Right, now I’m back in the warmth of the house, I’m going to tell you all a little story. Those of you who have followed me for a while might be aware that there’s a local farm that I detect. Unfortunately, there’s a group of Polish detectorists who also have permission to detect

...there & we don’t really get on. They always leave rubbish in the holes rather than removing it (which pisses me off) & one of them in particular is a very difficult person to get along with. I need you to understand this as it plays an important part in the rest of the story..

...the farm is arable & the fields are obviously only available between crops. The one particular Polish fella who I really dislike, has been detecting there almost as long as I have & as such, like myself, he knows which fields are more likely to produce finds...

..so when the fields are freshly harvested or freshly ploughed, it’s usually a flat out race between him & myself to be the first one in there. He holds an advantage in the fact that he actually lives on the farm, so he can see when the fields are being worked..

whereas I have an advantage in the fact that the farmer & tractor drivers are good friends of mine & always give me a heads up when work is about to start. For those of you familiar with the ‘Detectorists’ tv show, I’m definitely the Lance/Andy in this story, he’s Simon/Garfunkel

..anyway, there’s a particular field on the farm which I love to detect. It’s been very good to me over the years. However, it appears that it’s also been good to my Polish friend & it just so happens that the cottage he lives in, backs on to the field...

...so a few months ago, my friend texts me to tell me that he’ll be ploughing this particular field on that very day, but it won’t be until the afternoon. Leanne dropped me off & I spent a few hours going over the remains of the stubble, making sure I hadn’t missed anything...

..about 2pm, the tractor rumbles into the field & my friend begins to plough. So I begin to follow him up & down the field. Obviously, I’m not as fast as the tractor & the field was due to be drilled early the following day, as such, this is my only opportunity to detect it..

..so I’m sticking as close as I can to the tractor & doing the parts of the field that I’m more hopeful of having success. After about an hour, my mate jumps out of the cab & comes over for a chat. I hand him 2 washers that I’ve found to see if they’re off the machinery...

...and he tells me that they are. So I tell him to hang on to them if he can re use them, which he does. As we’re stood there talking, the Polish fella wanders out of his back garden with his detector & into the field. Now this is where school yard rules kick in..

..as far as I’m concerned, I get priority. I’ve been in the field since 9am waiting for my buddy to plough, so I’m going to detect where I want to detect, which is right next to the plough in the centre of the field. My buddy agrees. So off we go. For the first 30 minutes or so..

..we detect in relative harmony. But then, he begins to get closer to the tractor & by doing so, me. I give him the look & I’m pretty sure that I began to snarl but he pays no attention. As I’m walking a particular line & my friend in the tractor has gone another line ahead...

..the Polish fella leapfrogs me into the freshly ploughed line. Now, I’m not going to lie, I’m an easy going chap & I get on with pretty much everyone, but at this precise moment in time, I had an overwhelming urge to tonk him on the head with my spade..

..obviously, I’d never do that, so I shook my head, mumbled a few choice words, waited a while & leapfrogged him back into the new freshly ploughed line that my friend had done. It didn’t stop there though. We spent the next hour or two trying to jockey for position in the field

..after a while, my buddy driving the tractor realised what was going on. He also knew that we were approaching an area in the field that I really wanted to detect, so he (& I didn’t know this at the time) threw the two washers out of the back of his tractor to slow the Polish..

..fella down. He text me just after to tell me what he’d done & we had a little giggle about it. Not long after, Leanne had to pick me up & so I had to leave the field for another year, really hoping that it would hold on to it’s secrets until I got another chance to detect it..

..which brings me to today. I’m a member of a large countryside FB group & a little earlier someone posted a video to the feed. I began watching it & laughed at what was happening. Suddenly it dawned on my, that it was my friend, the Polish detectorist & ME! from that very day

For those of you who are wondering, that’s me. Most probably cursing the Polish fella at the time as he’d just leapfrogged me again