Sticks, string and silk hankies

Now, the hunter gatherer in me has had to adapt somewhat since moving from the heart of a big city.

Once upon a time, an expedition involved slipping on a pair of polished brogues, donning my nattiest crumpled satin suit jacket (contrasting silk hanky billowing from breast pocket) and heading off into the urban jungle to hunt high and low for a well stocked charcuterie plate and glass of robust Bordeaux. 

When the season changed then a seafood restaurant was in order. The outfit – deck shoes, a blazer and a pullover tied rakishly over the shoulders. Octopus, a favourite of mine, especially when marinated in paprika and grilled lightly, was always a challenge to find but once caught it slipped down well with a nice cold Gewürztraminer. You get the picture.

Here, in the rural wonderfulness I now call home it is all a little different. Many of you are actual bona fide hunter gatherers! You slay birds and beasts large and small. You catch fish, gather mushrooms, feast off wild berries, and slay more birds and beasts, depending on which tag is timely, so to speak.

I do my best. I go fishing. Note that I don’t say ‘catch fish’, as I’m still working on that one (just one will do) at the moment. Too many lakes to choose from for this boy from Blighty and no way of corralling the fish into a suitably small area for me to thrash them to death with my fly line.

I don’t hunt. Hitting barn doors at 20 paces has never been a strong point of mine and so the cost of weapon and ammunition seems a tad extravagant, just so as I could wander the woods making loud noises and frightening the critters. But, to make up for my poor shot, I do eat as much free game as anyone is willing to offer me. 

I haven’t gathered much to date, either. I went on a mushroom walk a while back thinking I’d be out harvesting fungi soon after. However, the expert advice almost always seemed to consist of ‘it looks like the… but it’s actually highly poisonous.’

Blueberries: can’t go wrong there, I thought. That was until a grunt from the other side of the bush revealed I was sharing it with a bear. Well, a bear-of-a-man, who wasn’t too happy at me trespassing onto his front lawn to pilfer fruit.

And so, I was at somewhat of a loss; feeling a little emasculated by my failure to provide for my family. But then it struck me, gardening! Hunter gathering in the confines of my own back yard, now that sounded like a plan.

I swiftly demolished the flower bed, laying waste to bouganvilla, poppies and tulips like a crack shot in a marsh full of teal (I got the hunting lingo, see). I dug and raked the earth, dug it again and raked it thrice, then dumped a great pile of horseshit all over it and dug it again for good measure.

I built a hoop house out of twigs, string and clear plastic garbage bags (no kidding, come see if you don’t believe me) and put up a rabbit proof fence. I was ready to be the manliest hunting gathering gardener in Haliburton County. And then the wife whipped my testosterone-fuelled fork out from under my left buttock, where I’d been resting on it admiring my work, and promptly took over my garden.

She’s planted all manner of veggies, from potatoes to pumpkins, French beans to fennel and they are all coming on strong, inside and out of my stick and string solarium. The fence has kept the rabbits out but there also seems to be an unspoken rule that prohibits me from straying off lawn into veg-land, too.

Again, the hunting and gathering has eluded me.

“I’m going for a paddle,” I sigh, as she tends ‘her’ veg patch. “Not going fishing?” she asks without looking up from the row of tiny carrots that she’s weeding. “I might wet a line,” I respond, hoping to sound casual: knowing full well that I’ll be throwing flies, spinners, worms, minnows, road kill, anything short of dynamite at the lake in a vain attempt to bring home a fish and so restore at least a modicum of my hunter gatherer honour.

As I depart to scare more fish, I resolve to uphold London tradition: out of the wardrobe come the Harris Tweed waistcoat and breeches, with matching deerstalker.