The Meet on Saturday, 23rd November was a bit different. In the old days, well not so old but when I first started, the Saturday was split into a morning meet, a pub lunch and an afternoon meet, some never making it out of the pub again. Quite a nice arrangement I always thought. These days it is just one morning meet that carries on until you drop with fatigue as the sun, if it ever appears, goes down.
The idea of the two meet system was so that those who had to work on Saturday mornings had a chance to get there for the afternoon meet. When I first started work I had to work Saturday mornings as part of the normal working week and in the big engineering and textile area of Huddersfield this was the norm. I am not sure there is a 'big' anything left in Huddersfield now. Hard to know how to pigeon hole the place as all the key industries employing the masses have been driven away by one means or another. Maybe a seat of academia since the University, that grew from an excellent Technical College, that shed its skin a couple of times by way of transformation, has spread itself across a large swathe of Huddersfield.
Also different this Saturday was the fact that the Colne Valley exercised their hounds in the morning and the Airedale Beagles came over for the afternoon meet. (OK so it was in Holme Valley Beagles country and we are all one now, more or less, and some hounds would be theirs). So lunchtime was a convivial affair with free sandwiches, paid for by a raffle, and good hospitality at the Dog and Partridge. Strangely the main raffle prize, a large bottle of whisky, was won by the same chap who made the winning bid for one in the auction at the Beer and Brass night recently and I suppose that by now will be well on its way to joining the other for recycling the bottle.
I always like to watch them getting out of the truck
Lady Whip and a bit of petting.
Watch out her chap is coming!
Time to set off
For those who feel the inclination, a hip flask is generally sufficient but there is always someone who goes to extremes!
Actually it is the raffle prize arriving for lunchtime.
Getting ready
Still not set off. Why are we waiting?
Still getting ready!
Well I just have to show the next two don't I.
Still not going anywhere
Hanging about waiting for stragglers to arrive.
Lady Whip
Collar adjustment by the look of things
It was a lovely morning, crisp and clear.
Ventilation shaft for the Woodhead Tunnel
Newly betrothed and clearly enjoying it.
Looking to Emley Moor mast with some frosty patches showing on the dark brown peat
Arriving back for lunchtime
I saw very little of the Airedale Beagles as they debussed a fair distance away from where we could park and by the time I got there they had set off briskly .
The fluffy white stuff in the distance is coming from Ferrybridge power station cooling towers. One could see several power stations, many miles away. I suppose in the not too distant future these will be closed and we will be dependent on those windmills on the hills near Penistone!
At a glance their hounds are a bit bigger and heavier than ours, but I only ever got a glance.
Since I couldn't see any beagles I took a pic towards Holme Moss mast
A brief appearance
And then they marched off far away to the end of the moor.
And as the sun dropped down a bit more, and this part became shadowed by the edge of the hill behind, it became rather chilly just standing, so I left.
