Monday 27 February 2012

tally ho

It rained in the night, which made it difficult to see which pots needed watering.  I didn't think it had rained that much, but some things that had looked by the end of yesterday as though they were going to need watering in the morning felt heavy enough already, when I hefted them.  The phone got busy early, while I was trying to put labels on the last few items left from last week's deliveries.  The labelling consequently took a long time, as I kept having to break off to trot around the plant centre checking whether we had various things and reserving them, or find pen and paper to take messages for people.  The builders were hard at work sawing two holes in the side of the shop for the extra windows.  Cutting through long lengths of weather boarding which are attached to a timber frame, and then the underlying layer of OSB (oriented strand board) makes an extraordinary amount of noise, even using a hand saw.  I had to ask some of the callers to repeat themselves rather a lot of times.

I had an unusual mid-morning coffee break, going instead to watch the hunt gather and set off.  The boss invited us to go, and I was very curious to see it.  The fact the hunt was starting next door explained why since yesterday there had been signposts pointing across the car park for the Essex and Suffolk hunt foot followers.  There must have been forty or fifty horses by the time they all assembled, some large and magnificent in sober shades of bay and chestnut, and some small and dumpy in more plebeian or exotic colour schemes.  Many of them were beautifully turned out, with plaited manes, and tails carefully tied up out of harm's way.  The horses stood around looking relaxed about life, their riders chatting.  I was rather amazed at the insouciance with which the ladies handing out refreshments and the foot followers moved among them.  Since my brief childhood horsey phase I haven't had much to do with horses, but I thought you were not supposed to walk around the rear end of a horse in case you spooked it and it kicked you.  Anyway, that was partly my excuse for staying at the hunt for longer than my fifteen minute break, that and the fact that the owner said I must stay to see the hounds off.

The hounds mostly clustered in a tight and disciplined pack, away from the horses and the refreshments, though the boss's mother did have to drive one determined hound off the table with the cake and sausage rolls on it.  The huntsmen stayed with them, their red coats contrasting with the other riders' black, or greenish tweed.  There was also a terrier contingent, but they were kept in their travelling box mounted on the front of a quad bike, barking.  When the hunt finally set off I saw that the box had a mesh door, facing towards the rider, so the terriers could see out and see their handler.  Another box on the front of a second bike apparently held an eagle owl.  One foot follower had brought a tiny white terrier, which escaped any risk of being trodden on by riding on his shoulders throughout.

We'd been told to help ourselves to refreshments, so I did.  They were made by the gamekeeper's daughter, who is going to do the food for the new tea room, and they were extremely good.  I declined the owner's and boss's offers of a glass of wine at quarter to eleven in the morning, on the grounds that I had to go back and be polite and compos mentis with their customers for the rest of the day.  I was slightly surprised that the riders, who were about to go galloping over hedges and ditches, were cheerfully downing their stirrup cups beforehand.  Maybe a glass of wine numbs the fear, as Nelson's navy was more or less drunk going into battle (I have checked this fact with the Systems Administrator, who says they were pretty well permanently pissed anyway, but would pipe spirits before a major action).

The boss had borrowed a horse he never rode before.  I think there is something wrong with his own.  It was a large creature whose reputation preceded it, and he professed to be nervous.  The person who rode it on Saturday is still in bed with concussion.  It had two strange hollows above its eyes, such as I have never seen before on a horse.   Given it was a devil horse maybe that is where its horns were removed, although it was looking perfectly placid during the refreshments.  The boss was wearing the coat, boots, jodpurs and stock, but I was amused to see that he still had his usual green pullover with the clothes moth holes in it under his coat.

Then the huntsmen blew their horns and moved off with the hounds, and the rest of the hunt followed, at quite a distance.  I seem to remember from novels involving hunting that overtaking the hounds is an absolute social no-no.  It was a scene that could have dated from decades ago, apart from the quad bikes.  I hurried back across the car park to my work, and the tiny terrier dismounted from his master's shoulders.

After that I was potting and price-gunning.  The drama of the afternoon was that the builders turned off the power to the shop, so that they could connect the new electrics into the circuit, and then couldn't get it to come on again.  There followed a search for unknown fuse boxes, in case they'd tripped a switch.  The manager, who was supervising the potting, desperately tried to keep his head down, disclaiming all knowledge of the fuse boxes, but eventually had to go and lend moral and practical support to the staff member working in the shop, who had no working till or credit card machine, a queue of customers, and had run out of change.  Then they got the power on again.  I don't know how.  But the highlight of the day was definitely the hunt.

No comments:

Post a Comment