SOME of what follows is true, and some of what follows stretches the truth a little bit, and some of what follows stretches the truth so far that it twangs like a rubber band, and some of what follows is just made up.

You decide. More rubber bands later, by the way.

The other evening I was coming to the end of my evening stroll; I was passing a clump of trees and I was listening on my headphones to my favourite kind of music on a show on Radio 3 called The New Music Show which is full of sounds that, quite frankly, can often empty the room but which I really enjoy.

The show is full of orchestral clangs and electronic bumps and tiny alterations to the silence and loud noises that would be a suitable alarm clock for the dead.

The music was entering a quiet phase, sounding like a combination of a dripping tap and someone stumbling downstairs in their slippers when suddenly I heard another sound which I thought at first was part of the music I was listening to.

Then I realised that the sound was coming from that clump of trees and that it was birdsong.

I turned The New Music Show off and listened intently to the new music of this feathered sonata which felt at the same time exotic and unfamiliar.

My wife has one of those apps on her phone which can tell her what kind of bird she is hearing but I have a severe app-lack when it comes to that app so I just stood there listening and trying to commit the line of melody to memory.

It’s hard to describe in print but it was a kind of ‘dee di diddly dee dee diddly’. I told you it was hard to describe. It was insistent and rhythmic and memorable.

Well, it would be memorable if I could commit it to memory, which I was trying my best to do. I hummed it to myself. I whistled it to myself. I clapped the rhythm quietly. Dee di diddly dee dee diddly. Dee di diddly dee dee diddly.

Sounded like Sheffielders discussing something of great importance.

I walked home briskly, still listening for the birdsong and still trying to hum it. My wife knows more about birdsong than I do so I was sure she’d be able to tell me what it was.

I unlocked the door and went straight into the back room and instead of my usually friendly greeting I whistled the tune I’d just heard.

I whistled it again. Dee di diddly dee dee diddly. ‘What bird is that?’ I asked. She shook her head. I whistled it again. I sang it. I clapped it out. She had no idea. And neither had I.

My wife reached for her bird book which described common birdsong but none of the descriptions matched the song I’d heard. I whistled it again.

I felt that, somehow, I was turning into a bird. I could almost flap into the kitchen to put the kettle on. I whistled it again, more slowly, as though my batteries were running out.

‘It might be a nightingale’ she said, gazing at her bird book. A nightingale? Surely they were rare. Not only were they rare, they were dee di diddly dee dee diddly rare. And that’s rare. I got a rubber band and attempted to play the tune on the rubber band.

I got a pan and played the tune percussively on the pan. I stretched the rubber band across the pan and twanged the tune. It was like the birth of rock and roll played by Bo Dee Di Diddly Dee Dee Diddly.

I found a recording of a nightingale’s song on my phone and I played it. We both agreed that it sounded a bit like the thing I was whistling and playing on the pan/rubber band combo.

A bit, but not much. For the first time in many years I wished that we’d not got rid if the piano because I could have played it on that. Well, I could have if I could play the piano. I tried to whistle along with the birdsong with my rubber band.

There was, let’s say, a vague similarity. My phone rang. It was the producer of The New Music Show. He wondered if I fancied performing something on next week’s show.

‘I’ve got just the thing,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring my pan and rubber band!’