Hello England

So I know it has been ages since I last wrote a post but a friend suggested that this would be a good way of sharing my cultural experiences (yeah right) as an Au Pair to 4 children in Kent. Let's call them Caroline (pre-teen), William (preparing for 11+ with 4 tutors!), Harry (middle child) and Bobby (youngest at 6). As you can guess, all the children are very close in age and therefore constantly competing with each other. By the way, when I say competing I mean fighting.

So today I escaped the 18th Century stone house and went off to view my first ever hunt. I didn't really know what to expect, I was just given instructions to drive to the pub in a village 10 minutes away. As I drove up the hill I spotted 3 red coats, 2 blue coats and a pack of hounds waiting around outside the town pub. It seemed like all the unemployed locals were also out to view this unusual spectacle, appropriately attired in tweed coat, caps and wellies. I sauntered up and tried to act natural in my Hunter wellies but I think my constant picture taking was a dead giveaway. I thought that perhaps the hunt was only made up of 5 riders because it was a week day but half an hour later the rest of the field showed up. The master gathered everyone together and outlined his battle strategy for the day and then the horn was blown, rather feebly I must say, and the horses walked off down the road.

I headed back to my car perfectly happy with the sight I had just witnessed and decided to head home rather than trying to work out where on earth the hunt was actually going. I drove out of the town and got to the top of another hill close by where there seemed an easy pull over area that others had already taken advantage of. I stepped out of the car next to a small wooded area which two old men in green were watching intently. I didn't really know why they kept staring at an unmoving thicket of trees but I'm glad I decided to follow their lead because in a mater of minutes I saw the fox scampering out of the bushes. I'm not sure if it was a he fox or a she fox but it was much bigger than I expected and not red but fawn coloured. There was no mistaking it for a dog though because it wore a foxy grin and seemed to be working out how to avoid the dogs yapping in the distance. So I saw the fox but where were the hounds? We waited another good 10 minutes before the scarlet coats came trotting down the road while the dogs bounded along the woodland path that fox had already deserted. We informed them of our sighting and a lady in blue got out her mobile phone to update the rest of the field, obviously technology is catching up with tradition. I then walked further down the road to a clearing over looking the fields below. My final view of the day was the hunters going for a good gallop up another hill to try and get the fox which was suspected to have gone through the village. I called it a day after this because I am not vaguely familiar with these country villages and felt like I had got my share of luck for the day. View halloo!