A Winter Blunderland

The continuing cold spell will give rise to tales of devastation and derring-do for years to come: Mangal will recount the morning he saw Precious slide across the ice in the direction of her breakfast bowl: Ginger's piglets will believe forever that it was because they ventured out of their ark that The Great Boar made the world turn hard and white: Andromeda and her fellow Delinquents will dream of endlessly licking food-flavoured ice lollies off the ground whilst Samson will bore all his wives, not to mention the chaps next door, with homilies about how his was the only snout to discover what lay beneath the frozen wastes during The Pig Freeze.

The dog and I have tales too:

"Well you certainly won't be out bush beating today; snow may not stop the Guns but fog always does......".

Said the Big Boss on Friday morning as he supped his early morning cuppa in bed and gazed at the freeezing fog outside the window.

Just goes to prove that he too can be Wrong!

The Bestest Gundog in all the World and I trudged up to the village, again, to meet our colleagues at the appointed time, again: the relatively short journey setting the tone for the day; he fell in a snowdrift once and I floundered off my feet twice.

We started our beating day in the freezing fog and set off across a frozen landscape that few managed to negotiate without falling at least once. "We must be mad!" we all said when we finally reached the Cover crop.... "Totaly, utterly, barking mad!"

But then - that's a pre-requisite for bush beating.....

And it didn't get any better! Snow may make a winter wonderland --- and mask its numerous dips and undulations. But we found them! Boy did we find them! In fact we found them almost as well as The BGiatW and his colleagues found the birds (and hares) tucked up under its billowing duvet. To the unitiated - actually, to anyone ! - we looked like we'd all taken too many sips of certainly-not-tea! But we blundered on. And on. As a special treat - and for very good technical reasons too no doubt - our Kindly Keeper kept us at it without halt until the "day" finished in the early mid-afternoon! He's probably right - we couldn't have blundered along so easily with our tummies full of hot soup and revitalising goodies!

And it wasn't just the Dog's face which was covered in Frosticles: breath froze to beards and moustaches too and everyone with any length of hair had liberal quantities of icicle-tails hanging down..... all day long!

By close of play Humans and animals felt truly tested. Why do we continue? Well, there's the passion for the Sport and camaraderie of course but, Mad though we are, we get to see some utterly, eye-wateringly stunning scenery -panoramas that 'normal' people never witness -, we certainly get our share of fresh air and exercise and those of us who have them, gain a sobering appreciation of what the term "working dog" really means.

Mad? Yes: but blessed as well......