My First Shoot

I attended my first ever clay pigeon shoot on June 7. A very English thing to do!

The shoot was arranged by RAFT, a charity organization that does research into and treatment of facial and other deformities resulting from burns or birth defect (the name stands for the Restoration of Appearance and Function Trust) - www.raft.co.uk. The shoot is one of their main fundraisers. Stratic decided to enter a team, and I thought I would volunteer to help out. Turns out, volunteerism in this country is somewhat unheard of, and they were all surprised and excited! It was quite amusing, since volunteering is so taken for granted in Calgary!

So, I helped out here and there throughout the day and had a lovely time. They let me do some shooting myself, which was brilliant as I had never worked a shotgun before. I even hit a few clays! The day was beautiful and hot, and we raised approximately £60,000 for the charity, which is entirely funded by private donations and fundraisers.

There were a number of oil companies represented there, and I ran into a couple of people that I knew from the industry. It was a great day and lots of fun! A couple of pictures are here:

http://www.chrisinchiswick.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/RAFT%20Shoot

The World Cup started on Friday, and on Saturday Paul dragged me to the local to watch England play. Can't say it was too fascinating, but it was fun to get out and with a group of people cheering on their team. Kind of like when Calgary is in the playoffs, and suddenly there are a lot more hockey fans in the pubs. You just kind of get caught up in the spirit of it. Anyway, England won, despite a dismal and boring second half. Those guys sure get paid a lot of money to play that badly!!

We're in the middle of a heat wave here - it has been 25 to 30 celsius. The tube has been almost unbearably hot, and buses are hellish (literally!) I have started wearing bare legs and flipflops with my suit to work and changing into nylons and heels once I get to the office (which is gloriously air-conditioned!). My flat isn't air-conditioned, so the windows are all open trying to catch a breeze and a fan is going 24/7 in the bedroom. Being on the 5th floor, I get a bit more of a breeze than the lower floors, so it's just bearable. I didn't go out much on the weekend because it was just too sweltering! Paul and I did venture out to pick up a couple of things yesterday and spent about 45 minutes in the air-conditioned Starbucks with iced coffees and treats! I love doing that on Sunday - walking down to WHSmith, getting a paper, heading into Starbucks for a coffee drink and lounging in the oh-so-comfy chairs reading the paper and chatting.

Some more cool English terms:

Stropy - sulky or pouty. Paul always teases me that I'm being stropy when I don't get my own way!

Tintinet - northern-speak for the internet.

Egg Mayonnaise - Egg salad, as in a sandwich.

OAPs - old age pensioners. What we would call "seniors".

Charity Shops - Thrift stores in Canada, like Salvation Army or WINS.