And still it rains

I lay in bed this dawn, feeling the rain thump the roof, longing for a bright spring day, for the birds, for the insects, for me.

I stepped outside the back door: a cuckoo sang. A lapwing gave his wheezy spring note, an oystercatcher yelled. I looked up: there blob-winged was the lapwing and there, no, you're no oystercatcher. A hobby. My first in the garden this spring, in the grey and the rain and the Atlantic cool of it all, snipping the sky with his thrilling wings.

A hobby. But still it rains.