At home with Sam who was unwell with Gastro-enteritis and so I did not go to Cambridge but I met up with Nigel for a meal and then shot over Richard Ward’s Molesworth Farm with Sam who had improved.
It was my first night back in bed with Diana who graciously allowed me that promotion after previously confining me to the spare bedroom. I was late back from Nigel, and this was disturbing enough but worst still was a hectic whining coming from Sam at 3.00am in the middle of the night.
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His run was full of two piles of regurgitated food and a big splashy pool of his stools as his tummy upset had developed in a big way. His droppings had become quite liquid during his run last night but I had still fed him a full meal and this had proved to be a mistake.
I cleared up his run as best as I could in the dark after having given him a run around the neighbourhood to have at least one more explosive crap before settling him back down for the rest of the night. I left a note for Di explaining things and did not hear any more before being woken with my morning tea.
Ready for breakfast with the others again and to the bus stop with Sam after walking him early to relieve himself. I opted not to go with Diana to Cambridge but instead contacted the vet and got their advice to keep Sam starved for a day and then fed gradually on small quantities of easily-digestible food to start with.
If he did not improve, then I was to take him in for an examination, but he seemed to be lively enough otherwise and did not have any further trouble after I had fed him rice and chicken later on. Nigel called and came round to get my cheque altered and then drove me over to The Bell at Southoe where I treated him to a plate of breaded plaice whilst I ate a fillet steak.
More work on my journal, getting the last few days written up and then I made my arrangements for the rest of the week, cancelling Mann Egerton for Thursday night and booking into Marshalls of Cambridge instead. I also called and left a message for Robert Ward to say I would be shooting on Molesworth Manor Farm and then went after tea, leaving Sam in his kennel.
I walked around with my shotgun until dusk; bagging just one pigeon out of the four shots that I made, and then spent an active hour or two after dark with the lamp and rifle after rabbits, getting just one small one! Back to watch the closing minutes of the Blackburn Rovers UEFA Cup match, where they could only draw that leg with a Swedish amateur side and therefore lose the tie on aggregate.
Their forwards looked good but their defence and mid-field were very poor. To bed late and to sleep. Earlier, I had quite a good training session with Sam, getting him to stay steady to shot of the dummy launcher and to accept directional signals on a blind retrieve. I also shot a grey squirrel in the garden and got him to retrieve that a few times to hand once it had cooled down and he was very good in all these ways.