Shooting

I went on a shoot with my nephew Nick and my sister's partner, Brian. I had a great day. It was a beaters' day at Pulshayes estate. Nick and Brian frequently work as beaters and go on the odd shoot. Every so often, the estate owners who run shoots will have a day of shooting for the beaters as a sort of thank you. I was invited, as we were staying with my sister for the weekend. I've never been to a shoot before, so it was a novel experience and I really enjoyed it. Nick and I shared a gun. The shoot was divided into two parties and each took it in turns to drive and to shoot. So we all had a go at driving the birds to the other party. There were about forty of us all together and between us we fired some 400 shots and brought down about 50 birds: mostly pheasants and a few ducks. Here they are at the end of the shoot:















While I'm not about to take it up as a hobby, I'd go again, given the chance. I actually managed to hit a pheasant with my first shot. The atmosphere was great as well: a real feel of the community in the country.

New Interior

The interior has been reshuffled to add an airing cupboard. I've put it in the bunk room for the simple reason that bottom half will hold the calorifier and that's best placed as close to the two main users of hot water - the bathroom and the kitchen - as posible. This translates to placing it between them. Placing the calorifier in the stern cabin the pipe run to the galley would have meant that we'd waste more water whenever we drew a sink of hot water for washing up.

Here's the new interior. The bunk room has grown by 2 feet while the saloon has shrunk by the same amount.