Monday 21 September 2009

Town & Country

Ever since I reduced my weekly working hours from 40 to 35 last year in September, I don't appear at the office on Mondays until sometime around or after lunch.

More often than not, I walk there, and I did so yesterday.

On the fields, there was such a lot going on: the coming and going of heavy agricultural machinery made it feel like rush-hour, the crows were making a racket, and where the maize had already been harvested and some crushed cob was still on the path, flocks of sparrows were fluttering about and chirping in alarm at anything and anyone moving towards their direction.

Not even during July and August, which are supposed to be the busiest months for the owners of wheat and rye fields, have I seen such a buzz of activity.

Many times, I had to leave the narrow field lane and step on the grassy border to let the rattling tractor-pulled machines go past in whirls of dust, and there was more than one situation during which two tractors had to display surprising agility to make sure one could get past the other.

Then, across the railway bridge, it was like entering a ghost town.

For the third and last 20-minute-leg of my walk to work, I saw hardly any cars, and only three other pedestrians shared the pavement with me; a mother with a child, and a man carrying a rucksack.

Quite odd, and so I decided to write about this here.

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