No dogs barking. No lawnmowers. No revving engines. No sirens or car alarms. No planes. No construction work. No delivery lorries. Just pure, blissful silence. My ears could barely believe what they weren’t hearing when I opened the door, stepped into the garden and listened. It was autumn last year and I had just moved 600 miles north, from south-east England to Abernethy Forest in the Scottish Highlands. Occasionally, the wind shushed through the tree tops, like a slow wave breaking on the shore. Then it was quiet again. I lay in bed that night, letting my ears explore the faint thrum of silence, and for the first time in ages I didn’t reach for my earplugs.
In the ensuing months, my ears let go, by degrees, of a tension that I hadn’t been aware I was holding. I almost expected to look in the mirror and find them drooping, like those of a drowsy puppy. “Isn’t it a bit quiet for you there?” people asked – either mystified by our move, or concerned that we wouldn’t hack it. But I can’t get enough of it.
