The gate was secured electronically, so I phoned Dave, who said he was barely two minutes away, and he was soon pulling up behind me. I followed him in and he showed me where to park, before showing me the meeting point, and some of the arrangements. He also asked if I might also take some shots of their cosy dining area and kitchen. Fortunately despite my not having the ideal wide-angle lens, my 24-105mm was sufficiently wide to get a few shots, despite operating handheld at 1/5th 1/10th of a second! This room was built into the corner of a vast barn, and the barn itself was very gloomy as despite the earliness of the hour, it was very dark outside in the open.
There was tea, coffee, and food prepared and laid out for everyone. As more people arrived, I was greeted by a few familiar faces from the fishing community including Bob himself. I was soon to learn there was a certain hierarchy — the Guns, then the Beaters, then the Pickers Up. I was very unsure where I came in this unfamiliar gathering. I did my best to listen and observe, and whenever possible try to get answers from Dave; not easy when you are acutely aware that he has higher priorities than you, and you do not know the ropes. I did what I often do under such circumstances, collected my camera, and took a few shots of the assembled crowd. After a while it seemed there was a full complement, so Dave gathered everyone to a flip chart he had set up, and explained how partridge-shooting differed from that of pheasants, and how we needed to be very silent when we arrived at each drive, and also exactly the Beaters were to be positioned and how they would move.
There was a trailer each for the Guns and Beaters, and these were brand new, as was a quad-bike to tow the bird trailer, I was originally told I'd be travelling with the Guns, but I found myself being invited to join Jennie in her 4x4, and I submitted willingly to having my travelling varied from the Guns trailer, to the cabin of a Land Rover, or Shanks 'pony! Ultimately I was my own boss, but I carefully sought out answers to avoid any incorrect etiquette or safety breach.
There was break for refreshments, cheese and cheese sticks, but as I was still running a course of antibiotics, I was unable to partake in the wine on offer with the Guns.
We had a break for lunch which offered pasties, the most generously-filled sausage rolls I have ever seen, coffee, and tea. This was the first time I was able to chat to some of Bob's anglers and Bob himself. We went for several further drives which also took us to Mentmore amongst other places. I have tried to capture some of what went on, but it was a shame it was so grey, as this made it very difficult to capture what I would have liked, as I had to use such a high ISO speed, and low actual shutter speed, and really my lenses lack the wide apertures necessary in this type of endeavour, but I thoroughly enjoyed my day, and tried to get a DVD's worth of images for Dave out as soon as possible making this galleries and write-up very late.
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