Perhaps one of my favorite things to do at (my UK) home is cinch my blinds and look out my window. Compared to my apartment in Long Beach, the view is quite nice. In Long Beach, from my bedroom window, I can see a little alley and into the neighbor's driveway and the outside of their home. Beyond that, more buildings, buildings, buildings. More cement, concrete, asphalt.

In Canterbury, I look out my window every day. There's a little yard. And on each side the neighbor's yards. Both are a bit dilapidated, but they each have their own special charm. One of the fences separating the yards blew over during a night of gusty winds when we first moved in. It's been in a state of disrepair ever since, strewn across our lawn. Beyond the yard, is a small car park. Beyond that some small houses. Surrounding this, decorating this, are trees and bushes, grass. Above all that there is wide sky. On exceptional days, the clouds are out puffing along at the same steady pace as the wind. On gray days, the skies are still beautiful, only in a stark, minimal sort of way. 

Even with all this gorgeous landscape right outside my window, there's still something even more satisfying to see: the birds! Especially with Spring blooming, the birds are especially giddy. Flying in flocks or solo, the best is when a bird comes swooping from above my house and I get a quick glimpse of its belly. It's a surprise and a delight. Or there are the birds that like to peck and poke at the dirt in search of food. Or the birds that hop hop hop from one bare branch to the next until it flies off. There's also a local black and white cat that likes to pick its way through the long green grass. I've witnessed it intent on some prey, or slowly licking a paw, or nipping at some spare tendril of leaf. 

And now a crap iPhone picture of my home from the backyard (the fence has since been picked up).

The wind here reminds me of Studio Ghibli movies, specifically My Neighbor Totoro (although many of those movies have windy scenes and I love them all). It's loud, and the landscape here is grass, trees, bushes....the wind just howls through it all. There's one particular scene in Totoro where Satsuke is gathering wood for a fire and a huge loud rush of wind picks up all the firewood in her arms and just carries it away. The way they animate the wind blowing through the grass in that movie has always been a favorite fascination and I always wondered where the hell that actually happens! 

As I'm from a fairly urban area, we not only don't have much strong wind, we don't really have open expanses of greenery. Even if the wind did blow hard enough, it would probably disturb a patch of grass on a sidewalk, or some broken twigs in a bush rather than rush through a huge open field in waves of green. I really never thought I'd see this in real life. I tried to find a gif of the scene I'm talking about, but couldn't find one! If I knew how to make gifs, i'd make one because it's one of my favorite scenes in the movie. This is the closest one I could find:

Anyway, it's nearly 4 am and I was asleep until the wind woke me up. Which I don't mind at all since it reminded me of this scene and got me thinking about the beauty of wind. Maybe there's a catbus or a Totoro out there!

Your Broad Abroad,
Dacy