A Few of My Favourite Things

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

I thought as a New Year thing, I might do a series on ‘Favourite Things’. Surprisingly, there are not too many repetitions in this theme (eg.My favourite song may not be sung by my favourite singer, my favourite painting may not be by my favourite artist). It’s probably a little self-indulgent of me, but I’m actually going to be learning some stuff as I go along. So bear with me. I look forward to you telling me some of your favourite things too.

My favourite sound.

In this category I am not going to include the obvious choice of music. This is for natural sounds. Babbling brooks, bird song, that kind of thing. Actually, those two things did get considered, but I finally decided that the winner was the sound of children laughing. Not derisive laughter like when some poor child says something unwittingly that makes him the butt of snide giggles, but the laughter that comes when kids are really enjoying themselves.

Every Christmas morning there seems to be a tradition in our house. I don’t know how it started, but each year, when all the presents have been opened and played with for a while, Eldest puts on a DVD of Wallace and Grommet. They’ve seen each episode I don’t know how many times, but still they sit and laugh the whole way through. It’s a beautiful sound.

It’s beautiful too, when I’m walking through the school to deliver books or gather overdues and hear a class full of children laughing at something they’re doing. In that moment of laughter, they’re all together. No matter how tired or bad tempered I’m feeling, that sound of togetherness lifts me. I think one of the nicest things a student ever said to me when I was teaching was, “I like being in your class. You make us laugh.” (At least, I think it was a compliment!)

“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.” (Yiddish Proverb)

So, what is your favourite sound?