Chiswick may be one of the most middle class areas in London, and possesed at times of it's own brand of ennui and sharp-faced moodiness - Arlington Park, the fictional suburb in Rachel Cusk's marvellous book of the same name, deftly sweeps up like leaves in a breeze the same deadening sense of frustration and inner terrors that throbs under the skin of this real-life suburb, but all that aside, Chiswick is a riot of nature. It's bursting with vitality.

It's been a cavalcade of sphinx-like foxes on the lawns of Chiswick House; fist-sized insects whirring through mid-evening skies; swallows darting and weaving, before tucking themselves under house eaves; the ubiquitious legions of squawking, charging parakeets; then a dainty pair of married Goldfinches skittering from bush to bush down the street; and Swifts cavorting and tumbling in endless arabesques; a fat, round water vole hurtling as fast as it's tiny piston like legs could take it into the undergrowth by Chiswck House lake; even a timid mouse popping it's head in and out of a piece of tubing. I have been dazzled.

Not a corner turned without something unexpected. Urban safari on my doorstep. Beat that.