Training Sam with Jim and his dog Ben and visiting his family homes and relatives and driving home to find Halloween ruined in Ulster where the latest atrocity involved two masked gun-men bursting into a pub and shouting "Trick-or-Treat" before killing seven people and seriously injuring nine others with machine guns.
I had today set the radio alarm so that, not only did it switch on at the right time, but that the volume was set so that I could actually hear it! This was just as well as I was tired and needed the call. I ran Sam across the stubble fields again for his morning walk but, the wood pigeons getting up in droves earlier and disturbing the game, he quartered well but there was nothing to find. The task of packing up and loading up then became something of a rush as I also had to see to the boat, the house next door and all else.
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Though late to leave, I made good time on the quiet Sunday roads and was at the Somerfields rendezvous before 11.00am to meet Jim and his dog. He took me to the farm that he uses for dog work and vermin control and, once we had shed about seven of the farmer's dogs that had been following us(!), we got down to some training. Jim's dog Ben had become lame after quartering some sugar beet the day before and this meant that it could not do very much. However, Sam did a number of dummy-launcher retrieves successfully and, though there were a couple of difficult doubles that he could not find, he was steady to the shot and performed well. His quartering was good again but still no game to give him a test on pointing.
Back to Jim's parents-in-laws house for a cup of tea and look at his photographs and then the journey home. Good to see the country homes of Jim's family. Dogs, ferrets and animals everywhere and his brother-in-law brought in an injured pheasant found by the garden. Pity we could not have had that earlier or we could have set it out in a cage as a pointing test. Home at last in mid-afternoon and gained Daniel's help in unloading the car. A rest and some sandwiches with Diana in front of the TV and then out to walk and feed Sam again before dark, pleased with his manners and progress. Not much achieved in the evening but made some more telephone calls to friends and then kept Diana company in the lounge. I never celebrate Halloween nor am taken with "Trick-or-Treating"; regarding them as an aspect of American culture and preferring our traditional Guy Fawkes and "Penny-for-the-Guy" customs.
Elsewhere, there has been much dressing up and celebrations, but this hit a sour and frightening note in Ulster where the latest atrocity involved two masked gun-men bursting into a pub and shouting "Trick-or-Treat" before killing seven people and seriously injuring nine others with machine guns. Thought to be a Catholic pub, there were nevertheless three Protestants amongst the victims. A 19-year-old girl who responded to their cry with "That's not funny!" was the first to die. With others, I despair at that divided nation; divided geographically and also religiously. If they shared schools, communities and facilities, the sectarian murders and violence would not be feasible. I would say a plague on both of their houses and leave them to it.