Scruffy's Big Adventure - Warwick

With mum being, as they say between jobs at present and dad having no work at work to do, we were for the first time able to get away to Warwick before nearly bed time.

This was going to be a hard trip for me as I had got use to being a high flyer with all the really good shooters in the world. What mum and dad expected me to do was to associate with the lower class. When I said that they gave me a clip around the ear and told me to come back down to earth. So here I am.

With having spent time at the Olympics one forgets what the normal person, who supports these great events, has to work with and when I got to Warwick it all came flooding back.

Any way I am getting off the subject. We arrived in Warwick in good time after stopping to see a job place on the way and after making mum and dad a cup of coffee we decided to have tegal seagull, or for those uneducated Aussies out there, Kentucky Fried Chicken. I tried to tell them it was not a good food to shoot on but would they listen. No. Dinner was eaten and soon after we all decided it was time to hit the hay, but us dogs could not see the hay to hit, silly us, we were off to bed.

Saturday dawned early, can't say bright as it was not, but I had read the last story and had to prove to the others that it was not always me that made everyone late to the range. Today we headed off to the range nice and early unsure what the weather would do. We were so early at the range half the lazy campers were still in bed and breakfast was not even started. That was soon sorted as I ran around waking everyone and yapped at Aunty Carol until she got the food ready. Both mum and dad cooked breakie today and then sat at the table and casually ate their food for the first time at a shoot.

We weren't allowed to lick the plates today as Aunty Jean grabbed them before we had a chance to and took them off to get them washed. Just as mum was about to start washing the dishes the heavens opened up and spilled forth with buckets of water. It was the heaviest rain and strongest wind that many of the visitors had ever seen at the range in Warwick, everyone was impressed with the change in the weather.

Once they had finished sorting out the mess the first shooters had made, the ladies then sat and drank coffee and yacked to Aunty Jean. I had in the mean time gone off with dad to try and instill the knowledge that I had picked up from the good shooters down at the Olympics, and as normal this did not work.

Dad seemed to rush from one event to another today, always on the go and I didn't see mum at all for ages. When we did finally find her after she had finished shooting for the day we found out that she too had not shot as well as what had been planned. After dad had finished shooting as well mum took the car and went into town to find something, she also went back to the house and got some warm clothes as we all thought that the evening might not be very warm.

The evening brought warmer times as the humans decided to close the wall of the house, which kept the very cold wind out. Even us dogs found it cold. We all sat and stood around and talked, I have never known a bunch of people who talk so much. Good thing that they all get on so well I guess. Finally the food came out. Boy, when us dogs are hungry we really need feeding straight away. However, after chomping our way through all the nibbles that were brought out, we really didn't need to have any dinner. But seeing as Aunty Carol and her very good off siders spent all day slaving over a hot lettuce making salads and some other yummy stuff, we thought we should partake in the eating of dinner.

After all the humans spent some time gauging themselves and us poor little doggies getting hardly anything we decided it was time to go home for a well deserved snooze.

It took all night for the morning to come, but dawn finally peaked above the horizon and guess what, there were no clouds in the sky. It was a beautiful day again. We packed up all our gear and took off to the range to find every thing still in disarray. So what does a good Kiwi do, they bowl on in and help. Aunty Carol looked really tied this morning so mum and I decided to help her get the breakies ready before all the hungry hordes arrived. It worked, we were all ready to go when they started to crawl in.

I wasn't very hungry after all the food I had sneaked last night, so I stayed in the kitchen and helped to guard all the food and stuff, but Auntry Carol tried to make me eat anyway. After dad had finished his leisurely feed, see not me that makes the family late, I took him off to do some shooting.

We had to do the second half of Rapid, dueling and air today. Biggish day of shooting again but you get that when we shoot five events over two days. Rapid was better than yesterday even though I had a shot short on the targets. See all this practice with The Master must be paying off.

The shots were fired and the sad stories were told, heaps of them, then everyone sat around waiting for the last final scores to be tallied and then Aunty Carol yelled at everyone that afternoon tea was ready. I ran up as I really needed a drink and could find nothing. Aunty Carol explained to me that afternoon tea was not a drink on its own but some snacks, we had to make our own drinks. Boy there is so much to learn about the human ways.

It was a good thing we did not have too long to wait before everyone was given their gifts, as we had to sit with the time traveling bugs from over the border, dad keep calling him Stebbo amongst other names. Soon most people had been given a gift, still can't work out why only some people get a gift and not everyone, soon after we followed all the others and left to drive home. We had hardly got out of Warwick and mum went to sleep, so Mr W and I had to keep dad company, and give directions to get us home.

We are lucky this time as it is only a week before we get to go away again to another shoot. I have heard mum and dad telling other people that they are going to the Mulberry pie capital of the world, talk to you after that.