The Season is over. Now is the Holidays, which will last, unless I find a very kind friend with an overstocked grouse moor, until late September, and the thrill of partridge across dry stubble. So, you may ask, why no summary of the winters activities, no valedictory comment on the thrills and spills of the 2011 to 2012 chase? Has old B retreated into some cave close to the rearing pen to live off poached pheasant (no, madam, that does not mean simmered in white wine and a herb garni) for the summer? Or even gone off with Stuffer to the African plains in search of the wonderfully exotic?
No, there is a worse reason. B is having to work. One of the problems with the fun of the chase is that it does not come free. No Sir. If Mrs B knew what was spent on the simple pursuit of the odd pheasant for the pot there would be trouble. The sort of trouble which starts in Dolce and Gabbana, proceeds to Armani, has a quick lunch at C, and then finishes the afternoon in Ferragamo.
B is not into supporting the Italian economy, not that part of it on that scale. But Mrs B was a country girl before Chelsea beckoned and she has some idea of what a day walking about in the rain can cost, or a pair of yellow woollen socks, or some (quickly muddied) boots. Her knowledge of the cost of a 250 bird day is a little out of date (nor, I think, does she compute the cost of fifteen of them) but she knows this hobby comes in a bit more expensive than, say, moderate stamp collecting. so, no words are spoken, B does not ask the price of that frock or those shoes, and Mrs B does not enquire how much 4000 cartridges might be, or whether it is necessary for the tailor to run off another pair of plus fours. (Why, incidentally, should trousers cost MORE when there is a foot of material missing from each leg?) But there is a long established understanding and the bank account has to be primed ready for the onslaught from town and country.
But all this takes a certain amount of that folding stuff - or on this scale - that electronically transferred stuff...
So, from February onwards B rolls off to the office and works very hard (no, really) on his esoteric structures and incomprehensible products. He attends the training seminars, laughs at the boss's jokes, mingles at the evening receptions and away days, and is agreeable to rising stars and cautiously dismissive of falling ones, (not too much so, you never know when they will pop up again). Clients are breakfasted lunched and dined, proposals are drafted, rivals rubbished, and the mandates and instructions roll in.
In the quiet moments B looks out of the window and sees not streets, red buses, and towering office blocks, but autumn woods, brown and purple hills, and high hedges. He hears not raised voices negotiating hard, but the squawk of a nervous pheasant and steady tapping of sticks on trees. Anxious spaniels whimper instead of analysts muttering whilst rerunning Monte Carlo simulations. When he looks back at the mountains of paper on his desk he knows that if shuffled correctly and dealt out in the right order it will be mysteriously transformed into a day here, and two days there, into howling winds and curving pheasants, into partridges breaking in covies, fine reds in good company, a very muddy Rangie with a couple of the best mates lolling in the leather seats.
So in the office B gets his head down and looks ne'er to left or right. And Mrs B strolls thoughtfully up and down Bond Street, wondering why the man at Beretta is watching the street so hopefully.
