I had nothing planned for Easter other than tidying the Den and recharging. The first of my '3 birds' quickly came into being out of nothing though. There is an app on all smart phones called 'Words with friends', a scrabble like game where you can play against people you know or any random Tom, Dick or Harry. I've never been good at Scrabble, won just over half my games on the phone version and finished at best 3rd in the overall rankings. Knowing I had a week with little distractions though the challenge was on, at the end of the week finish top of the table. Every time my phone went off I checked to see who was in play. To cut a very boring story short I took great pleasure in wiping the floor with all present, beating amongst other people 3 English teachers and more than doubling my cousins score in second place :)Had to get that one out the way first, this one is much more read worthy promise! At Christmas Mum had brought me and Dad an extreme sports voucher each, even though it was of course our main present it was over shadowed by all the tea, hats and pipes i'd also been given (especially the tea ;) ). With two weeks off work and the old one now retired it was the perfect time to use the vouchers. We were scheduled to do Paintballing, Quad biking and Clay pigeon shooting, we were both new to all but the first one which meant crossing another two items off the book. Dad was due to drive us down in his shiny new car, this was scuppered however the previous evening after a charity pub quiz we went to. A short way down the road after leaving we heard a weird noise which sounded like a flat tyre, sure enough the front passenger one was completely buggered. Me and Mum got out and Dad did a U-ey to turn back to a small road further down. Some idiot going a ridiculous speed damn near went into the side of him while he was turning! Out we got and me and Dad got to getting the tyre off. After much faffing around with Mum holding my phone with the torch on it we got all the bolts off the wheel only to find it was fused to the car. We were given an hour's maximum wait by the breakdown company. 59 minutes and 59 seconds later a dude showed up and eventually sorted us out by whacking the wheel off with a sledgehammer and giant bit of wood. We all got home around 1:00 ish, cold and pretty damn hungry after our Ploughmans', arguably the world's most cack handed and over rated meal (honestly, get some ham in it!)
Early(ish) start, for a Sunday at least. We eventually got hold of the dude down in Dorset and booked ourself in for the day, it would be paintballing at 10:00, Quads at 2 and Clay pij's at 3. With the old one's chariot doubtful and mum at a car boot sale all morning it I ended up taking the two of us down in Mavis. Both parents are always reluctant passengers with me at the wheel but Dad didn't have a choice in things this time after the night before. The drive down was lunch, great weather and no traffic whatsoever, it seemed everyone must have been in the capital watching the marathon. We rocked up at Blandford in Dorset around 9:25 and could see what looked like the quad bike course. paintballing was first up, we were unable to swap it to archery which we would have both preferred. The venue for it was a further mile up the road. I say road but moon surface is more like it, my poor Mavis's suspension suffers at the best of times with all the speed bumps littering Tilehurst and this certainly wasn't helping. We eventually got to a large open area with a couple of guys getting set up. The place was very rustic looking like it had been dragged from the past, we were the only participants for around half an hour until the other two groups showed up, a BMW full of wide boys and a land rover of people who had been ferried there (wish we'd have though of that). We started what would become a pattern for the day, fill in the paperwork, get the right clothing on and get tooled up. On went the camo overalls, the protective mask and then the safety briefing. Most of the group had done it before and were well prepared with thick gloves and padding. What were we getting ourselves into?! Although me and Dad had done this before we didn't let on, never that harmful to play dumb when doing something like this, especially with all parties eyeing up each other to scope out the competition. I felt one step away from the grading scene in the Hunger Games. At this stage me and Dad felt like a '3' at best.
