Every year in January the local hunt meets in The Square in my village. Not that it is a square Square as in a French village. It’s more of a crossroads surrounded by houses, cars going past as if it is quite normal to meet horses, which it is round’ere. Only generally they’re not in hunt attire, with hounds, drink in hand, sandwiches from the local pub handed around to all who have gathered.

What always catches my eye is those coats that stand out in a sea of browns and blacks. They look rather red to me (and you I imagine), proper scarlet red, but it’s not called red, it’s hunting pink. Maybe because of a tailor called Pink, though nobody knows for sure. If Tailor Pink existed he seems to have left no address, no date of birth or death, nothing apart from a very un-British way of calling a colour by a name that has nothing to do with the real thing. Maybe.

Today, the weather certainly was very British, country folks met in The Square smiling, laughing forgetting they were wet. It’s only water. My friend and neighbour Maddie took pity on me and sheltered me from the worst shower, gave me a cup of hot tea, and let me take a few pictures from her special view point overlooking The Square. All in all, a great morning in my new village in the middle of the West Dorset countryside.

Welcome to village life.

Did Tailor Pink exist?