UK Lockdown 2.0 — A Walk a Day: Halftime Summary
Hello, my fellow travellers! I hope you’re keeping up the good spirits in those challenging times. Some of you following me on Twitter — let’s be real, four of you 🙂 — might already know that I’ve been taking myself on a daily walk ever since lockdown kicked in again.
Ironically, I was supposed to start trekking to Everest* Base Camp the day it started. And today, I would have passed the finish line and boarded my return flight from Kathmandu. To still mark such occasion, I thought I give you a little summary of what I’ve been up to instead during my daily lockdown walks. A bit less exciting than trekking around Nepal but still rather refreshing and somewhat surprising given the things I did come across, so here we go:
*Random Trivia: Did you know that Everest is named after someone who actually never laid eyes on the mountain? Following the recommendation of Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India who claimed that local names were unknown or unconfirmed at the time, the Royal Geographic Society named the mountain after Waugh’s predecessor, Sir George Everest in 1865. Funnily enough, Sir George actually pronounced his name ‘Eve-Rest’ which somehow makes sense as today’s pronunciation always tempts me to spell it with two ‘r,’ but I guess Eve-Rest is less fitting to describe an endeavour that’s anything but restful. You can visit Sir George’s grave at St Andrew’s Church in Hove if you fancy — one way of claiming you’ve been to Everest, or its namesake at least. Thanks, Bill Bryson, for a wonderfully random insight, and entertaining me throughout lockdown, one and two.
Parakeets in Nonsuch Park — Nonesuch Thing You Say?
On the very first day of our second lockdown round, I went for a stroll around Nonsuch Park — yes, that’s its real name, one of the reasons I checked it out one day to then discover what a beautiful park I had close by without even knowing. Six months I’d been living in the area and had no idea. By chance I spotted it on the map, intrigued by the name I went there, et voilà, my park-strolling life had been changed. Keep looking guys, your area is probably also full of surprises still.
But back to the actual discovery that day. While walking towards Nonsuch Mansion to have a quick wander through its rose-speckled garden, I spotted a bright green flicker in the air. One turned into five heading straight to a big hollow tree that’s quite popular for gatherings. Usually dog walkers and regular park-strollers stop there to rest, but that day a flock of parakeets stopped by (or shall we say a pandemonium, a fancier term for a group of parrots apparently).
Intrigued by their chitter chatter, my friend and I, as well as other socially-distanced walkers, stopped to enjoy the show. My friend was rather confused about my amazement telling me that they are everywhere — I must have never properly looked around or listened since they do make quite a racket. Based on that surprise, she asked me if I knew about the myths surrounding their arrival as they are usually native to places such as Australia, Africa and Latin America. I had no idea, so was all ears about what she had to say.
Apparently, there are quite a few tales, most of them have been debunked by scientist throughout the years but the favourite one still persists linking their occurrence to the Humphrey Bogart adventure film ‘The African Queen’ from 1951. People like to believe that the birds were released at the end of filming or better yet, those cheeky little creatures escaped while shooting jungle scenes in the Shepperton Studios in Surrey.
If you think co-starring with Bogie and Katharine Hepburn is a bit of a push, how about the second myth pointing towards Jimi Hendrix who supposedly released a breeding pair on London’s Carnaby Street during the swinging Sixties?
A third less exciting tale blames the Great Storm of 1987 which supposedly damaged aviaries allowing those small parrots to make their way into the wild, an explanation that has partial truth to it as latest discoveries showed.
Using geographic profiling, a method first developed to solve crimes by overlaying locations of murder victims and places suspects live and work — serious stuff — researchers from Queen Mary University, University College London and Goldsmiths were able to disprove theories of a single release at a specific place or time but looked at multiple sources, or households to be precise.
While some newspaper reports of the phenomenon dating back to the Victorian era already debunked modern myths, scientist also came across sensationalised media reports of human deaths from ‘parrot fever’ in 1929-31 and 1952 which might have encouraged frightened pet owners to let their parakeets go.
