From the birds in the trees to the fresh flowers laid on headstones, graveyards sustain life in surprising and touching ways
Walking fatigue is everywhere. It is the idea of it, rather than the actual one-foot-in-front-of-another business. Much as I have enjoyed watching my usual route behind the dump and along the cycle path evolve from frozen to liquid mud, spotting the first nitrous oxide cartridges of the year blooming in the undergrowth, I am officially mad with boredom. It has been six months since the exhilarating time someone set fire to a sofa along this route and my sluggish synapses need stimulation.
So, now I walk to the cemetery. A brutal (and very funny) slur last month by the Canadian writer Monica Heisey – on the “joyless trudge” that is the British walk – highlighted walking to the cemetery as an egregious example of our national brand of self-denial as leisure activity. On behalf of graveyard trudgers nationwide, I must defend the cemetery walk.
