We dedicated today’s sabbing of two hunts to the memory of Marion from F.R.I.E.N.D – Farmed Animal Rescue whose funeral was held today. 3C split again this weekend, some of us meeting up with North Shropshire Hunt Sabs to go and find the South Herefordshire, others meeting up again with Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch and heading off to the Cotswold Hunt.

It was an odd mix of (sharp) snow, hail and strong sunshine all to the soundtrack of various strengths of wind…

Sabs at the South managed to call the hounds back from a fox early on and, to the end of the day, got the hounds on to the heel-line of another fox which the hunt didn’t catch on to and gave chase for some time. Being on the heel-line is a fancy was of saying ‘on the scent, but going the wrong way along it’. A very stone-faced Patrick Darling was, well, very stone-faced for much of the day. At least Paul Oliver had calmed down and was no longer having tantrums this week, instead trying this new thing called ‘banter’…

Meanwhile, over in the Cotswolds, sabs were getting to know a relatively new hunt for us. It looked like they weren’t expecting sabs and definitely didn’t look like they were happy to see sabs either. We wonder why. At one of the very first draws of the day, we heard 5 holloas and a couple of us ran in towards a covert only to find the terriermen speeding out of the area. We’re not into speculation, but…

We kept an eye on them for most of the day, the hunt practising some colourful word on us and there was some aggression from a hunt supporter, but we can’t say more for legal reasons. Hounds marked to ground in a covert midway through the day, putting them off potentially digging out.

The hunt had a relatively long run towards the end of the day, back into the area where we believe the first fox was flushed from a covert via a free-range egg place where the hounds went through a terrified bunch of hens and geese – an odd place to allow a trail to be laid we thought to ourselves* – and across numerous fields. The hunted fox managed to give the hounds the slip, collapsing in a road before giving it one last shot and carrying on to cover whilst the hunt gathered up the hounds and packed up.

*the woman was then pretty rude when a sab went, concerned, to ask if everyone was ok as it looked stressful for all concerned

On the way home we saw a couple of girls trying to help a nervous young dog on the side of a main road – luckily as we pulled over, someone came along who said she’d take responsibility for finding his people. Nice one to the girls for stopping! Getting home, we found a nice present sent by someone who had heard about the shit being thrown in one of our sabs’ faces at the Ledbury. Clouds and silver linings…

Where will we end up next? Watch this space!