I Can Hear the Cuckoo: Life in the Wilds of Wales

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Reading this book I felt wrapped and held in the unfolding story,while been given the space to explore,what is being offered in relation to my own journey,side by side. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

This heart-touching 19-minute video of a Welsh shepherd is a must-watch and highly recommended, as is the memoir. small things in life matter and I am grateful this book has been firmly planted in wales,with a little help from a cukoo. But as the months wear on, Kiran starts to connect with the close-knit community she finds there; her neighbour Sarah, who shows her how to sledge when the winter snow arrives; Jane, a 70-year-old woman who lives at the top of a mountain with three dogs and four alpacas; and Wilf, the farmer who eats the same supper every day, and teaches Kiran that the cuckoo arrives in April and leaves in July. She chooses fresh air, an auditorium of silence and the purity of the natural world - and soon arrives in Cellan, a small, remote village nestled in the Welsh valleys. After hearing an interview on Radio 4 I had high hopes but ultimately this is a self-absorbed, mawkish and pretty patronising read.Her article about her farmer friend Wilf was the 13th most read article in The Guardian in 2021, and was made into a short film Heart Valley, directed by Christian Cargill and produced by Pulse Films. Well, I see this will be available in paperback in September this year, so I’m encouraged – though it may already be in our library.

Kiran Sidhu never thought she could leave London, but when her mother passes away, she knows she has to walk out of her old life and leave her toxic family behind. Her words do not so much weave a tapestry as assemble a life’s quilt; each individual patch revealing multiple layers of her life and her growth. I have always believed ‘memoir’ as a genre is a tough nut to crack; it is because you have to tell your real-life (boring) story in an immersive tone and pace to keep your readers engaged - not an easy task by any means. After Kiran loses her mother, she escapes to the Welsh countryside - to allow herself to grieve away from turbulent city life in London, to leave her toxic family behind, and to find solace in the purity of the natural world. This is a woman who was struggling to cope with her mother's death and the family fallout so upped sticks from London to rural North Wales.

Beautiful descriptions of the wildlife and nature and the feelings that the author associated with her journey getting to know her new surroundings.

Having moved first to rural west Wales and then to a small town in Powys, it’d be interesting to compare the experiences of relocating – though of course there’s evidently more to this book than just moving house. Reading this book on my tablet through the NetGalley shelf app was a slightly tricky job, as it came out in double-spread pages in an odd font, with the next page accessed by swiping downwards, so you had to go left – right – down diagonally to the left – right, etc. Kiran Sidhu's book is a bit different as it's not solely about grief and death, although that's the underlying backstory. I Can Hear the Cuckoo is a tender, philosophical memoir about the beauty of a microscopic life, the value of solitariness, and respecting the rhythm and timing of the earth. The best parts of the book, for me, was the description of the individuals and community in a very small hamlet and the impact of the seasons.Sidhu has the blessing and the talent to reveal others to themselves, all while exploring her personal evolution. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). I gradually learned how to read it - this wasn’t my usual fare of “space opera” where one explosion leads the protagonist to deliver a stunning treatise on AI and humanity. Her stories of the Welsh countryside, the nature, birds, trees, animals, and the people who inhabited the small hamlet were magical. Read more about the condition New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages.