I’ve discovered I’m a noctambulist!!

It may come as no surprise to you, but the another night over dinner I was reminiscing!  More of a surprise might be the fact that it was about TV / Radio “appearances” I have made, and maybe even more of a surprise that with subjects as diverse as playing conkers in the playground, educational links with Romania, sponsored bike rides, recycled toilet paper, and night walking, I haven’t managed to have a “big break!!!”

Many years ago, normally in the company of man’s best friend and at times simply because the dog needed to go out even though it was blowing a gale with driving freezing rain or worse, I discovered the joys of walking at night.  The world not only drains of colour during the hours of darkness, but sounds intensify and senses other than sight come to the fore.  This poem I wrote some years ago seems apt here:

The Gin and Tonic Ghost

( or Nocturnal Nasal Meanderings! )

The night was still and frosty,

Mist hanging around on street corners,

As I climbed to the open

Deserted summit of the common.

There I was alone

Save the moon and Max my faithful hound.

The moon was turning on and off,

As the clouds drifted lazily across the sky.

Max faded into the darkness,

But with the reassuring tinkle of the discs on his collar.

Then it came distinct,

Permeating the air

Unmistakably the smell of a .......

Gin and tonic.

Intense, it was that sort of smell,

That sort of evening

With not another soul around!

The moon then from behind a cloud,

Sent out its eery beam

To put my mind at rest?

Nobody there ..............!

I guessed it was not a night

For public spirited gestures,

So turned and fled

To habitations not far hence.

To have my nostrils once more assailed,

By logs on a fire burning slow,

Sending the woodsmoke up chimneys low

To drop heavy and heady all around.

More steps another smell

That made me think at this late hour,

Perhaps too long I'd stayed

And morning fast approached.

That unmistakable smell of

Lightly browned, just right .........toast!

It was a night for smells,

And at home

As I pulled off my wellies

Filling the porch.

The pungent smell,

Not of my socks!

But of freshly brewed coffee,

Home sweet home.

Well, I have for years enjoyed the quiet solitude of a still dark night, the crackle and sparkle of frosty moonlit nights, or the roar and thrash of windblown trees, viewed from a safe distance during fierce night time storms, and many other ever changing scenarios, all worth any discomfort that the associated inclement weather may bring.  Just today, shortly before writing this, after a wild day of heavy driving rain, I finally decided that it wasn’t going to improve and the dog needed to go out as dusk was beginning to fall.  He doesn’t seem to mind what the weather is doing and today he slipped and skidded round the muddy woodland, chasing anything that moved, any scent he caught from the multitude of squirrels that live in the wood or the pheasants being bred there who rise clumsily with a clacking squawk, seeming to taunt any canines in hearing distance into immediate action.  Having finally made the effort, with rain flowing freely down the cagoule and onto the legs of the trousers, the wellies making it easy to splash though the puddles and the trekking pole providing a third leg and making it safe to do so, it suddenly didn’t matter what the weather threw at me, it was quite simply great to be out; wet, slippery and increasingly dark yes, but also moody, atmospheric, impressionable and special, an adventure in the dark and wet made even more enjoyable knowing that a warm house and a cup of tea were waiting not too far away!

Then, when I started working as a Voluntary Warden for the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and gravitated away from working on footpath improvements to leading guided walks in The Cotswolds, “one of the country’s most treasured and quintessentially English landscapes,” as it says in a visitor map for the region that I recently picked up.  Several times a year, I would lead one of these walks and interpret the landscape and tell stories of the past and pass on local folklore to the many and varied participants.  When checking out the routes I was able to take Max, the dog I then had, with me, but on the day itself the AONB policy was “No Dogs”, so Max would watch forlornly as I packed up my rucksack, donned my boots and coat and set off into the countryside.  He’d then be there waiting on my return, tail wagging, dogs don’t as a rule bear a grudge, but he still needed to go for his constitutional!  So, often after night fall, both on days of the guided walks and indeed in the winter months after work, we would set off into the dark of the night to explore the commons high above our home in Stroud, in the heart of the Cotswolds.

Well, on one such occasion, after a well attended and successful daytime guided walk, we had a truly magical moonlit walk, the dark common being given an unearthly veneer from the bright full moon, with the stars twinkling faintly due to the strength of the moon and the vast sky reaching far all around and fringed by the bright lights of nearby towns and villages or the dark hills and woodlands in between. And, as so often happens when out walking in the night, I got to thinking and suddenly a light as bright as the distant moon lit up, it what is often called a “light bulb moment” and I thought how great it would be to share this magical experience with other walkers, particularly those who never venture beyond the harsh neon lights of town, except when its daylight.

Of course, back home some doubts raised their head; not least could people be persuaded to leave the warm cosiness of their houses to drive out into the dark to meet a total stranger who wanted to take them on a walk into the even more remote countryside and would the AONB Health and safety / Insurance allow such escapades?  Well, the first was easily sorted, start the venture in the summer and meet in daylight and walk into the night, making it easier to rendezvous and less walking in the darkness.  As it happens the second was just as easily sorted as when I approached the powers that be, the answer was simply “Yes, go ahead, what a good idea!”

