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.

The drive to the range this morning was delightful, cool with a promise of a sunny, pleasant day. As I begin today's diary at about 1400, some medium level cloud is beginning to move in. At 0800, time for the start of 1st detail, the wind was almost non existent, what little there was being from the south, up our trouser legs. The team has shot the 300 and 500 metre stages of the Letson. As the morning has progressed, a sometimes tricky

The last bus reached our hotel at 2000 hrs yesterday evening. The Captain was by this time producing some mouth watering smells from the barbeque. Probably in celebration as he has won the Champlain Aggregate, awarded for the highest score in the pre Grand shoots. The steak was really delicious, cooked perfectly to order and just the job yesterday evening. Even though it was still raining...

The Army and Navy vets match was rather a tale of 2 details. In the first detail, the flags lay lifelessly against the poles, very occasionally deigning to flick a tail for a brief moment. Scores were high. 5 minutes before the second detail started, the flags promptly left their poles. The wind bracket for the shoot was agreed as being between 7 and 10½ mins left. Scores were not so high.

First relay of the Ottawa Regiment was scheduled to start at 1800 hrs.  Not unusually, at the beginning of any meeting, not everything runs like clockwork. The shoot began at 1823 after a degree of confusion. The second relay began at about 1925 and the last GB firers got off the firing point at about 2000, having fired their last few shots using “the force”. The majority of GB firers put them all in, with a few having some zero resolutions which

Yesterday evening, some team members were able to sample and in some cases, resample the superb ribs available here at the Barons Hotel. A couple of younger chaps, both relations of of other successful shooting families were persuaded to parade for an 0830 departure to the range. The rest of the team surfaced at about 0900 and finally left at about 1045.