My name is Winston.
I am the resident dog at Martins Farm, Chief Mud Correspondent, and—apparently—Head of Night Security.
It is an unpaid position.
Humans like to say the farm is silent at night. This is because their hearing is poor and they spend too much time looking at screens. I hear everything.
The wind in the trees. A footstep on gravel. Something in the hedge. The fridge opening in the kitchen.
Especially the fridge.
The human who does not sleep
One of my humans is a bad sleeper.
He works in the City and keeps US hours, so while sensible people in Frant are going to bed, New York is still sending emails.
Eventually, he closes the laptop, turns out the light, and lies down. He then seems surprised that his brain has not followed suit.
I watch this from my bed most nights.
It looks exhausting.
One. Then two. Then three. Then four.
At one o’clock, the Frant church bell chimes once. The human opens an eye. I do not.
At two, it chimes twice. A sigh follows. I shift slightly.
At three, it chimes three times and he checks the clock, as if the church is merely confirming its own announcement.
At four, it chimes four times. Even I think the timing could be improved.
The bells do not wake him—he is already awake. They occasionally wake me only because he keeps moving.
Still, he likes them. Each chime is a small village update:
One o’clock: Frant still exists.
Two o’clock: the farm is still here.
Three o’clock: nothing important has fallen over.
Four o’clock: seriously, go to sleep.
They keep him company. And if they fail, he has me.
Admittedly, I am usually asleep.
The foxes start shouting
Between bells, the wildlife takes over.
First come the foxes.
They do not speak so much as broadcast. One moment the night is calm; the next it sounds as though a crisis is unfolding in a hedge.
Humans always react the same way: upright, alert, briefly considering emergency services.
I lift one ear.
It is almost always just fox business—delivered with excessive urgency.
Another fox answers from the fields. A conversation begins, though “argument” is more accurate.
I consider it poor etiquette.
Once I confirm there is no crisis, I return to sleep. This is not laziness. It is professional judgement.
The owls are watching
The owls are quieter.
They wait for the foxes to finish, then call from the trees—one distant, one uncomfortably close.
They are difficult to interpret. They do not explain themselves. They simply observe.
Senior management.
The human likes them. They interrupt the silence without disturbing the peace and suggest the woods are still awake.
I already know that.
I can smell them.
And then there are the deer
Too many.
Not solitary, poetic deer, but entire committees drifting through the fields, debating what to eat next.
The answer is always everything.
Grass, hedges, garden—anything new is treated as a suggestion.
To a deer, the lawn is a restaurant, the flower beds a tasting menu, and a young tree a complimentary course.
Fences are irrelevant.
Humans see boundaries. Deer see minor obstacles with optimistic outcomes.
They clear them easily and continue as if the estate has been designed for their convenience.
From their perspective, it probably has.
At night they move through the grass, chatting softly, dismantling planting schemes with quiet enthusiasm. Occasionally there is a thump, followed by the sound of something expensive disappearing.
Do I intervene?
No. I supervise from my bed.
They will return anyway.
Country silence
There are other noises.
Wind in the trees. Old beams settling. Rain on glass. Something crossing gravel and vanishing before it can be identified.
I usually know what each sound is.
The humans do not, so they have adopted a policy: all unexplained night activity remains officially unresolved until daylight and coffee.
Reasonable.
None of it is unwelcome.
When my human is awake at two or three in the morning, the farm does not feel empty. The church keeps time, the foxes perform, the owls supervise, and the deer continue their work.
And I am there too, keeping watch with my eyes firmly closed.
The countryside is never truly silent. It simply lowers its voice.
For a bad sleeper, that is oddly comforting—a reminder that beyond emails, meetings, and the US working day, the farm is still alive and getting on with things.
Mostly eating them.
Good night from Martins Farm.
I remain on duty.
From my bed.
— Winston, Head of Night Security, Chief Mud Correspondent, and the only resident getting a proper night’s sleep
The countryside is never truly silent. It simply lowers its voice.