GBRT : Canada 2011

The electricians visited our hut yesterday. “Sparky” Brooks informs us that we can now run the air conditioning and boil a kettle and run the toaster simultaneously. Hmmm. Emma brought a pillow from the hotel. She intends to have a siesta during her 4 hour lunch break. Dyson still leads the Grand by 2 points from Kent Reeve, with Langley and Coleman in 3rd & 4th positions respectively.
Both Dyson and Langley are in the same bus, which leaves the hotel at 0630 each morning, at least a “kwatta” of an hour before any “oother boos”. It has been suggested that we would all be doing far better if we all left at that hour.

I regret to report that the Captain has had a grave accident. He has just shown me his scorebook after his shoot at 300m. All I can say is that he needed a sharp pencil for his plot – which looks rather like a blob in the middle of the v bull. 50.10, I am hoping for extra brownie points by reporting this.

Danny's arm was falling off - his shooting jacket. He took it to a tailor who needed an extra thick thimble and an exocet missile to penetrate his hide and took 45 minutes to reattach his arm. Coleman was charged the princely sum of $25, which he thought a touch expensive!

Wilde was seen yesterday leaving for a shoot. He had managed about 20 yards before executing a perfect 180 degree turn and returning to pick up his rifle.

The Surrey RA Team of 8 consisting of Shaw, Warburton, Shouler, Ramsey, Kent, Coleman, Rose and Richards won the Gordon Highlanders, a shoot concurrent with yesterday's Letson. They scored 832.92, 2 points clear of the team in 2nd place.

As forecast, the winds have been blowing up our left trouser leg. Strength has increased as the afternoon has gone on. The air can now be felt well past the knee cap and is forecast to back around to a more southerly direction. The 500x stage of the President's featured quite light airs, but with angle changes catching out some poor unfortunates. The Gibson 2/10 at 800m, started at 1300 and like the 600m stage of the Presidents, wind strength has been pretty constant, but a close eye on direction pays dividends. Within the team, at 1500hrs as I write, 48's seem to be about par for 600x and 800m. There have been some threatening grey formations skywards that could promise rain, but we have been lucky thus far, with only the occasional spot of the wet stuff, but there are still a couple of hours to go.

John Deane has just walked past the car, he was on last year's team to Connaught, I apologise for omitting to mention that John won the Norman Beckett with a couple of fine shoots.

A team member has just reminded me of his experience this morning at 300m. There is a charming older Canadian F class shooter who hasn't done much before. I suspect that he may well be shooting his first ever meeting anywhere. He does seem to be blissfully ignorant of the routines required. He got down on our team member's left. We are shooting 2 per target, other than that, everything is as per UK shooting. Our “Effer” shoots on TR targets as he is so new. On being given the order to shoot, our F class gent fires - out of turn - and scores 1 point, so a zero is written on his register card. His 2nd sighter lands in the outer. He then requests that his sighters be converted. Having done that for him, our shooter nearly lost it (whatever “it” is) when his partner then scored 5 scoring hits in succession, all over the target. It must be said that he had just bought a new scope this morning.

The GBRT are holding their reception tonight. Having bought 60 litres of lemonade for making the Pimms we will be serving tonight, I hope our guests are thirsty.