Somerset: An Apology

Those of you, if any, who read "Cow Boys" may be labouring under the impression that Somerset is a little wet. I now wish to withdraw any insinuation or suggestion that it is in any shape or form wet, slightly damp, or even moist. I am now closer informed; further and better particulars (as mi' learned friends would say) have been furnished by courtesy of an end of season shooting visit to mid-Wales.

Approaching the Welsh borders in late afternoon in the dark it occurred to me that the drizzle that had been making itself gradually known was building up some force. The windscreen wipers were doing the final chorus of the can-can, and there was an awful lot of puddles lurking about, hurling themselves with a desperate despair across the bonnet whenever I least expected it.

"Just a heavy shower" I thought and drove on. An hour later, as the heavy shower continued in even greater torrents, I turned into an extraordinarily twisting climbing and plummeting lane. After ten minutes, I began to wonder if I had accidentally turned into a mountain stream system, the way old ladies turn onto railway lines at level crossings. No lights, no houses, just water falling from all angles, too much to proceed at more than about 15 miles per hour (which is not the speed the old girl likes to be driven at). If the Rangy had been a Riva motorboat I would have been immensely proud of the waves cresting from her prow and down either flank, but I was not so sure the having the V6 underwater for the bulk of the journey was going to prove terribly good for it.

I was considering stopping to get into my waterproofs when below me appeared a light. This either had to be the village of Pontyaffonflantccwmbach or the Eddystone lighthouse, so I sailed cautiously on and within minutes life was suddenly made good again by the remarkable vision of a long white building, lights at all windows, and the hugely welcome words "The Jones Arms" emblazoned across the front.

We will pass briefly over the complete soaking of self and kit as it was transferred from car to chintzy bedroom, the ruination of a fine pair of brogues by repeated immersion in puddles that elsewhere would have fenced off as dangerous flooded mineshafts, a car that within seconds of the hatch been opened was as wet inside as out.  Let us move to the sinking of the first pint of a fine local brew, and the prompt arrival of its twin. Which was made even more enjoyable by the arrival in the bar of various other drowned rats vaguely resembling my shooting syndicate mates.

Let us also pass over the pleasures of pump and table, but do let us pause several times during the night to listen to rain beating against the tiny window and pounding on the low roof, water violently gurgling down some nearby drain pipe, and then let us meet again to the welcome sound of knife and fork tackling bacon, sausage, and egg. And to the door opening to admit a small dark dripping figure, clad in damp tweed and a big grin. "Good morning gentlemen! On your pegs in twenty minutes!"

Now, apart from sailing and diving, most normal people do not pursue their leisure and pleasure interests underwater. But shootists are not normal people and we had paid a lot of money for this day. So at 9.15 we were standing in what appeared to be a shallow lake with a wet wood in front of us and a wet wood behind. Wet spaniels, wet labs, wet pickers up, somewhere in that wet wood very wet beaters.

"They'll never fly in this" called Peter from my left.

"How will we know - we can't possibly see them if they do" responded David from my right. I kept my mouth shut; I had enough rain going down my shirt without letting it into my interior.

But do you know? Those damned Welsh pheasants, they must be specially bred for the conditions, little wiper units on their eyes,  tails that create an airstream to lift the raindrops away, waterproofed feathers so that all waterlogging is avoided. Out they came and high and fast they flew, lifting clean across the valley, curving as they went.

And do you know another thing about those Welsh waterproofed feathers? They are lead proof too. Nothing came down - except great cascades of raindrops from my hat. Maybe my cartridges were wet, maybe the force of that falling rain of the land of the red dragons bore my lead shot straight to earth, maybe the specific density of gunpowder is weaker in wet conditions.  Maybe when mounting the gun I didn't allow enough for soaked vest, shirt , tie, and waistcoat.  Somehow, these blasted pheasants just flew on. And over.  And across. And on several occasions around. But nothing came down.

Still the water ran down in great streams into my clothing. The only function of waterproof clothing seemed to be to keep the water in, so that everything squished and squelched as I swung. My boots were becoming heavier and colder by the minute and this was, I knew, because they were filling up from the water that was permeating down my plus fours.

Each drive merged into the next, as we peered into the black sky, blinded by searing wetness lashing across our pink faces. The faces of the pickers-up wore that expression that the failing shootist knows so well: "Soft bloody amateurs!"

