After surviving an unusually-cold night which froze the nearby dykes and roads, I walked Sam and then took the girls to Wroxham library and had personal Electric Boat demonstrations.
Lunch with the family at The Horning Tea Shoppe and then my shooting lesson at the Mid-Norfolk Shooting School. Then to The Broads Hotel in Wroxham for their carvery dinner
We experienced an unusually-cold night which froze the nearby dykes and left frozen roads and frost everywhere, but we were warm and comfortable in our beds at Harnser. We were slow to stir as a result, so that Debbie beat me into the bathroom and I had to wait even longer before getting up.
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Enjoying breakfast and then getting out with Sam, taking him along the sawdust track to the end of Crabbett's Marsh and working him on his obedience. Diana opted to stay home for the morning, but I took the girls to Wroxham where I set them on the walk to the library whilst I looked up Rupert Latham of The Steam and Electric Launch Company and was treated to personal demonstrations of his "Frolic" and "Mystic" electric launches along the nearby dykes.
The overnight frost was a problem in that ice had formed and was breaking noisily under the hulls, but I was impressed with the craft. Back to take Diana and the girls out for lunch at The Horning Tea Shoppe and then, whilst Diana took the girls shopping in Norwich, I drove off for my shooting lesson at the Mid-Norfolk Shooting School past Taverham on the Fakenham Road. I was early and so ran Sam across a field nearby but then drove over to the shooting ground.
This was a shooting ground of the old school; only now in the process of installing automatic traps for the first time. The proprietor spent some time on my stance, finding fault with the position of my feet, back, head, cheek, arms, hands and all else. Even my gun itself did not escape criticism and was found to have exceptionally tight choke when used on trial targets! My technique was therefore taken apart and put back together again and on the subsequent shooting with 50 cartridges on three types of clay target trajectory.
He had a helper who operated the traps manually and varied the targets and I hit many if not most of them after a while. Sam had been quite distressed in the car, no doubt excited and disappointed at hearing the noise and not being able to make retrieves all this time and so I settled him down before driving away. Home early and in time to give Sam a good run during which I had a chat with the local farmer about Sam and his training. I did not approach him about shooting over his land which would have been too pushy in my view.
Back well before Diana arrived home with the girls who had been naughty as usual when in Norwich. I just took her out for the evening a result; our destination being The Broads Hotel in Wroxham for their carvery dinner. Home to my journal and then to bed. A nice chat to Jim Bird on the telephone this evening, reporting my experiences of Trevor & Barbara Rigby and other things and exchanging views on the subject. I was able to report to him that Sam had been gentle on the wood pigeons he had to retrieve these last few days which had come as a great relief to me. The weather had proved dry, still and bright today, but the temperature dropped again tonight as another hard frost developed.