'Sorry, but I wasn't feeling it'

Fresh from the opening meet, Tessa Waugh hasn't quite yet been bitten by the hunting bug. Without the crisp autumnal air and cheek-pinching cold she hoped for, it's a sluggish start

- Tessa Waugh

THE opening meet should be one of the most exciting days in the year for hunting people. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Most of us are not crazy about the day and attend dutifully in the same way we do on Boxing Day; it was no different pre-ban. The South and West Wilts held theirs for many years in an unpromising section of the country where the best hope for a find was a yard full of brambles, ancient cars and other rubbish behind the house of some old family friends called “the Baxters”.

North Dorset has become so Cotswoldesque that there are bungalows on that ragged patch of ground now. You wouldn’t find a fox there even if you wanted to.