Chris and Alice Geaves MBH kindly laid on hospitality for a good turnout, when hounds met in neighbouring farmers Wilson and George Atkinson's field. This was to be a good test of our hounds' stability as the first hunt was to take hounds straight into a field of sheep! Jeremy told me, "the hounds hunted through sheep pretty well every day while they were in Scotland, but I think this is the first time we have needed to do it in the South. I am just so grateful to Wilson and George Atkinson for so generously making sure we have enough ground to hunt over." And as expected, the hounds behaved impeccably. Which is more than can be said of our huntsman, like when he told Quarry Nick Hudson he had brought in a young Quarry (Harry Geaves) and a pair of jump leads to keep Nick going through the day! And that was one of his more polite jibes!! There was a great turnout of children and they were leaping everything in sight. It was also good to see amateur Whipper-in, Kim Thayer, back out with us, having been short of a horse for a while.

The first hunt was South, uphill from the meet, running through the sheep over Star Hill up to the farm buildings at Wether Down. Here hounds ran round the outside of Mercury Park, to finish at the cross roads.

The second hunt started downhill running alongside the East Meon road, until they came level with Lower Farm. Here hounds turned uphill again onto Small Down before running down the other side back to the meet at Hockham.

The third hunt saw hounds running back up onto Small Down, back to Wether Down, before turning sharply back down the valley, through the sheep again, back to the meet.

None of the hunts were particularly long, but given the very steep hills and the many jumps, most people seemed to have had enough by the end of the day. This was a new meet for us, and it certainly gave us a great day's sport.