THE KIND OF DAY FOR BUMBLEBEES

I think it must be sports day at the school down the road. Through the still air and the open window, I can hear a man with a loudhailer, accompanied by whoops and cheers from a crowd of young voices.

It’s another summer day here - 27 degrees, light wind, blue sky. Probably just about perfect for a school sports day. But probably not the day for me to take a quiet walk around the park - the school playing field adjoins it.

This is the kind of day for bumblebees I think. It’s a lazy sort of afternoon, the kind where a bee might buzz in, circle inquisitively and then fly off again in search of lavender. Bees don’t worry about sports day.

I don’t suppose they worry about the news either. Over the weekend, the USA bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities - took them right out, with bombs so heavy they can tunnel through metres of rock before exploding. I wonder whether it’s changed the world, perhaps terribly, perhaps not. It’s complicated - and nobody knows what happens next.

Somehow it seems important to me that sports day continues, and bumblebees buzz, and swallows dart between the eaves. It’s hard to believe it’s all part of the same world, the same story, isn’t it?

The kids out there are really cheering now. That would have been me once - pounding down the track, shiny baton; pale, thin legs in the hot summer sun. It mattered a great deal at the time, I seem to remember. But the memories are sepia fragments, snapshots of an old world now - it really didn’t matter half as much as I thought it did. I’m glad we had it though.