I decided to go to the meet of one of the local hunts, to be held, in the customary manner, at a pub along the old Gloucester road. Such meets traditionally are arranged for late morning to give everyone sufficient time to sort out hounds, horses and themselves before travelling to the designated place. Being late is impolite. This meant that I had time to go to the supermarket and do the large weekly shop, trekking down the aisles with my trolly, calculating the comparative costs of packed versus loose vegetables and standing patiently to pay at the checkout. Life as so normal. Then, with my back seat filled with bags of food and household goods, I set off for the other side of Cirencester to find the hounds. As I approached the pub there was no sign of canine or equestrian activity. The road was clear, no vehicles parked up, traffic flowing as normal. However, I spotted a couple of young women, out with their children in pushchairs, talking together and looking over the wall. Ah hah, possibly the meet. I turned into the pub car park and by doing so instantly entered a parallel world. The other vehicles lined up were predominantly 4X4s, besmeared in mud and with hunt stickers in the windows. My domestic little red car was slightly overwhelmed but was able to slip into a remaining small space. Beside the pub, hidden from the road behind the stone wall, is a field used occasionally as an overflow car park. It was filled with the vivid, timeless scene of hounds and horses, a large pack and a surprising number of mounted followers out on a Monday. It could have been a nineteenth century print, the sort that often find their way onto pub walls and onto table mats when eating pub food. I chatted to some of the amiable foot followers and supporters, observing the action in the bright sunshine as stirrup cups were offered around by the pub staff. This conversation proved to be a curious experience as they simply assumed that I knew everyone there, including all the hounds and the gossip. It reinforced the strong sense of a parallel existence and is an example of the inward gaze of the horse world. Once everyone was assembled - the owners of the pub were late arriving on horses - the hunt moved off briskly onto the main road then almost immediately turned down a side lane. I returned to my car and drove up to a place from where I thought I would have a good view across a wide swathe of fields but the hunt had gone, simply vanished. I returned home and put my shopping away.