Every Thursday morning, I walk with my friend. The excuse is that we are walking her little dog together, but the real reason is that we enjoy each other’s company. We have been best friends for fifty-two years and still haven’t run out of conversation.

Last Thursday, we were walking along a country track between some bushes when I stopped. What’s that bird? I asked, hearing a lovely song but not expecting my friend to have any more idea than I. Quick as a flash, she brought out her phone; “Let me see on the app,” she said.  She turned on an app and recorded the bird song. Within seconds it came up with a thrush, then a robin and then a common whitethroat. I wouldn’t have even recognised one of those if I saw it, but, thanks to the Merlin app, I now would – although it might take me several goes to recognise the song.

I’ve downloaded the app for myself and have used it at home – starlings, jackdaws and robins – and at the coast – curlews, eider ducks and the piping calls of oyster catchers.

Until I started using this app, bird song was a mystery to me. I could just about tell the sharp “Jack, Jack!” of the jackdaws and the startled “Ahwuk, Ahwuk, Ahwuk” from a disturbed pheasant, but even the creamy song of a robin was only distinguishable if I could actually see the robin itself.

I think there are many things in life which we cannot truly enjoy until we have the distinctions in our mental vocabulary. Football, for instance, is just a ball being kicked around to me; a ball which occasionally goes into the goal to much cheering from the crowd, but I couldn’t tell you if it was a good game or bad, and as for the offside rule – well…

With my job, once the store has closed for the night, we are allowed to listen to music as we do our jobs. Most people listen on their headphones, but we have one member of staff who plays Indian music on his phone loudly enough for me to hear it from the next aisle as I check the dates on the cakes and he stacks the shelves with flour and sugar. It’s pleasant enough, but it’s just noise to me. I remember, however, many years ago, sitting in an Asian club with a colleague, listening to this genre of music, and noticing he had tears in his eyes. “I wish my wife were here,” he said. “They’re playing our song.” I couldn’t tell one song from another, but he could.

Can you think of areas in life that you quite enjoy but know you would enjoy far more if you learnt about them? It may be gardening, or architecture or art. It could be anything.

What would you like to learn about, so you can appreciate it more? 

Mary

A Moodscope member