Thanks for all the memories

Even in a year of frustrating restrictions, there is some consolation in reflecting on glorious shooting days

A s a shooting man, I have been living on memories. Not distant ones of teenage holidays spent wandering here and there — usually with permission — in search of a rabbit or two. Nor, a little later, of my first encounters with flighting duck and driven or walked-up game, though these memories are all waiting for me to summon them up just as soon as I choose.

I could also relive one or two of the few occasions when I have stood at a peg on the grander sort of shoot, the sort where pheasants cross the line in — to me — unfamiliar abundance and where the bag, at the end of the day, is counted in hundreds rather than in tens or even single figures.

There are precious memories of perhaps a dozen days when I have stood in a butt waiting for the dark shapes of grouse to skim towards me over the heather. There are, of course, many more memories of much humbler days, which brought me every bit as much pleasure as the grander type. Days at High Park or days spent rough shooting with one or other of my spaniels, days that typically ended with a pheasant or two and perhaps a couple of woodcock, with muddy breeks, much muddier boots and a deep sense of fulfilment and peace.

Anyway, it might be an idea to leave these countless memories since I am not really concerned with them here, but rather with those that have been occupying me each evening while I sip my way through those two essential glasses of preprandial sherry.

Consolation