I must confess that for a while, I have been pining for what once was. For the past, for the land I once roamed, the freedom of my former hunting grounds. By dreaming of ways and means by which I could 'reconnect' and through the formulation of proactive, positive measures to satisfy this primitive need I escaped the clutches of the murky depths of melancholy.
The 'universe' has heard my pleas, my cry, my desires. By virtue of a 'chance' encounter I have been granted the right to hunt and prowl the green paradise across the valley from my home. The very same fields my window looks out upon, that my eyes had hungrily surveyed and which my heart had lusted for.
My days of walking the dog upon the common, that barren desert of over grazed, poorly managed, eroded and battered land that seems to me no better than an oversized lawn, had me morose at the disparity between my present circumstances and my ideals for the life I expected to give him. I had envisaged that when I came to live in the company of a canine being, we would stalk the hedgerows, haunt the woods and hunt together.
The Gods have deigned to grant my wish and lift my spirits from the depths of despair the urban environment, with its tarmac, concrete and stone that strangles life and scars the earth, proliferates so adeptly.
It was almost a home coming when I shot the first rabbit I have had in what feels like an eternity. A gift from Diana for which I am forever grateful.
