Today was what I call the first shoot of the off-season for me. The South West Single Barrel Inter-counties is tomorrow, but I’m not involved in the team for that. I’ll still be there though to see what happens and report on it. I haven’t planned to go to any bigger events that might be happening as the season draws to a close either.

It’s been a while since I was at North Cornwall last. You never quite know what you’ll get for weather, but today it was kind to us. We had a smattering of rain from the fringes of a big cloud heading South, but nothing more, and the wind managed to restrain itself from affecting the targets too badly. When it looks like it does in the photos, it’s a really pleasant place to be!

I was in Somerset again today because Brook Bank was the only South West ground with a DTL competition, and I had a number of objectives.

Ah, Double Rise. One of those disciplines that I hardly get to shoot, perhaps once or twice a year (if that) at the County and Regional Championships.

Not many places set it up because it requires two extreme angle DTL targets thrown at the same time. You need either two traps firing simultaneously, or one trap that can throw two targets, like we had at Two Counties yesterday.

Evening everybody!

I can start this week with some good news – I have my temporary permit! Valid until February next year.

I don’t know if it was me sending through a receipt for my guns going into storage, or if one was sent before the 27th and the postal strike stopped it getting to me, but the speed with which one was issued and sent on the same day as I sent the email leads me to think that there was no first one.

Greetings, everybody, from Two Counties Shooting Ground, where we were all enjoying a day out shooting without leaking from places we didn’t know we had!

After the baking hot oven that was Brook Bank last weekend, I would have gladly settled for the steady downpour I drove through on the way down today, but yet again we were lucky.

I won’t be using that air conditioning repair company again. They had all night to sort it out, and nothing they did had any effect on today’s temperature.

Someone said it was a few degrees cooler than yesterday, but I don’t believe it! Perhaps it was the near complete lack of air movement that made it feel hotter, but regardless of what it was, it was tough!

Hello from a sweltering hot Brook Bank Shooting Ground.

My car told me it was 23 degrees outside on the way there – except that I was doing 70mph on the M5 at 8:30 in the morning!

We’ve been roasting, and with no breeze to speak of to cool us down, shooting has been tough today. Every tree big enough to have a car under it in the shade was occupied.

I decided to head North up the M5 today and shoot a Registered DTL at Brook Bank.

Some of my readers will be wondering why I did that instead of going the other way, and shooting the South West Double Rise and 100 DTL at North Cornwall today.

I’m writing this the day after because a 3 and a half hour drive home along the A303 in summer after a days shooting doesn’t leave much time or mental energy for writing reports, especially when it’s a 6am leave for work the next morning!