‘It’s like the Somme’
Having contended with the snow and then the floods that followed, missed hunting is the least of Tessa Waugh’s worries as she wonders when spring will be arriving in Northumberland
IT is one of life’s contradictions that in the aftermath of a crisis, you feel a joyous burst of relief and then you fall on your face, as flat as a pancake. It is strange really, we should be celebrating. So far, the body count among the sheep is lower than expected, there is water running in the sheds, the early lambs are looking great and our road is clear, although there has been some flooding to contend with.
Not to be put off, the school taxi lady, Margaret, has texted to say she is swapping sledges for boats to get the children to school. We might need canoes to get them across the ford at the bottom of our road — there’s serious white water down there at the moment. The snow is melting but instead of punching the air, I am lamenting the mess it leaves in its wake — patches of sodden grass emerging from the ice, subsiding snowdrifts around the front door, and a yard clogged with mud and dirty icebergs.
“It’s a bit like the Somme,” surmised Chris, who works here, watching the cattle paddling stoically through the mud. Chris was heroic last week, travelling back and forth across the hills by quad bike from the farm we rent next door with Graham the shepherd. They buried a flask of tea in the snow on the way in case of emergency. They even walked here one day.
After all this, hunting seems, well, a bit trivial honestly. We have missed the last two weeks of the season and a much-anticipated visit from the Wynnstay, but since the weather hit, most people have been presented with other priorities. As one of Adam’s joint-masters, also a farmer, so rightly said: “We’ve moved on.”
‘After all this, hunting seems, well, a bit trivial honestly’
What to do with horses and ponies now then? Adam’s will have a much-deserved break and I will keep Jim going for fear of returning to square one. The ponies will simply hang around until Pony Club cranks up again. It’s a dodgy time of year, March. You feel you should be getting on with springtime, but invariably it doesn’t arrive until well into April and anyway, the season is a rather timid affair this far north.
SIR JOHNNY SCOTT has a lovely article in this month’s The Field magazine, describing the changes that occur in nature at this time of year. “The wheel of the seasons changes in March,” he begins, “leaving a melancholy vacuum in the lives of sportsman.”
While admiring Sir Johnny’s lyrical prose, I can only agree and appease myself by ordering another series of Game Of Thrones from Amazon. Escapism is the only way forward and with GOT on board, the long March evenings will fly by.