A quick check of my Game Book, tells me that I was last out with a rifle on the 21st December - knocking on for three months.
I will not bore you (actually I probably will) with the details, but I drive a 110 and she has spent the best part of two months waiting for new front half-axle, diff locky things changing. Long short. I get dicked about by the (latest) garage which lets me know towards the end of February, that they cannot now fit her in (as promised) for the end of December.
"Don't worry sir, I have spoken to a friend of mine. He is a Landrover wizard although he is hard to get hold of..."
Eventually the "Wizard" returns my messages.
"I will phone you tomorrow, when I have the diary in front of me".
Two weeks of nothing pass - before I block and then delete this **** from my contacts.
I return to my (original) garage - he has had a cancellation and I can drop it around now. Excellent. Except it isn't is it. The damn thing will not start - it has been sat (unused) in the cold for so long the battery is flat. Thanks to a similar occurrence last season, whilst on the Reds down in Devon, I have a battery charger thingy. I stick it on and an hour later, she has enough life to fire up, and I drive her across.
By the end of the day, she is all done. The price? Do you remember that Premium Bond win 'we' had this month? Funny thing. It was that price.
Easy come, easy go.
At least I can make a plan to go out. With various events about to overtake me, this may be that last opportunity for some months.
0300 hours this morning, finds me trying to start the truck. It is dead. It is as dead as a Monty Python, Norwegian Blue. FFS!
I eventually jump it with my wife's car. Every fibre in my body is telling me not to venture out.
I half listen. Instead of heading straight off to the farm, I divert over to the nearest motorway. I will blat up and down that for a few junctions and force some life back into the battery. The on-road onto the motorway is blocked off. Really? I turn around and go home. Safely back on the driveway, I turn the truck off and wait. If it does not start, at least I am back home. If it starts, then I am good to go. It started. I set off (again) to the Estate. Still not listening to that voice...
There were road closures everywhere, and local motorway traffic was being diverted through the villages. It was dreadful. Again, I ignored the voice in my head, and pressed on.
Eventually, I get to the Estate, kit up and trudge (the ground is absolutely sodden) to a High Seat. It is still dark, and so I have about an hour to play with the TI before light. Eventually, the dark gives way to the dawn, and at 0550 hours that miracle of the 'Dawn Corus" begins.
There is mist in the air, and the TI does not like the mist.
Then away off to my right, in the next field, I spy a Roe head. I dismount and make towards the gate into the field in which they are. I set up the sticks and have another look. It is a Doe and she is couched up with just her head and neck visible.
The backstop is not good. The ground is waterlogged. I am worried that my truck will not start. I really do need to listen to my 'inner voice'.
I call it.
I am just not in the right frame of mind, to be out with a rifle - and I am (just) big enough and ugly enough, to recognise that.
Back at the truck (much earlier that anticipated), she kicks into life, and I mouth a 'thank you' to the Gods of Landrover.
I make it home and do what I should have done yesterday - stick the battery on a charge.
So there we have it.
Pretty much a disaster from the word go.
Which leaves me with a couple of questions.
Have you ever recognised it was right to 'call it off' when out with a rifle?
Will the battery recover, or do I need to buy a new one (if so which one)?
Looking at the diary - I do not anticipate that I will able to be get on the deer again until at least June.
C'est la vie
