Slow down and savour
Leafing through my father’s game book, I particularly enjoy the early pages. The first entry, in a schoolboy’s overly large handwriting, simply reads, “I crept up on the pit. My first rabbit.” Despite his sparse style, I can so easily imagine the shaking nerves of a 10-year-old, as he stealthily peers over the edge of a chalk pit, spies a rabbit inside and gently lifts his single-barrel .410 to his shoulder.
Fast forward a few years, and he and his friends have passed their driving test. Three 17-year-olds head to the Wash for a week’s wildfowling before returning to school. They barely garner a goose between them. The next year they visited Smoo Cave near Durness, before it was a tourist attraction, and managed a number of
