There were just us three oldies out looking for a new site to go on and my usual detecting mate (Braveheart I call him) saw a tractor working on the hillside, so off we went to see the chap and ask if it was OK for us to detect on his land. We parked the car up and set off up the hill. The third member of our motley crew stayed with the car, well he was waiting to have a hip replacement operation done so he couldn't run very fast up hills. We were both short of oxygen when we reached the tractor, as breathlessly we asked the chap if he was the farmer and he said yes he was, and yes we could detect on the hill where he was working. But, for the moment we were to detect on the far side of the hill away from him and where he was working with the tractor, until he had reached half way over the hill and then we could go onto the ground where he had just ploughed. So back we went down to the car. We sorted out our gear and all three of us began wheezing our way up the hill.

The ground was very sandy and easy to walk on, well it was for me and Braveheart. We gradually worked our way to the top of the hill detecting as we went. I had only found a button and a musket ball by this time. Braveheart rushing off in front as usual was at the top of the hill on the left hand side, and our soon to be hip replaced third member had staggered up to the the side of the hill, just to the right and behind me. When suddenly I heard someone shouting and swearing loudly. I looked up and this red faced bloke was running up the hill towards me, waving his fists and shouting obscenities. I thought mmm, he looks like an escaped nutter and I tightened my grip on the spade. His face was bloated with rage and between the `f` words, he asked us who the hell had given us permission to detect on his land. I pointed to the farmer on the tractor and said calmly that he had.

What the farmer hadn't told us was that this particular strip of land up the side of the field belonged to this second chap, (It was a strip of grass just a few yards wide with no indication of a border). I apologised profusely and I started to walk away. I shouted to Braveheart waving my arms to attract his attention but he's a bit deaf when he's concentrating - well you know how we men are. Anyway I did finally did get his attention and waved at him to come over. All the time this bloke is still ranting and raving and increasing his blood pressure. Braveheart started to plod slowly towards us, his detector swinging rhythmically in front of him as he approached. The chap now looked like he was standing on hot coals as he stared bulging eyed at Jim walking towards us and began screaming "he's still f-ing detecting". With that he ran towards Braveheart, waving his arms and doing an amusing little jig as the f-ing and swearing increased yet a few more octaves. I just stood and watched open mouthed. It was like looking at two windmills because Braveheart is also pretty good at swearing and waving his arms and bellowing in your face if he has a mind to. Then suddenly the chap turns on his heels and runs down the hill, jumps in his car and drives off like a formula one racing driver, except he only had a clapped out old Lada, so it didn't have quite the same impact. The third member of our team slowly clicked over to see what all the commotion was about and as we were telling him we all burst out laughing. We did go and ask the original farmer why he hand`t told us about the strip of land and the lunatic who owned it, he just shrugged his shoulders and said don`t worry about it and got on with his ploughing.

Oh well just another interesting day I thought as we started to laugh again and continued to laugh all the way home.

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