This is where we were on Saturday morning.
(Photo via K’s moblog)
Yup, at a hunt meet. Or at least at the little drinkies-and-snackettes “do” beforehand, while the horses and hounds gathered in the yard.
That’s not “hunt meet” and not “hunt meat”, obviously. Because that would be Illegal and Wrong.
No, this was a drag hunt – and therefore, provided you can banish the image of distressed Emily Howard types, girding up their petticoats and fleeing across the Derbyshire countryside, absolutely Legal and Humane and Actually Perfectly OK I Think You’ll Find.
Not exactly very rock and roll though, is it? I used to be edgy! I DJ-ed at Miners’ Strike benefits! I had badges! I was at Red Wedge and everything!
Bearing in mind the imminent business trip to China (the visa arrived today), an ever-diminishing part of myself would still quite like to play the good little self-denouncing Maoist. (I’m a Class Traitor! Flog me! Flog me now!) However, this does rather skirt over the fact that I was actually born quite posh. So maybe this is merely a reversion to type. One simply can’t escape one’s roots.
Besides, I had a perfectly lovely morning: sipping mulled wine at 11am (reason enough!) with most of our friends in the village, admiring the beautifully groomed horses, and trying to steer K’s attention away from the beagles. But for me, the moment of epiphany came when the hunt set off, streaming out of the yard and up the lane.
You know how, whenever the subject of hunting is debated on the TV or radio, some posh old buffer from the Pro lobby always croaks out something along the lines of “Yesh, but ishn’t it a marvelloush shight? The sheer magnifishence of the shpectacle is shuch a wonder to behold… etc…”?
Well, the thing is this.
(Oh God. I’ve posted some heavy-duty confessional stuff on this blog in my time, but nothing quite so excruciating. Well, here goes.)
A full assembled hunt really is a marvellous sight. Maybe it was just the mulled wine meeting the hangover half way, but the sheer magnifishence of the shpectacle quite brought a lump to my throat.
All is lost. I’ll be making superior remarks about the ignorance of “townies” next.
troubled diva 