Had the gun licence man round this week. This only happens once every five years which is a relief, not just because he insists on being plied with at least two large glasses of malt, but also because, in my position, with a son like Bob about, there is no guarantee that something will not go terribly wrong on these occasions. After all, it was only four years ago, just after the last visit, when we found a message on our answer phone from a rather rattled sounding villager complaining about a shooting incident. Our hearts stopped. Turns out that Sophie had cursed the pigeons that perched in a tree and deposited unsavoury things on her car below once too often and Bob had decided to take matters into his own hands….aged 12. Whilst we were out, he found the keys to my gun cabinet – yes….cardinal sin -, helped himself to a .410, went out onto the drive and shot a pigeon stone dead out of the tree. Which poor creature landed on the road outside our house at the feet of an elderly gentleman who had been walking his dog. Not a good one. And two years later I had had to placate a neighbour whose wife had been scared witless by the sight of a young boy in camouflage trousers “and no socks” jumping across their wall in pursuit of a pigeon he had winged with his air-rifle. So, emboldened by the fact that the whisky seemed to have warmed the atmosphere and it seemed, miraculously, there had been no neighbourly complaints, I tentatively enquired whether he thought I might be able to get a firearms licence in addition to my shotgun one. Barely a day went by this summer without Bob banging onto me about how much he wished we had a .22 rifle. Oh, said the firearms officer, do you have a rabbit problem here? Well yes we do really, I replied, which wasn’t really a lie, but it was perhaps a little misleading. Truth is, in seven years, I have never seen a rabbit on our land and if your name is Bob, that is indeed a major problem. Anyway, for various largely topographical reasons, the firearms man was lukewarm on the idea of granting a firearms licence…..and in the cold light of day I think am quite pleased about that. And the residents of Gazeley certainly will be.
Out tomorrow wending my way down to Switzerland to run up that damned hill but, with a bit of luck, should be back in bright and early on Monday.
Fellow sailors…..have you ever seen anything more astonishing than the America’s Cup racing off San Francisco???? Wow. Mind you I feel I could show that Jimmy Spithill a thing or two on the back of my BVI catamaran experiences.
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