Last evening, as I sat in my car waiting for the light to change on the way to my parents’ house, I caught sight of a familiar movement in the sky. Blackbirds, hundreds of them, flying over the German’s house. It’s something I grew up with, a late-summer ritual when school had just started back, the evenings light fading stirring that colony in the woods. The sky would be full of them over my parent’s house.

The German’s house was always a landmark, though I don’t think any of us really knew much about it. An old house tucked into the small woods, bounded by housing estates, a petrol station, and the L&N Supermarket (its name growing up and now a SuperValu). We called it the German’s house because, or so I was told, a German family once lived there or still do.

Even now, with so much changed, that sight feels like stepping back into the rhythm of my childhood.