We had walked some way down Blind Lane,
which is in Dorset, as anyone could plainly see,
before it occurred to either of us that
the mute swans awaiting our inspection at
the swannery at Abbotsbury might,
at some earlier point in their institutional history,
have taken a vow of silence —
or at the very least, a vow of relative quiet;
which is, if anything, more Benedictine than total silence.
Whether St. Peter approved of the swan farming of Fleet Lagoon,
he certainly knew the monks loved a fat roasted swan best of any roast.
