LURKING among the boxes and packing cases stacked up in the shed, I knew that somewhere there was an old-fashioned meat mincer. When we had briefly flirted with the idea of selling the farm house and adjoining land and moving to another farm house with adjoining land, I had packed up many of our belongings into a 45ft container.

This container is still in the shed. It is still packed. Its contents and their whereabouts are an increasing mystery as I kept no record of where stuff was. As a result I am now frequently duplicating purchases as I haven’t got a clue where to find what I want.

If I climb the stepladder that is needed to climb into the container and peer into the piles of boxes, I am overcome with a sense of despair, and climb back down again and bring the door clanging down on its runners, and manage without.

But the need to do something different and hopefully tasty with the large stock of game that I have in my freezers, was what reminded me that somewhere I had a mincer and that if I found it I could replicate the tasty burgers and patties that both my mum and John’s mum used to make.

I did flirt with making sausages last year, but John did not like the recipe I used and by then I had about 20lbs left of game sausages to eat...with the dogs. But he has liked the game burgers I knocked together chopping bacon and pheasant breasts in my food processor. “But” said Mr Fussy, "The consistency is wrong. They are too dense, you need a looser mix.”

Well after that criticism from my Cordon Bleu chef husband who has never cooked me anything more ambitious than a slice of toast, I decided to gird my loins and make another venture into the depths of the container to unearth my mum’s old mincer. Forty minutes later and some rather serendipitous discoveries along the way of my ancient Kenwood Chef and a set of cast iron scales and weights, I found mum’s mincer. Sturdy, cast iron, huge; capable of turning a cow into beef burgers, never mind some dainty pheasant breasts into cheffy rissoles. Or whatever the nouvelle cuisine terminology is.

And Mr Fusspot Farmer likes them. They have earned the high accolade of being , “a bit of alright”. I am cranking away on that handle churning out mince like a demented butcher with a long line of customers to satisfy. Success at last.