It is the first Saturday of the month, so I was booked in for the monthly 80 sporting bird shoot at the Cotswold Shooting Ground.
I arrived just before nine o'clock, found Bubbles, and we wandered in to the reception to pay for our morning's clay shooting. We were somewhat befuddled when we were asked if we wanted to enter the Fab 5 competition. Our first point of confusion was that there were only two of us, and, secondly, I am not a good shot, so would be detrimental to any team's performance.
The shoot organisers decided that we simply must be part of a team and were linked up with three other chaps. At this point I should add that two of the team were Instructors at the Shooting Ground and one was the son of one of the aforementioned Instructors.
By this time I was feeling well out of my depth, and starting to make my excuses.*
And so the competition started. I did quite well on my first couple of stands, especially compared to my very experienced team mates, and this streak of luck seemed to stay with me as we continued around the eight stands.
The last stand was a bit of a disaster for a couple of us, but, overall, I felt that I had had a reasonable day.
The scores were totalled up and I had scored 62/80 (77.5%). That was an absolutely unbelievable score and a personal best. I was only two shots behind Bubbles, who is a far superior shot to me, and mine was not the lowest score in our team.
When the completion results came in we found that our team had come third overall ... I felt as proud as a dog with two dicks!
In the afternoon I finally got around to some much needed work in the garden. The new potting shed lighting was connected up and illuminates the bench brilliantly. I then headed out to the greenhouse and tied up the tomato plants, taking the tops out of those with six or seven trusses. Next I wandered over to the raised beds and watered the beetroot and carrots.
The leeks, I had planted out in the first half of July, seem to be doing reasonably well, although the fresh growth on a couple of them looks a little pale. I gave them a good watering with a phostrogen additive and hope that this will make up for any deficiencies in the soil.
The final job in the garden was to attend to the raspberry canes. I picked the fresh fruit and was delighted by the quantity and quality of the berries. A bowl of them was put in the fridge for later. I then grabbed a ball of string and tied in the fresh growth of the Summer fruiting raspberry canes. These will bear fruit next year and needed to be tied in to the supporting wires.
Midway through the afternoon 30% gave me a shout, and asked if we had any more honey labelled. A gentleman had called at the gate, and asked if he could buy five jars. I happily labeled up another jar, and wandered up to thank the chap for his purchase.
Over the next few minutes we learnt that he had grown up in the cottage, before leaving sometime in the early 70's. We invited him, his wife and daughter in for a look around, and spent an hour getting to know a little more about the fairly recent history of our home.
I must take some time to jot down what he told us, in the next few days. But I will add these two nuggets now ...
He was delighted to see Rose Cottage still standing, although now in the orchard. He advised that this had originally been a little corrugated iron garage sited at the front of the property where the 2014 timber garage now stands. It had also been referred to as Rose Cottage, even then. Clearly it had been relocated to the orchard at some point in the more recent past.
He also filled in a few gaps about Tessa's gravestone. It was actually the discovery of this gravestone that led to the Gentleman's visit today. A few months a retired Judge from the village called on us to buy some honey. He advised that his cousin had lived here from the 1950's. At that point we asked if they had owned a dog called Tessa, and he confirmed that he thought they did. The Judge took a photograph of the gravestone and advised that he would send the picture on to his cousin. The letter was sent and the cousin decided to come down from York for a trip down memory lane.
Now, on to the dog. Tessa was a mongrel acquired by the Gentleman's mother. She was a single mother who brought up three children in this little cottage with no running water and an earth closet toilet. It had been suggested that she have a dog, as she was living a good way out of the village on her own, and a dog might deter the attentions of vagrants and ne'er do wells.
Tessa came to live with the family and, when she died, she was buried with love up in the orchard. The rather posh gravestone was hewn by the gentleman's grandfather. Apparently he was a stonemason from Stratford-on-Avon and this was probably one of his last pieces of work before he died in the early 70's.
I finished my day with another dog related activity. 30% had decided that we should take the dogs up to a local exercise field to let them have a run. I must admit to thinking "why the hell are we paying to take the dogs to an exercise field when we live on three quarters of an acre, and have miles of empty lanes for them to run along?" Anyway, some times I just keep my mouth shut and go with the flow, so we spent an hour in a fenced paddock hurling tennis balls around for Wilson and Hobson to retrieve. Whiffler just ambled around sniffing at stuff and The Rat chased a few balls, but got pushed out of the way by the two youngsters.
So that was my day! Definitely not was I was expecting to happen!
---
* I went with the blunt, but honest, "I'm a shit shot".
