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

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We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Kiran has written so movingly about her experiences, in which she takes the reader on the journey of both joy and heartache. 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.

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.

I often forget to read the NetGalley books I have downloaded if I have a lot of library books out but I did fill out a recent survey and it asked a lot of questions about its Shelf app. 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. 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. Kiran Sidhu's book is a bit different as it's not solely about grief and death, although that's the underlying backstory.

I picked up this book as living away from the city is an aspiration but this book is about so much more. It started off well, the author's mother dies and she moves away from London to the Welsh hills to flee her toxic constrained family. The author’s descriptions of grief were quite well written but for the other aspects of her life that the book covers I wanted to tell her to just get a grip. 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. 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).About the Author: Kiran Sidhu is a freelance journalist and has written features, lifestyle and opinion pieces for The Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, The i Paper, The Independent, Metro, Woman magazine, Woman's Own and Breathe magazine. It's about grief, finding beauty in nature, creating a meaningful life through appreciation and joy in the simple things in life and the company of good people. and there were a lot of short chapters which meant there might be a blank left-hand page, getting you flustered.

The book starts with some pictures,which entice you in and help you relate to the book as you go along. The quiet life was a real revelation to her and I loved how she interspersed her new life in Wales, with looking back over her family history and the dark times during her mothers' illness. 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. 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. So much felt familiar yet also felt strange, a testament to how vast this beautiful countryside is and how well written this book is.

This heart-touching 19-minute video of a Welsh shepherd is a must-watch and highly recommended, as is the memoir.