Despite dire weather
forecasts for Sunday throughout the week, the day dawned fine and seasonally
cold. The rain held off until we had loaded hounds into the trailer at the end
of the day. As always David Palmer
gave
us a wonderful "lawn" meet in the courtyard of his lovely old house - mulled
wine and carrot cake are the order of the day here.Largely running over the chalky high ground overlooking the River Thames, this meet always rides well if a little slippery on the slopes to be negotiated at the beginning of the first line. One of the field unfortunately slipped up before the first fence and her horse came galloping through us at the front, determined not to miss the fun. He flew the first fence perfectly and galloped on, somewhat thwarted by being pushed into a dead end. But he clearly evaded capture and came flying past us again, only slowing down because of the stiff uphill climb, to
finally be caught at the canter. At least the horse enjoyed
himself!Hounds showed how well they can follow the line through stock, several fields having cattle
and sheep grazing - hard work for our foot followers to man the
many gates and control excited stock. A new loop was added to the third line,
entailing a really steep path up through the woods. This line then descends to
the bottom of the valley before climbing all the way back up again to finally
take on the famous wide holly hedge. Not too surprisingly, hounds caught up with
our noble runner, Derek before the end of the line, giving pause for all to
catch their breath. Few took on the big one - Robin's redoubtable Bones needed a
second look and Ian's Sam could not be persuaded to attack with sufficient pace and paid the penalty. It is a soft hedge to land in and pride was the only thing
hurt!The rain then started as we washed down horses and it took all the experience, determination and team work of the Berks & Bucks to load recalcitrant horses and extract stuck and skidding lorries. Robin's chain to the rescue again when manpower failed, this time with Phoebe's 4x4 as workhorse.