The sun greeted us again this morning with the promise of another glorious day on the range. The team fleeces look like they’ll make it back to Britain without so much as a crease in them. Today we were shooting the Norman Beckett and Colonel John C Brick competitions, featuring something very rare in the DCRA… a long range shoot. Fortunately for everyone, the wind has been extremely gentle in the mornings at Connaught, which lets us wake up gradually, instead of giving us a Corporation-style baptism of fire. This meant lots of excellent scores in the 300m part of the Beckett, before the 800m shoot just after lunch – full tummies and lots of wind. I’ll let the reader interpret that.

It was Richard’s turn to be on the ball with his score of 100.12 just beating Nigel’s 100.9. As for the Col. Brick – a few fantastic scores were put in here, notably Jon Underwood with 100.15 and Steph Ward’s 100.14 earning them both a bronze medallion! At the end of the day’s shooting, there was still business to be had on the range. First was DC’s tie shoot for the Gooderham at 900m: he was tied at 75.12 with Angus McLeod and Des Vamplew of Canada. Just as the targets came up the wind decided it had been too kind during the day, and to make things interesting it kept getting stronger and stronger during the tie. The eventual winner with a 25.3 was Angus, some superb shooting in the conditions. After this had wrapped up, over at 600yds John Deane was preparing himself to tie shoot against Dave Dyson of ‘oop north’ and Roger Romses of Canada. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be John’s day, but his storming run in the Grand so far leaves us certain he’ll win something soon.

In the evening it was our pleasure to welcome the Athelings to our hotel for a well deserved evening off camp. They were instructed to bring their swimming kit and some empty stomachs; we gave them free reign over our pool, sauna and hot tub – then we ordered them 30 pizzas. This task was delegated to the younger members of the team, because once you get past a certain age you seem to get a bit baffled by the concept of takeaways. This became clear when Henryk attempted to take orders from people during the day: “yes Dom, for the fourth time, they are thin and crispy; we can even cut your crusts off for you”. “No Al, there’s no such thing as a Rum pizza”. It was a great opportunity to meet some potential future GB shots on their first trip to Canada, and to let them have a bit of relaxation time away from the confines of Connaught camp – some of us remember all too well how tough it can be living there for weeks on end.