Eden had it's snakes), grab something cold out the fridge and set off with dog and camera to explore, first the walled off garden and then the outside world. Out the back door and don't forget to lock, then to see how the seedlings are growing - marigold and portulaca, pansy and petunia. As each bud forms you wait impatiently for the full blossoms. Then on to check the flowering trees, hedges and bushes, keeping eyes open for birds and butterflies.
Through the gate and on to the dusty road, the world is yours for the moment, and as the wind whispers to you it dances in the roadside grasses and plants and on looking carefully you spot huge spider webs decorated with the sparkling fairy diamonds of early morning dew. Wayside flowers of bright yellows, blues and pinks draw your attention, the dog pulls at the lead and onward you go in harmony with yourself and all that is around you.
Distances are measured by the telephone poles and the decision is made on how far the walk will be, How much do you need to escape before you go back to Earthly reality?
Every day brought something different into my life and there was never time nor room to stop and think about what could or should be done. Country life is a musical rhapsody in colour where each fresh dawn paints the landscape in a different hue.
Village life on the other hand is still, almost as if the houses, walls and fences try to block nature from entering. Neat edges and swept pavements and roads, clusters of annuals to bring in the colour and great tropical plants for cool shade. Muted sounds of radio, TV and CD, children playing, cars passing.
Why is it here in the village that I feel alone? My home is lovely, the garden neat and colourful. I am close to neighbours who seem friendly. Yet there seems to be something missing, the sense of freedom of being on a hot and dusty track with nothing to bother about except what the wind and sun allow to enter into my being. To count poles instead of pennies, to shuffle along not worrying if feet are dirty or not. To skip and sing, to run and play, to be myself where I feel safest.