Outdoor opinion
Mary-Ann on hill etiquette
The wind is tousling my hair into a bird’s nest, the sun’s shining, and there’s a walker coming towards me on the track. “Hello!” I beam. I’d smiled at him a few metres earlier, but hadn’t caught his eye. His expression – a crumpled, slightly tired frown – hadn’t changed. Maybe he was looking at something else. It seemed like he was looking at me, but maybe he has a lazy eye. Anyway, the ‘hello’ should do it. But instead of the expected return hello, and perhaps a one-liner about the weather, what I get is, “Sorry, do I know you?” I’m sometimes on the telly, and sometimes people ask me this. But not in this tone. This man knows he doesn’t know me. And he doesn’t think I think I know him.
“Er, no. I just…y’know…” I trail off. He stomps on without a backward glance. I stand gazing at his grumpy back, and feel like I’ve been slapped. What did I do wrong? Maybe Grumpy Man doesn’t know that out in the hills, you say hello. The barest minimum is a smile. Jokes about nearly being at the top (when you’re not) and ‘it gets flatter in a minute’ are optional but encouraged. Us Brits love our little social dances where everyone follows the universally accepted steps to the same tune. When you’re up a hill it’s surely even more obvious that the rules apply. Me and Grumpy Man are from the same tribe. The proof? We’re wearing Gore-Tex and carrying sandwiches and maps, we both think there’s purpose in walking up hills for no purpose. He’s the first person I’ve seen in an hour and a half – and this joins us with an unspoken bond of togetherness for a fleeting, wind-tousled moment. Except, clearly, he doesn’t agree.
I spend the next few minutes chatting out loud to myself to compensate for his unsociability. Then I round the corner and see thirty or so folk wearing pink feather boas and bunny ears. They don’t look like they go up hills very often, but they’re definitely having fun. Loud fun. The kind of fun that suggests they don’t have tea in their flasks.
“Helloooo!!!” the frontrunners yell at me, waving their boas. Harpo the dog lollops ahead and is enveloped in a cuddle from a lady wearing her bunny ears under her chin. I wonder if this is why Grumpy Man was grumpy. Maybe he’d been hoping for quiet seclusion and got boas and bunny ears instead. “It’s a GORGEOUS DAY!!” shouts one chap in a sequined T- shirt. “We’re LOVING THIS, aren’t we DENISE?!” and everyone whoops in reply. I agree, it is a gorgeous day and I, too, am loving this. I ask where they’re going (partly to check they know), say happy birthday to Denise, accept some sweeties, and tell them, with a wink, that they’re nearly at the top. The group pootle on, giggling and singing, enjoying the mountains and their bunny ears. Maybe not the usual, but definitely part of the tribe.
“Maybe he’d hoped for quiet seclusion & got pink boas and bunny ears instead”