It's wierd how a smell or a line from a song can take you back decades to a distant memory and put you right back into that moment. Mine came this week from thumbing through a trail guide in W's and glimpsing "... parrots ..." as the page flew past. The human brain has a remarkable ability to capture an event that the eye hardly registers and trigger a chain of associations to drag a memory from the depths.

After a walk I usually take a few weeks out to reflect on my blisters, get used to sleeping in a bed and eating things that haven't been freeze-dried. Round about the three week mark though I start to get itchy feet and lurk in bookshops looking for the next route and this is how I came to be standing in W's flicking through Martin Wainwright's new guide to the late, great Alfred Wainwright's Coast-to-Coast walk (not sure if they're related, remind me to google this later.) The glimpse of the word "parrots" took me back 6 years to a long night in the Bluebell at Ingleby Cross discussing the subject of tropical birds on the Cumbria/Yorkshire border as I flicked back through the book to the section about Kirkby Stephen and read the line "Don't be surprised to meet parrots here."

The conversation in the Bluebell covered the usual gossip about who had dropped out and who'd seen who on the longest day of the walk. There was a bitter/sweet atmosphere of "Oh crap/Yaay we've done the hardest bit of the walk and are only three days from the end." At which point I casually asked the question "Did you see the parrots in Kirkby Stephen?" (for the benefit of our American readers, please substitute "penguin" for "parrot" and "Death Valley" for "Kirkby Stephen".) The rest of the conversation went something like this:

"Eh?"
"I said 'Did you see the parrots in Kirkby Stephen?'"
"Parrots?"
"Yes, parrots"
"In Kirkby Stephen?"
"Aye, coming out of town past the quarry. About 8 or 9 parrots flew out of a stand of pines as I walked past"
"Are you sure they weren't magpies?"
"Look I know what you mean, short stubby wings and long tails but these were much bigger and had parrot beaks"
"You know magpies can look blue or green if the sun hits them from the right angle"
"I know but some of these were red and like I say, much too big to be magpies"
"Do you want another pint?"
"Yeah Ok, now about these parrots..."
"Are you sure they weren't magpies?"

And so it went. Today I finally had the courage to google the phrase "parrot kirkby stephen" and 6 years on can now confirm that my marbles are intact. There's a bloke out that way called John Strutt who has collected them from breeders over the years and operates a kind of avine open house for parrots and parakeets, letting them fly free or roost when the weather sets in. By all reports they are no threat to tourists but vistors to the area are advised to keep a firm hold of their chips.