Last updated 11:39, Friday, 16 May 2008

The trick, I now understand, is not to take anything too seriously, expect nothing formerly recognised as common good sense and forget all previous measures of logic.But there I was on a warm spring evening, with full complement of Solway Singers, a glass of bubbles, collection of music lovers and several choruses of Lavender’s Blue, Dilly-Dilly.

“So, can you explain something to me? Why was July 5 chosen as Cumberland Sausage Day?”

“Because the Fourth of July was already taken.”

He’d considered his response long enough for scathing flippancy to be ruled out. The rationale was perfectly sound to him... so, who was I to argue?

“What a thing for any chef to do! Cook and serve lunch on the summit of Skiddaw!”

“He’d never have got his pans to the top of Scafell Pike.”

“Of course. Now I get it.”

Was he deliberately winding me up? Maybe just a little bit. But surely not entirely. Very slowly perhaps I am beginning to get it.

You don’t have to be mad to live here but it helps if you’re prepared to become so.

Or if not mad exactly, at least leaning towards the happily daft.

There have been times when I’ve feared something might be being lost in translation. An urban Yorkshire girl trying to make sense of a largely rural Cumbrian environment... well you must know how it is. Loads of fun, lots of novelty but sometimes tricky.

Now, though, maybe the dense fog of confusion is lifting – to quote an old boss of mine.

At least twice a week, when passing in a corridor, he’d greet with a predictably enthusiastic: “Hello Anne! Good to see you!” As though I’d just popped in for a spot of social intercourse.

And then: “Is the fog lifting? Are we squaring the circle?”

The same sequence was repeated with alarming regularity and the only reply – at least for anyone with a mortgage to repay – could be: “Absolutely!” which seemed to please him and send him cheerily on his way to the board room, from whose window he had a habit of tut-tutting at city centre traffic flow.

I never had a clue what he was on about. But I always knew what to expect.

In Cumbrian terms, the unexpected is all that confidently can be expected. And that’s fabulously pleasing. Those who’ve been here forever – born, raised and eaten the sausage – take it all in their stride. The rest of us need time to adjust to required levels of daftness. No more or less extreme than daftness in that other county. But different.

“I’m having a choir in my conservatory.”

“Naturally.”

“And 50 or so guests with champagne, canapes and shepherd’s pie.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Will you come?”

“Delighted. If I’m not busy baking Cumberland rum nicky on Striding Edge that evening, I’ll be there.”

Funny how perspectives change when surroundings alter. Setting aside the fact that I’d probably have to shoehorn a soloist on Classic FM into my own conservatory, there was a time not very long ago when mere mention of my accepting an invitation to conservatory chorals and shepherd’s pie would have had me rushed into The Priory faster than Gazza on a three-week gin binge.

If spotted at the back struggling to stifle a giggle, it was only because I was trying hard not to dwell too closely on what the old gang at TGI Friday’s – worse still, the rugby lads in the Church House – might have made of changed perspectives. They’d never have coped with the dilly-dilly, that’s for sure.

“Steve Cram’s walking Hadrian’s Wall,” I told one of them. “Remember him?”

“Sure do. Why’s he doing that?”

“Because he’s going to walk the Great Wall of China.”

“It’s nothing like the Great Wall of China. That’s daft!”

“And your point is...?”

Daft is good. If we’re honest, we all like a bit of daft. Daftness has always appealed, but having an abundance of it all over the place is a treat. Being part of it is even better.

“Been doing anything much?” Jane asked in her weekly girls’ night call from Leeds (She doesn’t like to drink alone, so she rings me and we do it together, courtesy of BT).

“Oh well, you know, the usual. Looking forward to Cumberland Sausage Day, conservatory chorals, counting curlews at the airport.”

“Right...”

“Oh, and on a lovely evening last week, went walking in new cork wedges, fell off and did for my ankle. Swelled up like an elephant’s, the foot went black. Other than that...”

“You went walking in wedges?”

“And fell off, yes. Trod on a stone or something.”

“Nobody walks on wedges. Really Anne, you get dafter as you get older!”

“You honestly think so? Gosh, Jane. Thanks very much.”

And I meant it.