Mr Forgetful

The poults are in the pen and I am drinking a lot of beer. Read on for a full explanation!

Talking of poults and being forgetful, some years ago the shoot next door to me forgot to close up a hole in the wire on the far side of the pheasant pen. As fast as they put the poults in at the one end they walked out of the other! Still that was better than the year before when they managed to make the pen fox proof with a fox on the inside!

Some years ago Martina Navratilova came out with the famous expression ‘Living for the now’. I know what she means, as ‘the now’ is the only thing that I can remember. Ask me what I did yesterday and I haven’t a clue – unless I remembered to write it down, and then I can’t remember where I put the bit of paper that I wrote it on!

Flying up to Scotland for an important meeting earlier this year, I didn’t exactly forget my passport; Katie said I didn’t need it as a driving licence would do. I arrived at Bristol airport (it’s a pig to get to by the way) sailed through check in and customs, to be asked at the boarding gate for proof of identity. With a flourish I produced my driving licence. No good, it was the old fashioned type without a photo, and I was not allowed on the plane. I retraced my steps until a customs officer asked me what I thought I was doing going the wrong way. When I told him, he couldn’t believe I had got all the way to the boarding gate before I was stopped, and frankly, neither could I. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Katie booked me onto the sleeper from Crewe to Inverness, and I got to the meeting with plenty of time to spare.

Now, I have managed to remember what a keeper of great renown once told me. He said that in order to keep Mr Fox away from a pheasant pen you should piddle on the wire, hence all that beer drinking! Is beer good for the memory? – err I forget.

Balfours Forestry Consultant, Stephen Habershon, is based at our Craven Arms office and can be contacted on: 01588 674034