I remember in Joseph Losey’s film Accident that there was a cricket match which seemed to convey all the languor and boredom of a hot English Summers day.
I never thought that we might have similar symbols of summer here in Ireland
Our new house backs on to the main GAA pitch for Waterford. This wasn’t something which we thought of as a great selling point at the time.
We were wrong.
Firstly it means that behind the house is a large sports arena, empty for most of the time.
Secondly, and unexpectedly, there are the wonderful sounds which reach us as they play matches in the pitch.
Now my family will laugh like drains if they hear that I find the sounds of a match in progress soothing.
I am the notorious Dwyer who broke the mould but being determinedly non sporty.
My Parents were madly keen on sport.
My mother captained the Irish ladies Hockey team on numerous occasions, played tennis for Munster and at one time played golf off a scratch handicap.
My Father was likewise extremely good at tennis, sailed competitively and hunted for years until chronic hay fever caused him to quit.
All of my 6 older siblings played some sport or other. Some of them extremely well.
I, pompously, decided that sport was not for me and concentrated instead on “The Arts”.
However I am not totally immune from the sounds of sport.
In our childhood home Tree Tops we were on the northside of the Lee over looking Pairc Ui Caoimh on the Southern bank.
All my Sundays were audibly coloured by the swell and rush of crowds enthusiastically “cheering on” their side, punctuated by the shrill screech of the ref’s whistle. Maybe because it is a sound associated with school free Summer Sundays it is still most soothing to my ears.
It was an unexpected pleasure and a little capsule of nostalgia when I realised that I could have the same Sunday music here in my new home in Waterford.

One of the first things we had found in the back garden was a sliotar (this is the ball used for hurley)
Now a few weeks ago I heard a new sound from the pitch.
A crisp leather smack delivered through the cheers and the whistles.
The football season had finished and the hurling season was now on.
Even as I type this I can hear the emotion filled swell of the crowds and the smart crack of ash against leather.
I know that I have discovered a new sound which will always be associated with summer.