So started my series of “Walks in the Dark” not the park as I had to make clear to some people, and before long had acquired a bit of a following and as the seasons changed the walks had to start at least in the twilight, then often in the pitch dark, people having to phone to book for precise instructions and to limit numbers as looking after 12 walkers in the dark was preferable to a couple of hundred!!  It was about this time, with a walk scheduled to start late on a winter Saturday afternoon, that I got a call from BBC Radio Gloucestershire!  They had seen the walk advertised in the local paper and were intrigued, not least as to why people would tear themselves away from the warm settee in front of the telly and venture out into the cold dark countryside!  They wanted an interview and whilst I was imagining a trip to the cosy studio, with a bit of corporate hospitality in the “Green Room!” I realised that the presenter wanted to meet me on the common at the point where the walk was due to depart the following weekend.  So I found myself waiting on the edge of the common after work on a rather wet and windy teatime, as what little daylight there had been began to drain from the sky, the blustery wind blowing in and out of the nearby trees and the wheels of the cars carrying people home from work to their warm cosy homes, whooshed passed on the wet road sending cascades of water dangerously close to where I was standing, out of the car putting on a brave face for my “five minutes of fame!” well it was all about the great outdoors and what harm was a little rain going to do!  In fact, I’ve always said that unfortunately, as particularly then I carried a few extra pounds, a bit of rain doesn’t shrink you!!

The radio presenter arrived, a young lady, totally unsuitably clad in trendy pukka jacket, fashion hat and heels with a tape recorder over her shoulder, in imminent danger of being swamped by the passing traffic!!  Then, the problems started, with the thrashing trees and whooshing wet wheels totally throwing the recording levels and likely to drown out the interview.  So, she decided that the interview needed to be done out in the wilds of the open common land where the walk was to take place, to give it atmosphere, and we ended up venturing further and further out onto the waterlogged common, the presenter’s heals sinking deeper and deeper into the ground the further we went!  But, I suppose all BBC reporters must have had “the show must go on” training and unfazed, she was finally happy we had the required solitude and atmosphere and could manage to talk over the gusting wind without the trees and the driving rain, all the time thinking that the ensuing broadcast would probably be enough to put off even the most intrepid walker.  So hoping for at least one participant, as we parted company back at the cars, after the presenter had used the best part of a box of tissues wiping the mud from her heels and the odd splash on her tights, I invited her to come for the actual walk that weekend!  She was somewhat non-committal, but not unexpectedly, didn’t arrive, despite it turning out to be a beautiful crisp evening with a full contingent of hardy being happy to leave the comfort of their homes.

I mentioned earlier that I ended up with a bit of a following, and after several walks we decided that as many of the participants were single people wanting the security of walking in a group, the walks could become a novel form of “dating agency” with codes in the walk description to alert those interested to the possibilities, things slightly more subtle than walkers invited who enjoy travel and theatre visits and have a GSOH (good sense of humour, for those not in the know!!  Well, in our flippant moments, whilst strolling in the moonlight, we thought that if you met with someone on a night walk, liked what you heard then you could arrange to meet up on a daytime walk and find out if you liked what you saw!  I’m not sure if I can claim any romantic successes, or indeed subsequent relationships, but such talk does remind me of what must be one of my most memorable guided walks ever, in daylight or darkness!

A couple of days before one night walk I received a phone call from a lady wanting to come on the walk with her husband, but she was a little worried as they were a little elderly and would we be covering much distance or venturing onto very uneven land.  I assured them that the walk was quite short with plenty of stops for me to interpret the night time environment or to spin a yard or two and that we would be staying on the top of the common on relatively level paths, easy to follow as they had been worn down onto the underlying light –coloured limestone, and lit by the lights shining up from Stroud and reflecting off the clouds or if it was a clear night by the light of the full moon due that night.

As we gathered in the dusk the lady and her husband duly arrived and introduced themselves.  They proceeded to tell me that they were on holiday from Australia, where they had emigrated some forty years previously, having originated in Stroud and they knew the common from their courting days at the end of the Second World War!!  All assembled we set off at a leisurely pace across the common, stopping for me to point out interesting places, how the lights and darkness accentuated the geological features and a highwayman thrown in for good measure!  However, it quickly became apparent that although now quite elderly and making what they thought would be their last visit “home”, the intervening years hadn’t dimmed the memories of evenings and night time spent on the common watching the night sky lit up by the German bombs falling on distant Bristol and other highlights of their courting, as they started to get quite giggly and nudge one another and ask if they remembered the night that was lit up by their antics in that particular dip or old quarry on the edge of the common.  They ended up stealing the show, much to everyone’s delight, and at each stop before giving my spiel, I ended up asking if they had anything to tell us and more often than not they did and their stories were generally saucier than mine!!  A memorable night was had by all, as they reminisced about their memorable nights all those years ago, as I ended up leaving them too it, their dialogue being far more entertaining than mine.  Sadly, they were due to return to Australia shortly afterwards, so I wasn’t able to invite them to lead another walk, but hopefully their last night walk up on the common gave them plenty to talk about with their friends back in Australia, and how this time they had an audience!!

Therefore, this has been a rather long winded explanation of why I’m a noctambulist, not a sleepwalker in the sense of a somnambulist, who rises from their bed in a state of deep sleep and wanders, but rather one who is wide awake and chooses the hours of darkness to wander in wonder, aimlessly or with a deep sense of purpose, indeed therapy, marvelling at the scenery as well as managing to if not quite to put the world to rights, at the very least sort out that niggling problem, the solution of which has totally eluded you, whilst remaining sedentary at home.  If you’ve never tried it, I thoroughly recommend it, as did fellow noctambulists:

I have been one acquainted with the night.  I have walked out in rain – and back in rain.  I have outwalked the furthest city light.  Robert Frost

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day.

Vincent Van Gogh

And it doesn’t have to even be out in the countryside in the middle of nowhere;

Walk some night on a suburban street and pass house after house on both sides of the same street each with the lamplight of the living room, shining golden, and inside the little blue square of the television, each living family riveting its attention on probably one show; nobody talking; silence in the yards; dogs barking at you because you pass on human feet instead of wheels. 
Geoff Nicholson, The Lost Art of Walking