Wild Boar Hunt

As with many stories, the themes and patterns that will pervade throughout are set early on at Chateau Coldspot and sadly the boys, too close in age to be brothers, decide not to be friends either. The 'squabbling princes' is a thread that runs through our first year. However, in those first few weeks they gleefully cooperate on one major project: the Wild Boar Hunt.

We have never seen them but we have heard their snorting. We have witnessed the overturned boulders and the broken fences, the ploughed earth beneath the planes trees. We know they are many and we know they come at night.

Le Comte has offered £50 to the first person that can catch one. He has already tried unsuccessfully himself, parking the Rangerover strategically on the path to the river and arming himself with a crossbow and several cans of Heineken. Unfortunately, exhausted by his arduous daily toil, he fell prematurely asleep at 11.30pm surrounded by the empty cans, at which point the boar crept past him whilstling the Marseillaise.

The squabbling princes have hatched a better plan, based largely on a rereading of Winnie the Pooh: they will dig a trap. So they take it in turns to wield the spade and to lean against the tree mopping their brows, while the squarking princesses rush hither and thither fetching biscuits, orange juice and other morale boosting essentials. The soil is sandy and a hole of some five feet deep is achieved in just one afternoon. This is fortunate, as the young princes are tiring, despite the ministrations of the princesses, and the river beckons. The hole is carefully baited with a tin of sweetcorn (apparently a wild boar's preferred snack) and branches and leaves are duly laid across the (small) chasm. Now it is their turn to stay up and keep watch.

The princesses are instructed and beds are duly made up in the lounge. The lights are turned low and they take it in turns to keep watch. But the princes are expert sleepers and all that fresh country air is tiring; it is impossible for the princesses to wake up the exhausted hunters. Eventually they curl up beside them and the young royals sleep soundly while the wild boar hold a sweetcorn party under the plane trees.

In the morning they all rush out eagerly to peer through the broken branches and into the hole beneath - no boar, no sweetcorn, not even Eeyore. Nothing, in fact, but trotter marks. The princes blame the princesses for not taking turns to dig.
Princess 1 giggles behind hand 'There's nothing in there (tee hee).'
Prince Arsenal: 'Gasp. It got out.'
Princess 1: 'I told you you should have dug a bigger hole.'
Prince Everton: 'You could have helped.'
And so on.

The £50 offer for the first person to capture a wild boar still stands and the squabbling princes have not forgotten. Every time they come to stay at Chateau Coldspot they sharpen sticks into spears, sets snares and build traps, but despite their most ingenious efforts the boar simply snort loudly continue their revelry under the plane trees.