I pick the wrong day to dismember the hare.
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Unfortunately, time constraints mean that if I am to make a delicious game pie for Boxing Day dinner, I am going to have to make it on the official Worst Hangover of the Year Day.
The world-famous Drummers of Burundi perform at a venue just behind my eyes.
The LTLP has already run from the kitchen clutching her mouth at the first whiff of pigeon frying. But real chefs have more grit. I stick to my task, like an Ainsley Harriot with some degree of personality.
There are two great things about wild game. The first is that it's about as free range as free range could be. So ethically it's an extremely good thing to eat. The second is that it's bloody cheap (if you can't get it free), but people think it's really expensive. That makes it a good way of impressing - to pick somebody at complete random - a father-in-law who might inexplicably think that you are a vapid, know-nothing wastrel.
Anybody who has ever cut up a rabbit will tell you - they have an incredible amount of blood. Hares are the same. It must be something about the long floppy ears. It drips on the floor as I go to work with my knife.
I ping one of the joints out. A glollop of blood flicks across the kitchen and splotches on the work surface, like an evil Jackson Pollack.
The Burundi lads move on to a new tune - cover versions of Sabbath classics.
By the time the meat is quartered and thrown in the pan, the kitchen is starting to look like a crime scene. I gather up the packaging and the bowl of blood and gutty things, then unfortunately knock my arm against something, tipping half my payload against a kitchen unit.
It slides down the white door, gracefully.
I hurry over to the bin bag, leaving a trail as I go. The remainder goes in the bin bag. Some of it comes out the bottom again, to form a small pool.
The LTLP enters, to find me laughing maniacally, clutching a knife in blood-sodden hands.
The drummers reach a crescendo.