We could tell that the organisers at the place were the layed back type. Although the guy running it would obviously take no nonsense from the group he was lax about certain things such as the stated distance between people shooting each other. Officially it's no closer than 8 feet but in most scenarios this is obviously a ridiculous concept and simply not possible most of the time. We all grabbed our guns and were put into teams. Me and the old one chose to stay together to were in the red team and were facing the others with the black 'hoppers' on their guns where the paintballs went in. The site had at least 4 different areas to play in, the first was my favourite, a set of wooden huts amongst the trees with plenty of cover. First game was capture the flag, the first 5 minutes you were able to go back into the game if you were shot then you were out after that until the game finished. First hit was on the thigh, don't mind telling you it bloody hurt but not as painful as I was dreading. As instructed I put my hand up and kept it up and walked into the 'safe zone'. After that if was a capture the fort scenario with both teams having a go at attacking and defending, a game which involved shooting a circular metal thing in the opponents base, then a 'take the blue container into the base over the bridge game' before a final free for all back at the first venue. The bridge one was the worst where I managed to get shot multiple times despite putting my hand up (bit of blue language at that point i'm afraid) and oddly enough my favourite round was the one I was dreading, the free for all. Me and the old one agreed to buddy up and garrison a hut, that was the only game I managed to survive unscathed and actually managed to shoot 4 people. On the whole we both really enjoyed it and came out relatively pain free, although I am sporting a rather vicious looking bruise on my wrist at the moment that would be the second most painful injury of the day (but more on that later).
Second up, the quad biking. I drove Mavis back across the moon to where we'd started the day. It was a few minutes wait until we were to start again, a more sedate looking group this time despite the annoying little boy who wouldn't stop crying and grizzling. A guy that looked like he'd come from art college told us to kit up, blue overalls this time with bike helmets. Our designer bespeckled chappie gave us a quick run over everything we needed to know and again seemed as chilled out as the last guy. The quad's looked quite gnarly and were a bit of a bugger to start but we were quickly into it. I remember thinking I hoped it would be a combination of segwaying and jet skiing and just as enjoyable. Put the quad in neutral, turn the key, press the on switch, press the throttle, put it in gear, do the throttle again and off we went. A few laps of the practise track and then off we went up a path. We did that for the rest of the hour, a mixture of laps around a track then off to another bit. There was no overtaking allowed but if someone was holding everyone up (afraid I was one of those) then they were shown one path and everyone behind was ushered ahead down a shortcut, the whole thing worked effortlessly and brilliantly. The quads themselves are quite daunting to ride, the front brakes on all of them are purposely disabled for 'insurance purposes' and the back ones seem virtually pointless. Again, the two of us both loved it, it was Dad's highlight of the day and for me a close second behind my surprise package, the paintballing. Top tip that we soon picked up, grip the quad with your thighs at all times and lean right over when going into the corners, especially when going downhill at speed!
Last up with the clay pigeon shooting, surely the most sedate of the day's events I thought to myself, I wasn't going to get injured doing this... (don't panic, no one got shot!) This time it was only the two of us doing the activity, we followed a chappie to the venue which was halfway down the moon like track then into a field. It had my two flags flying so I was already looking forward to it. The young chappie took us to an older guy, the sort who could obviously spot us for a couple of complete novices to fire arms. No overalls this time, just a set of ear plugs and some glasses. he showed us how to hold the gun with the stock against the face and tucked into the shoulder, one eye closed, the other looking down the sight at the end of the barrel. He asked the younger chappie to fire up a clay which just popped straight up in the air, hovered for a split second then came down to earth. the brief was to aim just below it went it was hovering. Dad was up first. Slight problem was he couldn't even see the clay going up! He had to take the glasses off but still could only see the black clay when it was against the blue sky. He missed the first few back managed to clip a couple. I was up next. Seeing them was easy enough, hitting them was another thing! Roll up the most painful part of the day, the kick off that gun! Despite tucking it to my shoulder as best I can every shot was painful. I was chuffed in the fact I was hitting a few and actually shattering them but not in the pain I was getting for it. Me moved onto the clays flying into the distance and then some orange 'rabbit' clays which tumble across the floor. By the end of it we were 7 shots a piece which was a nice end to the day, helped largely by my double rabbit snag right at the end ;) We both got the impression the older guy ended the session early as a mercy plea to the pair of us which we were glad he did, we were both feeling pretty wrecked by the end of it. 
Mavis got us back home in enough time to watch the last day of the Masters, both slumped in our chairs nursing our many bruises from the day. The pain though was well worth it, an absolutely fantastic day in a great venue. Although the place is still very much in development the whole day was very well run. It is obviously a family run outfit, things are kept quick and simple with more time to enjoy the activities themselves. A much needed triple entry into the good book with a lot more lined up for the rest of the year :)Rossifer x
