This morning I lay in bed and listened to nothing but the occasional light breeze blowing through the blossom in the trees outside and the cheerful morning chorus of chirruping local wildlife.

This is a special day, a day when I have not been rudely awoken from my slumber by the thunderous roar of Boeing 747s on their final approach overhead. This is the day that airplanes were banished from our skies, when we regained the most basic human right to be free of the unhealthy and invasive noise pollution.

A hushed sense of relaxation has enveloped the entire neighbourhood, conversations are no longer punctuated by the scream of jet engines from overhead, there is a holiday atmosphere.

The eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano has granted us a brief glimpse of how life would be without the planes. Would I forsake foreign holidays and unseasonal imported fruit in return for this? You bet I would!