Over the weekend my co-worker James let me be a squatter in the spare bedroom at his place in Standish. It's beautiful, beautiful country. Rolling farms, dirt roads, the faint whiff of horse manure. I loved every bit of it. Friday night James and his girlfriend, Lesley, took me to the local pub and we walked there with their black lab, Molly(!), and I had my very first steak and ale pie. It was delicious but mahoosive! I couldn't even finish half!
Saturday was an early morning. Bacon butty's for a dawn breakfast, lots and lots of coffee, and then off to a Competition Clay Shoot held in honor of one of the community's fallen marines, Liam Elms. Edagrs set up a tent and submitted two teams of four [is that not the most badass tent you've ever seen? I helped erect that. Just sayin].
The way they set up the shoot was really well done. All of the tents were down in a flat area with fields around and then behind the tents the geography morphed into big hills. There were little off-road buggies taking people up and down the hills to shoot/spectate and each one was set up with the most spectacular view. They alo had a practice ground [for n00bs like me] and a down the line competition outside of the overall contest.
This was at the practice portion. That's Becky Bream- she shoots for GB and is sponsored by Zoli- a BIGMONEY gun company out of Italy. The gun I'm using is worth thousands of pounds. Thousands. Anyways, she was kind enough to give me some pointers and I actually got the clay in the picture. Bazinga!
Up at the competition grounds they were using a manual clay trap- I've never seen anything like it before. It was adorable and I hope the man in the picture wasn't offended by my intrigue!
This was another first for me- they're called 'rabbit clays' and instead of vaulting the disks into the sky they bounce them on their side along the grass, so they move low and hop occasionally like rabbits. They're tricky little buggers.
This was a particularly pretty site- they shot the clays over a lake so you got the gentle 'plop' 'plop' of the bits as they descended into the water.
And this was pure comedy! Becky accidentally shot through the flag- but she also splattered the clay to bits! Louise, the lovely woman I work beside, is the one in charge of getting these marketing products and the flags are her babies. She was not happy on Monday, haha.
I took another shot at the practice fields later and increased from 30%
accuracy to 50%- I was pretty damn proud of myself. I am determined to
be at least mediocre when I go home!
After shooting, James' dad introduced me to the man that owned the land they were having the shoot on and he took us on a little tour of his home. OH. MY. STUNNING. Do people actually have real lives that look like this? It was an estate. Big house, even bigger land. Rich man hobbies like stables brimming with steeds, training grounds, a sprawling garden, food and flower alike, and a pond full of black swans. Um, hello Disney princess yard, can I has yew?
This is mildly morbid but... they use a lot of the horses to pull these carriages for funeral processions. Can you think of a prettier hearse?
This little guy had a full on mustache! He wouldn't stay still for a picture, though.
After the impromptu tour we got back for the medal ceremony and one of Edgar's teams won!! James' team, actually! Woohoo for team EB!
After the ceremony everyone started packing up to go home, change, and head out to the afterparty/auction. I can say one thing- the Royal Marines know how to have a good time. Yet again, I failed at capturing anything on film... aside from Lesley and Sally's private little dance number, haha.
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