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  • Writer's pictureMartyn Offord

May 20th Cuckoo Land

This morning early, almost furtively, we sneaked out to embark on our longest journey since March – all the way through Cromford, up the Via Gellia, left at the Holly Bush, past Winster and by 8.30 we were parked in a lay-by by the Limestone Way just under Robin Hood’s Stride. The mildest haze just softened the edges of the crags but with the sun high it was already burning off. This was to be a nostalgic walk, one we used to do often, but haven’t done now for two or three years. We passed through silent Elton and for five miles we hardly saw anyone but walked on under a cloudless sky.


But how the world has changed! How the miles seem further and particularly, how the stiles seem higher! Some have grown so high that the knees will barely bend far enough, the arms won’t pull you up hard enough, the hips won’t twist round enough and the legs won’t bounce softly enough on landing. There we were standing precariously on the top stone holding onto each other, trying to calculate which foot to place down first, or sitting up there, swinging the legs round rather like the Queen Mother disembarking from her Royal Rolls. Then we were stretching further and further down with the foot for the earth seemed to have fallen away since last we walked here: the stiles are higher, the earth is lower, our grunts and creaks are louder and the whole manoeuvre lacks the elegance of which we once did boast. Getting over these stiles now is reminiscent of a fork lift truck with too many palettes. Covid 19 makes us wary of touching the posts and my varifocals mean that the ground seems far below, swimming in and out of vision. Funny how the stiles seem so much higher, when there is no evidence of stones having been added in the last century or so. And are the squeezers squeezier? We seem to be hefting ourselves up and swinging our legs, turning this way, and then that way for what was once the simplest of exercise. Breathing in, levering back, belly and bum, crow bar, engine grease, what else will we need to ram into the back pack next time? Presumably the OS map hasn’t changed, but the paths didn’t seem to comply and led us off through grass so long that we were wading in the wake of some deer towards a gate that wasn’t our gate at all and so had to wade back. A short cut seemed to be in order, and then, as we passed under Robin Hood’s Stride we heard it – a cuckoo. A couple of years ago we heard and saw cuckoos in the west of Ireland, but I can’t think when I last heard one here. The old song alleges,


The cuckoo is a pretty bird, she sings as she flies; she brings us glad tidings, and she tells us no lies,


Which we know not to be true, it’s not a nice bird at all, but centuries of romance are attached to it, volumes of legend and associations with summer. Its cry was unanswered this morning but it sounded hopeful. I vaguely remembered this verse:


In April, I open my bill (Cuckoo, cuckoo)

In May, I sing night and day (Cuckoo, cuckoo)

In June, I change my tune (Cuckoo, cuckoo)

In July, far far fly (Cuckoo, cuckoo)

In August, away I must (Cuckoo, cuckoo)


At which Deirdre went into allegorising mode, seeing in this lonely socially distant bird a parallel to Covid-19, arriving in April and hopefully disappearing around August. My response was rather literal and I pointed out that she hadn’t accounted for March in her musings and its having left by August was rather optimistic.


But the world has gone cuckoo since last we ventured out and driving to Ripley Sainsbury’s to buy petrol and fetch our click and collect, we felt we were entering a foreign country. We didn’t understand how this new world operated. We found a world of spaced out queues, masks, buttons that need to be pressed and hands that need to be sanitised immediately afterwards. I haven’t bought petrol for two months: the machines have changed and the price dropped to below a pound. I remember the first time I filled up with gas in the US, looking dazed at the prices and the machines, not sure what to do when I was swept aside by an over-cheerful attendant with a bucket, sponge and smile as wide as our windscreen. The attendant who came out at Sainsbury’s was helpful and pleasant, but hardly cheerful. Will petrol drop to 5/11 a gallon like it was when I had my little Ford Anglia?


Then the click and collect. Into the wrong queue we went and at its climax we were very cheerfully sent elsewhere. Strangers in Cuckoo Land, squinting at instructions, not sure what to expect, yet everyone was pleasant and patient. Since we migrated into our little bubble aloft in Crich, people down here have become accustomed to queuing, to new machines, new instructions and new manners. They are acclimatised and naturalised. Today we felt like refugees in this strange new country, wondering if we would ever qualify for citizenship.


It was a good job there was a bottle of gin in the grocery order.

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