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

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They’re helped to settle in by the people from the B’n’B they stay in on their first visit, people with their own family troubles, and they get to know other residents and incomers, including the farmer, Wilf, with whom Sidhu has profound conversations that often make them both weep. So much felt familiar yet also felt strange, a testament to how vast this beautiful countryside is and how well written this book is.

I requested this book from NetGalley after seeing it on Paul Halfman Halfbook’s blog post about upcoming books – one of his other commenters mentioned they were going to look them up on NG and I followed suit and ended up with a couple. It’s a book about moving through grief and the people we find in the midst of our sadness – and what this small community in the Welsh countryside can teach us about life.After hearing an interview on Radio 4 I had high hopes but ultimately this is a self-absorbed, mawkish and pretty patronising read. Sidhu doesn’t mention her Indian heritage much, apart from musing on how Indian women are often put upon wherever they are, and that she was uncomfortable with the assumption she did or should have children when she went to visit relatives there. I picked up this book as living away from the city is an aspiration but this book is about so much more.

I thought Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking was an excellent portrayal of grief in the aftermath of death.Here, in I Can Hear the Cuckoo: Life in the Wilds of Wales, Kiran is doubly challenged to tell her painful tale of her mother’s loss during Christmas Eve and her subsequent burial on New Year’s Eve, which she can never enjoy as others; indeed, she has never enjoyed this festive season due to her father’s alcoholism during her childhood days and her mother’s demise in adulthood. are tantamount to a country person writing a book about moving to London and being awestruck by the public transport network and the number of restaurants available. Having experienced profound grief myself, her depth of perception and expression reached into my very soul. The film won Best Documentary Short Film at Tribeca Film Festival 2022, beating over 7,000 submissions and 20 finalists.

The book is a tapestry of two different worlds intertwined, capturing the extremities of life itself. but she quickly discovers a sense of belonging in the small, close-knit community she finds there; her neighbour Sarah, who teaches 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 with an inspiring attitude for life; and Wilf, the farmer who eats the same supper every day, and taught Kiran that the cuckoo arrives in April and leaves in July.

I don’t succeed in reading the books/magazines/newspapers on the tablet, I prefer the old dear paper and, moreover, I prefer to not read books where sad animal stuff happens.

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. She notes it’s odd to be a Brown woman in a rural Welsh setting, but also notes that everyone’s different there and you are compelled into companionship with people with whom you have little in common; also, everything has been there for centuries and is infinite so that pales into insignificance. I am so happy to know Kiran received such a wonderful welcome and found a sense of peace in the Welsh Valleys, the home of my own forebears. I fell in love with the Wales countryside, mountains and valleys as I related to the human and emotional stories of the protagonist experiencing new perspectives in family and surroundings. They speak in cliche philosophical soundbites, and feel to me as though they are lifted from various Enid Blyton farm stories rather than real life.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. After reading this memoir, do watch Heart Valley, an award-winning short documentary on the life of Wilf Davies, a 73-year-old farmer who eats the same food for more than 10 years and has never left country life for city life in his lifetime. Kiran has written so movingly about her experiences, in which she takes the reader on the journey of both joy and heartache. small things in life matter and I am grateful this book has been firmly planted in wales,with a little help from a cukoo.