When a cricket moves into your house however and serenades you up close, magic is ousted by irritation. A persistant cricket took up residence behind the backing board of our kitchen sink a few weeks ago. As he grew, his song calling for a mate got louder and louder, more and more insistant. Our supper time conversation was drowned out by his constant calling, we could still hear his cries from the bedroom at night. He liked the place he’d found, the board amplified his song with the equivalent of a bass booming woofer, he was sure to attract the most beautiful of mates if he just kept it up long enough – no thought of moving himself to search for a mate entered his head, the answer is in singing louder for longer.
Meanwhile our patience was wearing thin. I usually try to catch crickets and throw them back outside, they are harmless and only bother me when they sing too loud inside. This one however had forfeited his mercy card. It was war. Twice we spotted him emerge from his hideout to gain more freedom of expression for his yearnings, twice we thwacked at him with a dishcloth, twice he evaded us easily, went quiet for a minute and then chirruped triumphantly anew – ‘you can’t catch me, I’m the smartest cricket there is!’
We were starting to talk of borrowing a can of Doom..I don’t like insect sprays around the house poisoning our organic straw bale house and the air we breathe, but in emergencies and my husband's headache constituted one, then these chemical weapons must be considered. Before we had resorted to this desperate policy, I had another sighting of the monster. Smug and fat he sat on the top of the board, secure in his supremacy. Stealthily I possessed myself of the sandwich wrap box, took a step nearer..THWACK..no holds barred, it came down hard ....silence .... but no sign of a corpse. Drat! He must have slipped back under cover. The silence held. No triumphant crowing broke through the evening calm. Maybe he actually got a fright this time? An hour later, all still quiet in the kitchen, golden silence appreciated like a newly minted coin. Guilt for my crime is offset by relief that our ears are no longer constantly assaulted by a crescendo of cricket song. The outside crickets sing on, a beautiful background musical composition with the night air to absorb it.
PS If any of you in northern climes feel nostalgic for cricket song, this wonderful children's book by Eric Carle ironically named The Very Quiet Cricket
. Instead of soaking the ham to get rid of excess salt from the smoking process, I cover it with cold water in a large stock pot, bring it just to the boil, then throw out the water and put in fresh cold water. I then add the rest of the ingredients and bring it back up to the boil again and start the cooking time from this point. Check with your butcher though, if he says that the ham doesn’t need soaking at all then you’ll be ok without this step, unless you’d like to get rid of some of the salt anyway. 
” on DVD on the computer, the headphones keeping the secret to myself. If you haven’t yet come across “The Secret” it is a film on positive visualisation – to attract what you want from the universe, whether material or intangible things, you have to emanate thought and feeling waves of the things you do want, rather than spending your time brooding on all the bad things that you don’t want and attracting those things into your life instead. Anyway it is supposed to transform your life, if you can shift yourself into that positive head space, so I was on my second viewing.
