Tuesday 22nd December Day 273

7.30   How do these early morning radio presenters always manage to sound so jolly and optimistic morning after morning?  Don’t they ever wake up feeling irritable, cross or sad?  I have radio two on and Zoe Ball is chirruping away like she always does, pouring flattery over all her guests.  Maybe these presenters are not actually human and they have been programmed to be irritatingly nice all the time.

11.00  Well the promised rain has not materialised and it is very mild today so we are going to go on a longer walk now that the foot is so much better.  It’s still very muddy under foot of course, so it is a wellies walk for me.  We do a bit of road walking today and then cut off along the Wealden way, alongside stubbly fields.  Normally around here we don’t see anyone at all, so it is a surprise to see ahead of us in the bottom field next to the woods, quite a crowd of people, all standing still and as I approach and realise what it going on, they seem to turn with one accord to look at us.

I have never used this diary as a platform for debate or airing my opinions and I do not intend to do so now, so this is just observation but…….  The crowd of people are in fact all men in country tweeds most of them, standing or sitting, well spaced out on shooting sticks.  Then I hear the shouting and bashing of beaters, beating the undergrowth in order that the pheasants fly up into the air for the tweedy men to pick off with their rifles.  The noise is absolutely deafening and thank goodness my dog appears to be completely bomb proof when it comes to fireworks and guns thank god, or I hate to think what she would have done.  The cacophony stops as I determinedly continue along the public footpath where some beaters are standing in case some wayward terrified pheasant should have the audacity to appear from the woods and then someone says ‘Oh look there’s someone else over there, a woman with a dog’  How dare I?  The question I have is, how can you call this ‘sport’?  Just standing there waiting for other people to put up the prey in front of you so you can take a pop at it.  Slightly weighted on the side of the guns isn’t it?

Anyway I must stop this Bah Humbug, it’s nearly Christmas and after all we did manage to get home unscathed.  I would really like to open that box of French truffles I have been given but it’s not really quite near enough to the big day and I know once opened they probably wouldn’t even last till Christmas.