IT is a Christmas Eve meet at the Curre and Llangibby and 70 mounted riders are gathered, sipping mulled wine and waiting for the hounds to arrive. It will not be their own pack, who have the cough, but the Duke of Beaufort's doghounds, hunted by kennelhuntsman Tony Holdsworth, who have kindly agreed to save the day. He has roped me in as an amateur whipper-in.
What beheld us as we hacked to the meet was a fantastic sight of Welsh festive cheer. Ponies were adorned with tinsel and reindeer antlers and several grown-ups had gone the whole hog. At one stage, I was overtaken by a Virgin Mary with a baby Jesus on a lead-rein. It all added to the season of goodwill and did nothing to distract us from a fine day's sport.
Nor do the Beaufort neglect festivities at home. For the past 12 years, the hunt's Christmas carol service at St Michael and All Angels, Great Badminton, has been run by hunt stalwart Lisabeth
