Goodnight Tessa

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Showjumping

Back-to-school vibes

Tessa Waugh romanticises on the changing of the seasons, but her thoughts are tinged with melancholy as Mary and Jack prepare for their new schools. Until a special hound returns to lift her mood…

SEPTEMBER is here and it’s a special one, maxing out on mellow fruitfulness. I love this time of year when the light takes on a sepia hue, fruit appears in the hedgerows and nature turns golden. But alongside the natural bounty comes a strong dose of melancholy.

Summer is over and back-to-school vibes don’t dim, even when that phase of life is over. With Mary and Jack both off to new schools, I have been name-taping everything that stays still long enough and trying to ignore the butterflies doing somersaults in my stomach. The feeling of starting a new school is still so clear in my memory, despite the time that has passed.

MEANWHILE, the new hunting season is coming in like a juggernaut. For many further south, it will be under way. We tend to start later here, and Adam and Jake are doing their final preparations with the hounds; ditching bikes in favour of horses and heading off for long trots to complete their fitness regime.

“The children will join a new throng, and that will be as normal for them as it is for a rookie hound who has just joined the pack”

Part of the training process each year for the young hounds is to bring them here, to the farm, to show them some sheep. Jim and I spotted them as we came back from a ride – sheep clustered in a field and hounds moving like ball bearings behind Adam and Jake on horses. All was well and they clattered through the farm buildings shortly afterwards, hounds in front in one joyous surge.

“Seal Pup,” called Adam, foregoing her correct name of Lacewing, eyes trained somewhere in the middle of the pack.

“Where is she?” I called rather desperately, because I am hopeless at spotting even the dearest of the pups we walked in a throng of 25 couple. But they always betray themselves, those old friends. The ones we walked growing up always made a beeline for the milking parlour on the hunt for milk. Here, they go straight to the kennels and that is exactly what Seal Pup did. Coming back, she spotted me and danced up to put her paws on my stomach, standing on her hindlegs to say “hello”. It was gorgeous.

I was stroking her and making all the usual affectionate noises, but Adam and the rest of the pack were moving away, back towards the kennels. Seal Pup could hear the whoosh of them, the hooves retreating down the road, and she turned her head to see and then she was gone. Just like that. I found it comforting. Knowing that the children at their new schools will join a new throng, make new friends and that will become just as normal for them as it is for a rookie hound who has just joined the pack. H&H