Walkies at Wisley, by Elizabeth Kay

By Elizabeth Kay - August 17, 2021

Every so often one of those situations arises when you’re not quite sure whether you have slipped into an alternative dimension, as there is something not quite right about everything. It can be something to exploit, and extrapolation can lead you down all sorts of weird and wonderful pathways. Yesterday it was Walkies at RHS Wisley day. We were warned as we entered, because dogs are normally strictly forbidden. There were possibly hundreds of dogs there, in different parts of the grounds, all on leads. I have never seen such well-behaved canines in my life. It was uncanny, I never heard a single bark all afternoon. No dog was reprimanded for anything, no legs were lifted, none of them were pulling at their leads or trying it on with other dogs. There was every conceivable breed and every conceivable colour, size or shape. After a while my mind started to drift, and I wondered whether the dogs were, in fact, taking their owners for a walk. That positions had been reversed by some quirk of genetics or a virus or nuclear fallout. And then I started to think about other occasions on which life had seemed to shift in an unexpected way.

Galapagos, where the animals are so tame that the sealions occupy all the seaside benches and the decks of moored boats – and they approach you underwater, wanting to play. Birds land right next to you and pinch your lunch. Iguanas feed underwater on the seaweed. Turtles swim right alongside you, gently moving their flippers up and down and paying you not the slightest heed. How long it will stay like that is another matter, but it was like visiting the Garden of Eden.

Seeing an extraordinary atmospheric event, which is so rare that you could never predict where it might occur. This was cloud iridescence in Costa Rica, one of the most beautiful celestial phenomena there is, which makes the Northern Lights look pedestrian. I was whitewater rafting in a small group, miles from anywhere, when someone pointed upwards and said, “What’s that?” It looked like a living rainbow, rippling like a snake, sometimes fat, sometimes thin, running through all the colours of the spectrum. Beneath it was a cauliflower-shaped cloud, above it a sky that was a deep dark blue with shafts of light shooting downwards. No one knew what it was. We watched in awe for about fifteen minutes, but because we were on the water no one had a camera other than the photographer who was paid to catch the expressions of terror on our faces when we hit a particularly vicious parts of the rapids. He took a couple of photos, but they don’t do the experience justice in any way at all. When we researched it after we got home we discovered that another incidence of it had made people think it was heralding the end of the world. If you do an image search you will get an idea of what it’s like, but the real thing is far more spectacular and the video I watched does not capture its utter strangeness.

A magpie landing on a fence right next to me, two feet away, which in the 1970s was very unusual. Magpies were a rare sight, rather than the ubiquitous garden pests of today. I said, “Hello,” and the magpie said “Hello” back. Had I found myself in Narnia, and encountered a talking beast? I said hello again, and once more it returned the greeting. A few minutes later a dustcart came round the corner, and one of the dustmen explained that it was a tame one, which had escaped from someone’s house.

Visiting China, and finding that everyone wanted to take my photograph, rather than the other way round. This didn’t just happen once, it happened all the time. Reverse expectations. Endless possibilities there.

Encountering a group of rare lemurs in Madagascar, on a walk that was usually reserved for early morning birders. The lemurs weren’t used to seeing humans during the day; they get up later, so they weren’t used to seeing humans at all. One of them approached us closer and closer, its little head on one side, its curiosity evident. You could almost hear it thinking, “They’re a bit big for lemurs. What on earth are they?”

Snorkelling is the nearest thing to exploring an alien world. In Indonesia, I found myself in the middle of a shoal of tiny iridescent green fish. And a few seconds later, surrounded by thousands of little iridescent blue ones. It was like swimming through glitter, and the strangest sensation. Shortly after that I was head-butted by some slightly larger fish, still only the size of my hand, as I had unwittingly strayed into their spawning ground. And after that I was followed by a cuttlefish, who was just as curious as the lemur had been although it was able to change colour to match its surroundings. At first I though part of the sea bed had detached itself, and was drifting with the current! I had never considered cuttlefish to be intelligent, but I now realise I was very wrong. They are, after all, closely related to octopuses who can solve problems and have eyesight very similar to our own.