Went to the first fullbore shoot I've been to since the floods, at Tyddesley Wood last Sunday.

Word had been that the water hadn't reached the sheds and the targets hadn't been damaged, but they were in fact in a pretty bad state, with the paper hanging off the canvas in some cases on the 600 yard boards. A few emergency repairs got done as we were setting up the butts - I was in the first marking detail - and the 300 yard targets got new centres.

The real problem wasn't noticed, and we stood around waiting for all the usual confusions and misunderstandings - in this case livened up by an exceptional row with the Range Warden about which keys and sheds we were supposed to use - to settle, the red board to come down and the first rounds to start arriving.

<CRACK thump>, a splash in the sand well to the right of where it looked as if it should be, and I was pulling down the 300 yard target for a gander. Ah - there was a hole - but - 'ang on - there was another, and another, and another... It began to dawn that the water vapour from the floods had simply unstuck and washed away all the patches from the white. It was OK for the smarty-pants who landed straight in the black with their first sighters, but the lesser mortals who took a few (or sometimes many ) rounds to wind in from the outer reaches of the white didn't have a prayer because we couldn't find the 'ole...

It was true that recent hits showed a blacker deposit inside the hole than old ones, but it still meant you had to examine loads of holes. Eventually we had to ask for a couple of minutes pause in the shoot to patch up the white.

Bu99ers on the firing point had the cheek to comment on 'slow marking' ...

Regards,
MikB