The answer was "No"!

"Surely you won't be going beating in this?" said The Big Boss looking through the kitchen window at the blizzard raging outside as I was about to leave for the day's shooting on Friday.

"Hardly believe it myself!" I replied, picking up my rucksack of 'might be needed on journey' essentials (Tony's Special Bread cheese sandwich, hot soup, hip flask, dog's lunch, spare gloves, hats,fleece, whistle, lead etc etc etc).

"We'll probably be home within the hour!"

Huh! The heck we were!

That little blizzard eased in time for the Guns to arrive 'on time' and off we went.

"We'll take them through the middle" chortled Plum the Keeper "and with the good shots we've out today we'll be done and dusted by dinner!" (confusingly, that means lunchtime..)

Boy was he wrong........ thanks to two chaps getting it seriously wrong when sent on 'Point' (possibly The Most Heinous Crime in life-in-the-field) two key drives were ruined (birds flew the wrong way) and we found ourselves battling through numerous snow showers and storms till almost dusk in order to satisfy the shooting men.......

Saturday morning: "I've been worrying about you driving over to the shoot today with all the snow on the roads" said The Boss on waking to the sight of yet more snow falling.

"I'll be OK in the 4x4 if I take it steady" I said with absolute confidence - almost. But I packed some cat litter and a shovel and an extra jacket and a sleeping bag - just in case. And off we went. And, actually, a steady run at max 40mph saw us, uneventfully at the meeting place in only double the time it normally takes us. And we battled through snowstorms and blizzards again. Again on the promise of finishing early if the guns achieved the 'Bag' they wanted. Which of course - again - they didn't. So once more we returned home at dusk - slowly though on far clearer roads than in the morning.

I feel I am beginning to learn a few lessons:

1 Finishing early "if the Guns get their bag" is a Gamekeeper's whacking white lie

2 Only pea-soup fog stops a day's shooting........