Exotic movie stars or criminal thread to human existence — either way, they were nice to look at while gathering around the tree, hopping from one branch to another, their green colour in contrast to the gorgeous blue sky that day. One has to admit that we have been rather lucky with the weather this year making this less than ideal situation a bit more enjoyable.
Mother nature and its awe-inspiring features shall get us through this, especially if we keep embracing its little wonders like our smaller versions do on a daily basis. Look out for those tiny geniuses among us living life to its fullest, and in style as my next lockdown walk discovery taught me.
Miniature Gurus of Play
Heading towards Wandsworth one day for a change of scenery and to make use of yet another gloriously sunny day, I came across a little boy strolling along with his parents who caught my eye. He was dressed in a Buzz Lightyear costume just doing his thing, buzzing around town one could say. Halloween was long gone, so why wear a custom I was thinking. But actually, why not? What better way to make your daily walks a bit more fun, while bringing a bit of joy to other people you meet along the way.
You couldn’t help but smile when seeing his proud little face as well as his quietly content demeanour, brushing his hands along buildings, bushes, whatever was in sight, taking in all the sensations the area had to offer. It made me think of another book I read throughout lockdown 1.0 when exploring the concept of mindfulness and the good ole’ ‘live in the moment’-mantra, something a lot of people talk about but hardly ever practice.
Calling them ‘Gurus of Play,’ Tim Hansel, the author of When I Relax I Feel Guilty, highlights that we need to learn from children as they truly have life figured out finding adventure around every corner. He talks about the total immersion and concentration kids are exhibiting when doing things, tongue out and all. He celebrates their ability to bounce back, to continuously find new perspectives while embracing total honesty and expression. All those behaviours once natural to us sadly fade away on our journey towards adulthood making us lose touch with all those sensations and daily wonders the world has to offer.
Can you remember the last time you jumped into the deepest puddle you can find or ran through a pile of leaves having the time of your life? I spotted many tiny humans sporting such behaviour while out and about on my daily walks and couldn’t help but smile, while also feeling slightly jealous wanting to follow their footsteps.
As Angela Schwindt once said, “While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”
Maybe that’s another reason why the wild camping endeavour hit the spot, letting that inner dirt loving child loose again. Taking every day as it comes, rain or shine, open for any adventure coming my way. There’s still lots to learn, lots to discover, you just have to get out there and have a proper look around, engage all your senses, embrace that inner child that still finds wonder on a daily basis.
If not quite ready to jump into a buzzing costume yet, there’s a (some might say childish) hobby I picked up during lockdown which could do the trick and re-train your eyes towards little surprises where you least expect them. It’s nothing new, has been around for years but comes in rather handy when limited to an area you know quite well already. But behold, I’m sure there are still treasures to be found.
Been Geocaching Lately?
Plenty in my area, the coolest one I found the other day hidden in a wall of someone’s drive way. Yes, in their wall, behind a fake brick. Did I spot this on my own merits? Definitely not. I was following instructions and clues given to me via a Geocaching App which led me to the area and told me that there was an imposter to be found.
What is Geocaching? It’s basically a modern-day treasure hunt with real-life treasures (‘geocaches’ or ‘caches’ as they are called) hidden all over the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container such as a 35mm film canister for instance, which contains a logbook and sometimes a pen to date and sign (with your established code name) before placing it back exactly where you found it. If no pen to hand, you can also log your find on the app designed to help you locate the caches.
Originally, participants used a website and GPS receiver to hide and seek such containers, the website is still active and quite useful when you have special caches in your area that require an app upgrade to reveal the hints. Have a look online first where the info should also be freely available — sorry geocache app developers, I’m a poor blogger, what can I say — unless you’re really keen on logging all your finds on there as well.
Another useful tip is to always take a pen with you as the containers rarely include one, at least the ones I’ve found so far. I think I revisited most of my finds by now always having forgotten that precious pen — it is kind of nice though when you do go back and know exactly where to look knowing something nobody else does.
