All Quiet in the Chilterns

I'd forgotten how quiet quiet can be, living in Laurel Canyon, where
there is always a cricket or the screech of tires, even in the middle
of the night. At my mother's house there is complete silence at night, draped over us like a thick velvet curtain. Soon it will
be broken by the muted strains of Radio Four, her early morning
companion. Radio Four used to play beautiful Bengali music in the
middle of the night which I could hear across the hallway in my
father's room. It wasn't that he was a connoisseur of Indian songs,
rather that he likes the company during the darkest hours of the night.

I am happy to be here away from the dry brown heat of Hollywood. Here
it has been raining for a few days already and from the plane you
could see that the red rooves were already water stained. "How long
has it been raining?" I asked my mother innocently in the parking lift
at Heathrow and a jolly red-faced woman standing next to us burst into
laughter. "Stupid question love" she said with a good natured smile.