Pick me up

The uninvited picker-up had relentlessly ranted about everything, until the keeper had some fun with him

hit the cock bird high in the sky, prayed momentarily for it to crumple, then watched with disappointment as it set its wings and sailed on to land at an opening in the wood some 600 yards away. “Well shot, Sir!” said my picker-up who stood not two feet from my left shoulder. It wasn’t his first inane comment of the drive. Since appearing uninvited, he had relentlessly spouted forth about everything from politicians to Pippa Middleton. His views were recounted as gospel in a way that only someone not quite bright enough to see the grey areas can do. His two delightful Labradors sat like statues either side of him and I wondered if they were very well-trained or just completely bored into submission by his droning monologue. I knew I was.

“Could you go and find that for me, please?” I asked in my most considerate tone. I hate to think of wounded birds and I needed the peace as well. “Don’t want to

Ispoil the drive, Sir!”, he replied. “We are stopping for lunch in a mo’. I’ll get it then, easy peasy.” I sighed and tried to shut my ears to the continuing banal banter and it was a relief when, finally, the horn sounded.

As my picker-up sent a dog to the wood, my friend, Eddie, slipped out a group of beaters and shouted to my picker-up that he would take his bag back to the bothy, leaving him free to work his dogs. I watched for a while, growing glum, as the first dog reappeared out the trees emptymouthed and the second Lab was let loose. Eventually, I too headed back to the bothy to grab a bite. Squashed in on the bench next to Eddie, I sipped my soup and quietly told him how impressed I was that he had bothered to collect my picker-up’s heavy bag. “Oh, that wasn’t being nice!” he grinned. “I only did it to stop the bugger taking out a bird and claiming it was yours that he had found!”

I smiled and was just downing my second cup of tea when my picker-up returned with no bird but a plethora of new scratches on his arms and sweat running in places that I didn’t think possible. “I couldn’t find it!” he gasped.

Later in the day, as I thanked the keeper and shook his hand, I mentioned my frustration at losing the bird simply

“My pickerup returned with no bird, but a plethora of new scratches”

because my picker-up wouldn’t put a dog in straight away.

“Oh, we didn’t lose it!” he laughed. “I lifted it as soon as it fell. Birds always end up there and the lads know I will get them. It fairly shut him up though, didn’t it?!”

That certainly picked me up!