My First Shot

Sophie grew up around animals, and as a vet she's been around guns for years.

I grew up in a normal Midland town, went to a normal school and ended up as a design engineer of medical products.  I've never even seen a gun in real life.

Until today.

I'm told I have missed out on a critical part of my life so far, so today we went to the Fennes Shooting Range for a lesson in clay pigeon shooting!

We had an hour and a half with Brian, who incidentally was brilliant.   To be honest, I was a little uneasy about the idea of holding a real-life shotgun, and was expecting the experience to be something similar to what I've seen on American TV shows.  But I couldn't have been more wrong.

Brian used the phrase 'analy retentive' to describe his and everyone else's attitude to health and safety, their guns and their sport.  And he immediately put me at ease when it comes to handling and shooting this loaded weapon.

Next up was the actual shooting.  Turns out, I'm pretty awesome!  I think I missed 3 clays out of the 25 or so I shot at, and had a brilliant time!

The thing I remember is a strange sense of calm which came over me every time tucked my cheek in and looked down the barrel of the 12 gauge shotgun.  The world went quiet, my knees stopped shaking, just a quick sniff of my runny nose, and then uttering the word:

 "PULL!!"

I can see how people get addicted...