The ‘high' hunting gives

It was a brief return to the field for H&H’s hunting editor Catherine Austen before the third lockdown begun, but well worth it

- Catherine Austen

IT was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?

Those of us who were able to get around a month’s worth of hunting between lockdowns were very lucky; in lots of places it seemed to be a good scenting period and hounds went particularly well. Of course now I wish I had hunted every day God gave me, but major inconveniences like a vast amount of pre-Christmas work – which obviously pays for hunting, but does get in the way – meant I think I had five days.

I may only be speaking for myself, but you can get out of the groove of hunting surprisingly quickly. At a distance, it looks like a great deal of time, effort and money for not that much. I wasn’t as excited about my first day back as I should have been, and almost grumpily scrubbed my grey horse from head to tail the day before (and again in the morning), tracked down my stock pin and boot pulls and so on.

But, as I hacked back to the lorries with an old friend in fading light, I was in love once again. It hadn’t even been that great a day, but a nice, sharp afternoon hunt with hounds in view in front of me, banter with old friends and a happy, willing horse made me remember that it most definitely was all worth it.