looking up, blackbird, gust

This is yesterday. Looking up in the Grove.

I walk past the station and hear birdsong over the noise of traffic as it swings round the bend into Vale Road. I look up and, after a moment, see the source of the song - a single blackbird on a chimney pot, high above the shops. It is singing at the top of its voice, an energetic, liquid melody, that doesn't want to stop. Perhaps because the frost has vanished, it believes, despite the icy wind, that Spring has arrived. Blackbirds don't, as a rule, begin to sing, round here until the end of February.

As I enter Sutherland Road from the Grove, a sudden gust of wind, blows a hoard of leaves past me, like a crowd of noisy boys. It has been so still lately that this little drama is quite pleasurable, a little excitement to relieve the monotony of welcome but unaccustomed frost.