A bucket list? I’m too old for this sort of thing

I’ve never really approved of bucket lists, in which people arbitrarily dream up a number of things they want to do before they die – such as pestering dolphins, cluttering up Everest or throwing themselves out of aeroplanes while learning Mandarin – so I was filled with dread when my wife announced in January that she had a list of her own.

“Oh please, not the Cresta Run,” I groaned to myself.

Eventually she revealed the first item on her list: to hear the cry of the curlew, that leggy wader with the long curved bill, and to hear it as it arrived at its upland breeding grounds. So, slightly less tricky than Everest, but it still involved one tube journey, four train journeys, and then a taxi ride to get to Whitewell, in the Ribble Valley, in Lancashire, where the scenery was magnificent, the hotel excellent and, as we were warned, the mobile phone signal “somewhat lacking”.

Suppose the curlews hadn’t shown up yet? As we walked through the woods alongside the river Hodder, listening to the raucous mockery of the cock pheasants and the songbirds singing their socks off, I began to fear the worst. Then we arrived in the open country and suddenly, from the top of the golden sunlit hill above us, we heard the “coor-li” by which the curlew helpfully identifies itself.

Of course, we never caught sight of any of the blighters, but their distant call accompanied our walks for the rest of the day. It is usually described in the bird books as plaintive, but I’m not so sure. The bird also has a rippling watery trill, which sounds quite playful.

In fact, the most plaintive sound came from me, later that day, as I gasped my way up a dauntingly steep hill, vainly in search of a mobile phone signal. Top of my list of desires, just then, was to hear the chirrup of an incoming text message.

My wife hasn’t revealed what is next on her list. Fingers crossed. So far, no bungee jump. Do you think that the fancy dress habit in this country may be getting out of hand? At Test matches we are used to seeing rows of spectators dressed as nuns or bananas, all obviously believing there is safety in numbers and in lager. Others choose to sweat inside kangaroo or bear costumes. The joke is wearing thin and predictable.

So many occasions these days are seen as an excuse for dressing up. Huge efforts are now made to look a fright for Hallowe’en or for a Sixties night in the pub. Beware of the word “themed”. Look out, or you will find there is a Black Death themed night at the Dog and Duck, or Debbie and Bill will be celebrating their anniversary with an Eighties themed party, so everyone shows up dressed as a Rubik’s Cube or as Wonder Woman.

There has been a tremendous growth in businesses selling or hiring out fancy dress costumes, from mummies to musketeers, French maids to Smurfs, from Star Wars characters to Flintstones. This suggests that we don’t believe we can have any fun unless we are in costume.

Students at Pembroke College, Cambridge have been teased recently for cancelling their Round the World in 80 Days themed party because it could lead to “cultural appropriation” and be seen as racist. Those of us who do all we can to resist fancy dress may be grateful to them for providing us with an excuse that sounds suitably high-minded. Actually, for me, even “smart casual” smacks of cultural appropriation. More nature notes: before we set off on our curlew hunt last week I found a dead fox in our garden, lying next to the lily pond. I telephoned the council and they told me they would charge £10 to remove it, as if it was some old sofa I no longer wanted.

Sure enough, a pair of fox undertakers in high-vis jackets arrived the next morning and solemnly and tactfully removed the corpse. Like many others, our neighbourhood is overrun by suburban foxes. They trot impudently down our streets, rip open the plastic bags and strew the place with rubbish on bin days. They dig holes in gardens and burrow under my shed so that it is now lopsided.

In the week I received my new council tax bill, I realised that, like parking fines, these animals could be a nice little earner for local government when they finally kick the bucket. That harsh bark in the street in the middle of the night could represent another tenner and the council’s finance director probably stirs in his sleep and murmurs, “Tally-ho.”