Not quite the Magnificent Seven, more like the Ridiculous Fourteen turned up to pulverise some innocent clay pigeons at Cockett Farm over the Christmas Period.
The Nelson Car Park was the usual meeting point on Sunday morning (they’ll soon start charging us rent) and off we tootled up to Farnsfield (or in the case of Shai, put the Merc in turbo mode – it’s only 30 through Burton Joyce Shai!).
The convoy spearhead (Shai & Co) was to rendezvous with reinforcements in the White Post Car Park, but due to unforeseen events Gareth was running a little behind schedule. After twenty minutes playing I-Spy and getting some very strange looks from the pub’s employees, Mr P made an appearance; we think he got lost, because he’s moved to foreign parts, or at least Chilwell.
Meanwhile, the main force was tucking into crisps and slurping milky tea in the warm, waiting for Captain Chaos to arrive.
Unfortunately for us, every man and his dog had decided to shoot a few Christmas calories by taking it out on some innocent clay pigeons at the same time, so we had a little wait, which turned into a very long wait, and then we waited some more. We were getting very good at I-Spy by now.
Finally we made it on to the range; the experts amongst us recommended we try Compact Sporting (I’ve no idea what that means either). Actually, we ended up on this as this area was not in use, otherwise we would have had to wait even more.
The experts and Shai went first to show us how it was done, with Tom (Mr Joyce junior) causing consternation by hitting one or two more than Mr Joyce senior; but we don’t talk about that.Terry wanted to know if we could go and fetch our “arrows” and have another go.
We think we had at least one ringer in the party as David E insisted “I’ve never done this before” promptly went and scored nine hits/golds/kills. Unfortunately, the rest if us were not quite as adept, with scores averaging about three from twenty five shots.
Gareth and Mrs P made their exit (you may have missed that he’s moved to Chilwell) at half time leaving the rest of the Mötley Crüe to have another go at the elusive clay’s.
Terry wanted to know if we could go and fetch our “arrows” and have another go; “After you Terry came the retorts”, suffice it to say that El Tel stayed where he was and dug into the depths of his pockets for another few quid for some new “arrows”. Most of us did much better the second time around although, Steve “Where’s that barn door”, only managed a paltry two, so the clay’s are safe for another year!
Many thanks to Chris, Dave, Shai and Tom for letting us use their guns and organising a brilliant day out and all being well, we’ll do it again next year.