Peter shouted down the line "And we do this for pleasure!"
"Try owning a football club!" shouted back the richest syndicate member.   Soggy silence fell again.

Finally, we came to the last drive. We lined up, creakingly soggy at the bottom of a steeply sloping grass field. Above us a old wood, dark twisted shapes of wind blown trees. The wind driven rain lashed across into our faces. We stood, water running off sodden clothing, the only solace the thought that next would come a warming lunch and a decent red. We had much time to contemplate the possibilties of pork or beef or wet Welsh lamb as the beaters seemed to take an hour to get into position. Well, maybe it was ten minutes.  The birds flew hard and fast. The lead went up behind and below them. My boots slopped and slurped.

Then at last it was over, the spaniels and labs gambolled about pretending to look for birds that they knew were now falling about laughing in Powys. We sheathed our soaking guns in damp sleeves. Then one of us, the richest member I think, turned to the west, and silently pointed. We followed his stretching finger and looked west. The last of the rain was drifting past, the sunlight was breaking on the distant ridge and behind it the sky was blue.

Gentlemen of the Somerset Sahara; my apologies. You don't know the meaning of the word "wet". But I do.

The Day of the Spaniel

Communist versus Fascist; Russia against America; the Labour/Tory divide; Gladstone and Disraeli; Manchester City vieing with Manchester United. These are nothing compared with that age-old endless debate: Spaniels or Labs?

Like living north or south of the Thames, every shooter, beater, and picker up is born either a spaniel supporter or a labrador lover. Only in matrimony may positions be compromised, where the household has to hold two or three of both. (Children are of course discouraged in such relationships, they are difficult in their eating habits, won't sleep in sheds, and cannot be thrown in lakes to retrieve the badly dropped pheasant.)  Out in the field the proud owner will stand back from the line, at his or her heels the chosen black or yellow (whatever happened to chocolate?) short or rough coats, sitting quietly and calmly, and looking snootily at the nervously shivering multi-coloured yipping piebald shaggy eared creatures who have dared to invade the field of dreams.  And as the day goes on, so does the endless argument, the bramble penetrating qualities of the spaniel ventilated against the gate scaling abilities of the lab, the anarchistic independence of the spaniel compared with the adoring loyalty of the labrador.

Your correspondent does himself have a firm preference, which he will not reveal for fear of death threats and sneering remarks (but he has a deep admiration for long floppy ears).

So last week, finding a Fellow Gun who had been allocated the family Golf so Mrs FG could take the Range Rover on a difficult and demanding trip to J Sainsbury, I naturally offered him a lift and was only a little taken aback when he opened the Golf front passenger door and a black and grey spaniel got out.

"You don't mind, do you?"

"Of course, not, wonderful dogs. Charming chap, what is his name?"

"SHE is Bonny. Twelve years old. I'm afraid she doesn't like sitting in the back, I'll keep her under my feet, if that's alright"

"Of course. What a lovely girl"

She was indeed a lovely girl and in spite of her advanced years sat neatly through each drive and dashed about in a very professional manner when instructed to find and fetch.  After each burst of activity she hopped into the front footwell and looked at me with those adoring spaniel eyes.  By the end of the third drive, and after the third sloe gin, I was wondering if I could get a dog basket in my tiny kitchen and what the boss would say to the odd yelp from under my office desk.

The final drive was on the very muddy bank of a winding stream and Bonny's owner was delighted to receive a pheasant from the reeds. He was not so delighted to find that his black and grey girlfriend now was mostly brown, including those big floppy ears. "Well," he said, "she's going to have to sit in the back now" and I slipped quickly out of the drivers seat and went round to the back door to clear a space and break out a cartridge carton for her to reside on.

"Oh Christ, out, out, Bonny" came from the front and I looked through just in time to see a whirlwind, an Amazonian storm, of hairy legs, heaving body, and flailing ears surrounded by a spray of wide splattering mud.

It is astonishing, the mud carrying capacity of spaniel hair. A liberal coating was applied to my beautiful leather seats, to the dashboard, to the windscreen, my multi-function steering wheel, the door panel, the audio unit. The valet company are taking the car in for the third time next week and this time hope to get the deep residue out ("Next time, try not to let it dry in, sir") . Not that I knew what post spaniel valeting would cost as I watched the Golf drive away, those loving spaniel eyes adoring me out of the back window.

 .