“On the first day of Christmas…….

……my truelove gave to me”…..yes well, ours weren’t in the pear tree, they were hanging in the game cupboard for several days. ‘tis the season of “shoots” and we have had quite a few of the family (and dogs) staying attending several shoots around the area.
Now please understand we know nothing about the finer points, but from what we have picked up talking to various people and keeping our ears open it goes something like this…..you get invited to…. or you buy your place…. or you buy…. “The Shoot”. This gives you the opportunity to get into your ‘shooting clobber’ (quite a fashion statement as you can see)…load up enough ordinance to start a small international incident, have a really GOOD BREAKFAST…..(cooked by the servant….”moi”)..pile into the Range Rovers and off you go into the freezing wilds. Now the rules of engagement seem to be very strict.
First of all there are the “guns” and the “beaters” and the “picker uppers” - the beaters scare the birds out of the undergrowth (the drive) and the guns line up in their proper places and blast hell out of the birds….pheasant, partridge and the odd magpie type thing…and the picker-uppers send in the dogs and do just that. After a few drives someone opens a bottle of ‘sloe gin’ and all the guns get a drink After doing this a few times it’s off to lunch, usually catered. Everyone has a jolly good time and on a good day shoot several hundred birds!!!! The person paying for the shoot puts up several thousand quid and then for each bird shot there is a fee of about 35 quid per bird ……so a good shoot cost about 10,000quid! I don’t get it, but it’s sport for some I suppose.
On the subject of birds, we have Mr & Mrs Goose living on the pond, they sleep on a raft in the middle of the pond to protect them from the fox. It’s very cold now and while there is no snow, there is a lot of ice around. We were worried that the pond would freeze over and the fox could get the geese…..BUT, get this, each goose takes a turn throughout the cold and frosty night, to swim around and around which prevents the ice completely forming on the pond
The days are crisp and clear and the sun is very low in the sky and rises like an orange ball about 8.30am ……travels around the sky like a silver dollar and then sets about 3.30pm with the most spectacular sunsets. It’s colder here than Tromso at the moment and talking with them up there today, there is still no snow in Tromso…this is the Arctic Circle!!!! It better get happening by next week!!! Have heaps to ‘blog’ so will do so again within the next few days…..thanks for the keeping in touch, it’s great for us xxxxx