Today was one day I would have rather stayed in bed! - it turned into probably the wettest sab I've ever done!
The Surrey Union were due to have their opening meet on the same day to split the number of sabs, but their pack had come down with kennel cough apparently, so we all went to the Old Surrey & Burstow to stop them murdering anything.
Torrential rain from the outset did not put off 30 or so locals from protesting at the meet about the hunt terrorising the local wildlife. It did however affect the huge police surveillance operation of about 20 extra geeks in addition to the 20 foot cops who would be (trying to) follow us for the day. It later emerged that surrey police were using the day to train their new intelligence gatherers. I don't think they'll be doing it again after half of them got lost wandering around in the mud, and 2 obscenely expensive video cameras were ruined by the rain!
This being the opening meet, it was really a case of the hunt going through the motions, and it was a bit processional with the hunt followed by what they call 'the men in black' followed by the police trudging from wet woods to even wetter woods.
There was not much hunting wise to report about the day, except that despite the monsoon conditions, the hounds did get onto a fox between Puttenden Manor and Haxted Mill. At one point, I took a short cut from where we'd called some of the hounds over near Chellows Park, and got to the road just in front of the pack which were in full cry. A rider holloa'd a fox over the road, heading south parallel with the river Eden .There was a bit of riding-down as a few of us sprayed in front of the hounds to cover where the fox had run. Trying to be clever, I made a dash to get in front of the huntsman by jumping over what I thought was a narrow ditch, but which turned out to be a deep stream into which I sank up to my chest - good job I had the camera held high! In truth, I was already so wet it didn't have much effect.
I was surprised at how the hounds managed to hunt the fox in the heavy rain, and they were in full cry for quite a while. They turned back north and re-crossed the B2028 just as a family were travelling along it in their car, nothing to do with the hunt. One of the hounds was hit by the car as the pack piled straight across the road, and some of them even ran over the bonnet of the car, terrifying the occupants. To add insult to injury, the driver of the car was assaulted by several hunt followers who thought he was a sab!
After this excitement, it was getting on for 2.30pm, and partly due to our efforts, but mostly because of the rain, the hunt called it a day and headed back to the meet without a kill. In the local press the following week, the hunt secretary's daughter claimed that they had managed to kill a fox despite our efforts. Apart from being total bullshit, it was pretty laughable - she is too fat to get out of her car on a good day, let alone in the pouring rain and she would say anything the huntsman told her to!
This photo pretty much summed up the day and the effectiveness of the police.
They thought they were being clever when they asked me where I'd been all day! I know where we were and what we did. So did the hunt staff, and thanks to us, a few more foxes lived to tell the tale.