Another day at the grouse. Andy had mentioned to me previously that if you don’t like the weather in Scotland, one only has to wait twenty minutes. And as the adage goes, many a true word is spoken in jest. We had any number of seasons while out on the moors today. While having a reasonable walk up to the first line of butts we were tracked by clear, sunny weather with a light breeze. Winding our way along towards the second drive we had a good breeze with cloud cover. After devouring our lunches like any decent pack of wolves we advanced on the third line with a subtle warning of impending rain, the wind picking up and clouds swirling along not-so-distant hills.

I was watching veils of rain shrouding glen after glen ahead of us and thinking how fortunate we were that we were getting off unscathed when I turned around to look behind. The other half of those clouds had been sneaking up on us from behind and were about to dump a couple of million litres of cold water down our upturned collars along with a little hail for good measure. There was nothing for it but to stand with ones back into the driving rain and enjoy the experience. There was not a person in the line that was not completely drenched within the first couple of minutes. I was however acutely aware that out ahead of us was a line of thirty or so beaters that were taking the rain, hail and wind head on as they steadily moved towards our position driving the grouse ahead of them. I have no doubt that I was not the only person on the moor that day that had been thinking that we were going to finish the day with getting nothing more than our boots wet but then Someone obviously has an excellent sense of humour and found the temptation too much to resist…