Back to London on yesterday for a carving demonstration and book signing at Divertimenti, in the Marylebone High Street.

Today was the opening meet of the North Pennine Foxhounds at Bradley Hall, Wylam.

Glorious day and a field of about fifty.

Went up to Perthshire today to stay at the Kinloch House Hotel, near Blairgowrie, to cover the Logie shoot for the Field the following day.

Attended the North Pennine Hunt Lunch today. Tremendous turn out and a marvellous speech by Walter Jeffrey, the legendary ex Master of Jedforest Foxhounds.

Back to Scotland and start gathering the hill to put the tups in with the ewes. Atrocious weather: The burns are in full spate and sheep difficult to move off their ground. A ewe lamb was washed away in the Liddle Water which was found three days later, alive and stuck in the branches off a tree!

Back to London to meet the editor who will be working with me on the new book and to attend the Purdey awards on the 19th. The Gold award went to the Castlevennon Shoot near Banbridge in Northern Ireland. Shoot owner John Gibson was presented with the annual Purdey trophy and a cheque for £5,000 for his creation, from scratch, of a small shoot over 100 acres of former dairy farmland. The Silver Award was presented to Frank Jones of Newton-le-Willows Wildfowlers Association, based near Warrington in Cheshire, for exceptional leadership of his club and for establishing a wildfowling shoot between two of the most congested motorways in the UK – the M56 and M53 – and a major oil refinery.

Up to Cromlix near Stirling today, to cover the Henry Eden’s birthday shoot for the Field: A truly delightful day on a proper, old fashioned shoot in excellent company.

Was the guest speaker at the Fitzwilliam Hunt opening meet lunch today, at the East of England Show Ground.  We had a tremendous turn out of two hundred and fifty supporters and a splendid party which went on until 6.30, raising around £4,000 for Hunt funds. Nowadays, without the hard work of devoted Hunt supporters, very few packs would be able to survive.

I then drove straight back up to Berwick-on-Tweed, to host a three day wildfowling trip on the National Nature Reserve at Lindisfarne, bought by two wildfowlers through the BASC silent auction earlier in the year. This is the third year it has been organised by Steve Woodhall, BASC regional officer for Northern Region and is intended to be the ultimate wildfowling experience in one of the most spectacularly beautiful places in Britain.

Drove on to Leicestershire today to meet Cristian Barnett, the photographer for the new book, at Batten’s in Ravensthorpe. The Batten family have been making boots for seven generations, with three generations of the family actively involved in boot making to-day.

http://horacebatten.com/

Had a hellish drive down the A1 to Gainsborough, to be the guest speaker at the Gainsborough Wildfowler’s Association Dinner. However, the journey was made more than worthwhile by a splendid evening followed by a morning flight.

My son recently returned from a trip to Loch Lomond where he claimed to have seen a grey squirrel swimming in the middle of the Loch.

I didn't believe it until he showed me the photographic evidence.

As it would appear, squirrels are actually rather good swimmers, often employing a form of 'doggy paddle' to propel themselves through the water.

There have been plenty of documented reports of swimming squirrels in America over the years. Acccording to 'Squirrels: the animal answer guide' by R. W Thorington, it was reported that in 1933 over 1,000 squirrels attempted to swim across the Connecticut River near Hartford.  Researchers in the US have also observed red squirrels swimming 2 km from the shores of mainland Wisconsin on Lake Superior.

Today I went to the North Pennine Hunt Newcomers Day hosted by Peter and Ellen Dent at their farm near Hamerstley. This was part of a series of events organised by Hunts across Britain and enormously well attended. We received an excellent coverage by the reporter from the Weardale Gazette.

Back to Scotland to sell the last of the Cheviot lambs at the Longtown Store Sales. For the first time in my farming life, these little hill lambs are fetching a decent price, as are cull ewes.

Finally finished the manuscript for the new book today and delivered all 250,000 words to the publishers in London. Had a long overdue haircut at Trueffit and Hill, lunch at the Garrick and went to Maxwell’s in Jermyn Street, to see if my  hunting boots were ready at long last.  As progress appeared to be nil, I asked them to send the boots to Batten’s in Northamptonshire, one of the few remaining proper bootmakers in the country.