Be ready to get some strange looks though during the process of locating cashes as you will occasionally spent quite some time looking at the same wall, fence or whatever clever hiding spot someone came up with. Great fun though and it sometimes brings you to places you usually would never go to — it made me discover a rather scenic footpath the other day which I now use when going out for a run.
Also, bring a little trinket that you are happy to leave behind because larger containers (such as plastic storage or ammunition boxes) often contain items for trading which can be anything really. The very first geocache apparently contained software, videos, books, money, a can of beans and a slingshot.
It was placed on May 3, 2000 by Dave Ulmer who partially buried a black plastic bucket containing such ‘trinkets’ somewhere in Beavercreek, Oregon, United States. Unfortunately, the cache and most of its content did not make it into the present day having eventually fallen victim to a lawn mower. The wind and weather resistant can of beans was the only survivor and got turned into a trackable item called the ‘Original Can of Beans.’
I guess you’ll never know what you’re going to find unless you go out there looking, with your child-like unbiased eyes. Often things are in plain sight and you need an App or another person to point you towards it, something that occurred on yet another walk. I’m not sure how your two weeks went, but mine went by with daily revelations, and not necessarily in the religious sense although the next celebrities I bring into the discussion are somewhat a religion to some people I guess.
Of Winning Posts and Rolling Stones
Here a quick lockdown walk insight which brought me across this probing article heading while fact checking: ‘Has Anything Interesting EVER Happened in Sutton?’
Yes, apparently so. Believe it or not, in this sleepy town, at the bottom of its short but sweet High Street, rock and roll history was written.
Sutton’s ‘Winning Post’ is the place where Giorgio Gomelsky spotted the young Rolling Stones and signed them as house band at his Crawdaddy Club in 1963. Unfortunately, that’s the only winning fact about the pub formerly known as ‘The Red Lion’, not being the most inviting venue that comes to mind these days.
But still, having walked by many times before, it was a pleasant surprise that even Sutton has a little claim to fame and played its part in music history — something it did again quite recently by hosting the first US artist playing a UK concert since lockdown.
Surrey Celebrating Its Country Live
The venue for such event caught my eye during yet another walk along Sutton High Street where a live music establishment called ‘Sound Lounge’ appeared out of nowhere. I even took a picture and sent it to some of my local friends asking if Surrey was turning hipster out of a sudden. Well, apparently I was on to something as I was sent below newspaper snippet shortly after from a friend in lovely Shropshire, asking for local intel.
The article tells the story of Ruthie Collins, a Nashville singer who had big plans to play in the UK but instead got stranded on a farm in Horley during lockdown 1.0. In contrast to one of her older album titles, the country artist resisted the urge to ‘get drunk and cry’ but used this time in more productive ways. Ruthie began to write songs and live streamed weekly ‘quarantine concerts,’ performances that proved to be a success encouraging her to extend her stay and — wait for it — play in Sutton’s very own Sound Lounge on November 14, 2020.
Having spent some time in Texas and Nashville myself, all I could say was ‘howdy’ for lack of better words in response to such inspiring story, as well as yet another surprising fact making me fall in love with Surrey all over again.
Walking Assumptions and Takeaways
All and all, I think we’re on the right track with those lockdown walks if you do remember Peacehaven’s chalky inspiration — love where you live in these travel-less times. Or, to stick with the theme: You can’t always get what you want, but if you do get out there and have a look around, you might just find what you need. Ruthie definitely took a leaf out of that book, …or song sheet?
Either way, try to find your own path through this by embracing that personality you would sport when exploring new places. Keep an open mind and embrace that inner child seeing little wonders in the daily grind. Give it a whirl, go for a walk, have a little chit chat, look for treasure — who knows what gems of wisdom might come your way.
As for me and my summary of these past two weeks: While missing out on the opportunity to potentially suffer from altitude sickness and frost bite in Nepal, I think I had a rather insightful time in my little lockdown world.
So, what did you get up to, what did you find, what did you learn? Find me on Twitter and share away! Two more weeks to go, let’s get through this together!!
