A day of loud complaints from Mrs P followed...
and finally the cat was confined to barracks to his considerable and noisy annoyance.
House arrest.
Note in the box
It is likely that this valley has been hunted every year since Bigod first took this land long ago. Perhaps even before then.
To me, it is a pastime not to my taste, but a freedom that others may enjoy.
Mrs P's opinions are not flattering to the participants. Although she eats her own animals, likes fishing and tolerates shooting; hunting with hounds is definitely beyond the pale.
We argue, until the writer retreats to his study and she is left discussing the matter with the cat.
This time there seem to be only two red-clad huntsmen, the horn, a pack of dogs, two hunt saboteurs and two police cars tagging along behind.
Everyone else has been left behind. The quarry is nowhere to be seen.
The evidence.
Mrs P abandons the cat and treats me to a lecture on the wild extravagance of the local constabulary.
After a safe interval, the cat is released and life returns to its normal humdrum pace.
The weather turns unusually cold and, after a couple of day shivering, we light the wood-burner.
A wheelbarrow is released from garden duties and used to bring logs from the log-shed.
In early autumn and spring, we only run it part of the day depending on the weather. In winter it rarely goes out.
It works very well. The kitchen is always warm and welcoming.
Although the weather is cold, we are early on one activity...
The lambs and the calf were ready for slaughter.
All had grown so well on just the lush meadow grass and their mother's milk, that they were in magnificent condition.
We will have excellent lamb and the finest young beef (usually called red veal) for the next twelve months.
There is no point in keeping them any longer and they made the short one-way trip earlier than expected.
The whole business of raising animals in a traditional way for meat, using the seasons as your friend, rather than an enemy to be defeated, has been a great success.
Piglets, lambs and calf are born into a springtime world and leave before the winter cold and rain.
We need little, if any, imported feed and the work for us is pleasant and light.
The quality of the meat - outstanding. The butcher rang up this year specially to congratulate us on the quality.
You can read more on your own meat and about last year.
A brace of partridges arrives and finds its way quickly to the dinner table.
We have not raised any poultry for meat this year, and the offerings in the supermarket don't appeal, so partridge was very welcome.
Winter Squashes - Butternut and Banana
Winter squashes are a relatively new import into Britain. The summer varieties have been a traditional crop for many years.
One of the few advantages of the supermarkets is that they do cause us to become more cosmopolitan in our diet. Where we can grow the new introductions, we get a double benefit.
Virtually our only visits to the supermarket nowadays are to try imported produce with a view to growing it ourselves.
The taste was superb. We should not really be raiding the leeks yet, as they are a vegetable that will stand all winter through the hardest frosts.
But the temptation was irresistible.
The grapes were surprisingly sweet.
This particular variety, thought to be identical with "Wrotham Pinot" holds a special interest for the writer.
"Wrotham" is a village near where he was born.
It was also where his late brother, another man who stopped the world and got off, used, in his retirement, to deliver the bread.
Anyway the grapes brought a memory of childhood.
Many still doubt that red grapes can be grown successfully outdoors in England - oh yes, you can. In Wales too, in favoured spots.
The wall faces west and catches a lot of sun.