Well that was a very interesting experience. I’ve done it, but not sure if I can be bothered doing it again. 

 Nine went shooting and ten went for dinner afterwards. We had one woman who couldn’t come to dinner (we didn’t shoot her !!), and two who came to dinner but not shooting.  Great evening, but a lot to process. I was very interested in the whole scene and the atmosphere. Just some impressions. The guy who taught us about guns, how to load, how to hold the gun etc was really great. He was friendly and informative, no sense of put downs or machismo. The other guys were totally different.

 We had a couple of young, good looking women with us and apparently one of the guys spent the whole evening hanging around them while they were shooting. He kept peering in through the window while we were having our lesson.

 When I asked for help, the guy who came rolled his eyes with the “what’s wrong with you idiots” type look. He may have been kidding, but there was nothing to say he was, no laugh, no subsequent comment about learning. We actually did rather well considering everything. 

 I talked to one of the young women and she said that she had expected the “machismo” type guy to be working there. Hadn’t occurred to me. But I guess that sort of work would attract a certain type of male.

 The deal is that before you are allowed on the range, you have to have a lesson on guns, loading, safety etc. Our lesson took quite some time cause there were so many of us. I could see some looks of apprehension when we were having our lesson. The guy kept joking about the gun biting back if you didn’t put your hands in the right place. So much information in such a short time.

 And we each got to hold the gun and practice with it.

 Here’s my first ever time at holding a gun.
Look pretty professional, don’t I?

 We were all then escorted to the shooting range itself. All under lock and key. A row of little rooms with doors.  We had to put on safety glasses and ear thingees. We looked great!!!!

 We shot in pairs and I paired up with the other “oldie”, our chairperson. It was like the blind leading the halt and the lame. Neither of us could manage the clip on the semi automatic, our hands weren’t strong enough. So it became a team effort. I held the thingee down, and she put in the bullets. My hands were pretty sore by the end of the evening.

 What else do I remember? The darkness, the dirtiness of the place. All the signs were old and tattered. Bullet casings all over the floor. We were told not to bother picking up after ourselves, the guys would do that. Nice change. But they weren’t doing it. There were lots of bullet casings in the room when we went in. Interesting. If women were running the place, they would have all been cleaned up, the signs would be replaced and not tattered.

 Got a bit of a fright when I discovered that we were locked into the little room. But soon realised that as soon as you pushed the button for help, someone was there pretty quick. The tall guy was too busy with the two young ones (good lookers, both), so we kept getting this other guy who was a real dork !!

 The guns were held on from both sides and from the bottom. Apparently they’ve had to do that since a couple of people killed themselves in shooting galleries. You can only point the gun down the range, not at yourself or anyone else.

 This is what it was like looking down to the target.

 Oh yes, the pink hat. When I arrived, they had a little present for me. A pink cowboy hat with sequins and a tiara. It was so funny. This is the sort of humour my work mates have.

 Madeleine
Sunday, 20 August 2006

I took a series of photos tonight which showed an interesting chain of events in the life of the Australian gum tree. At this time of the year, many plants are flowering. Until tonight I never noticed this progession.

Gum tree in flower

When the flowers die, we are left with these little shells.

I have seen these all over the place and never really worked out where they came from.

This is what we usually see on the ground.

I never looked closely before to see the progression.

 The wonderful thing about Australian plants and flowers is that they are just so different from most other plants.

 I almost walked past this one before I noticed that it was a flower.

I’ve got no idea what it is, but it is exquisite. 

Madeleine

Thursday, 17 August 2006

Monday 24 July, 2006

I finally got around to doing something about my birthday this weekend. I invited the work crew to my party on Saturday night at lunch time today. The boss says: “What do you want for your birthday, Madeleine?” I hemmed and hawed and of course there were the usual comments from the background:” We’ll get you a stripper!”, “How about bungee jumping?”. I put forward the idea that I had never shot a gun and don’t even remember touching a real gun. Here I was, almost 60 and this was something I’d never done. Well, the crowd went wild. Even people I thought might think it was a crazy idea, thought it was great.

 Over the next couple of weeks, people at work were busily planning in the background. One of the things about my boss is that she loves any excuse for what is now called “team building exercises”. However, we don’t have to have crazy weekends with a facilitator doing silly exercises. We just do things together and the boss grabs onto any excuse for the bunch of us to do things together. This is partly why we have such a good team.

 Wednesday 2 August, 2006

I’ve been told to keep the evening of the 18^th August free cause we are going to the shooting gallery to make my wish come true. I can’t believe how many people are interested. It looks like there are about 10 of us going. And considering that the base team is only 6 people, that’s doing pretty good. I now have my first counselling student and she wants to come too. I think our chairperson is interested and another one of our students is interested. No men are being invited.

 Friday 11 August 2006

Apparently we are going out for dinner Friday night after we shoot up the town. I don’t know if it was supposed to be a secret. I do know that I was kicked out of the big office one day during the week when everyone else was in there. I suspected they were up to something. You gotta watch this lot. They are the greatest planners.

 Thursday, 17 August 2006

Well, tomorrow is the big day. It’s funny. Although it’s something I wanted to do, I wonder what my reaction will be. One thing I have learned over the years is that you can never KNOW what your reaction will be. Even to things you know you want to do. Sometimes your reaction is totally different from what you thought it would be.

 I sort of imagine myself touching it and then pulling back. I’m aware that these are not toys. I’m hearing stories about how much they kick back and people talking about how much it hurt when they first fired a gun. I don’t like pain. Not really into that sort of stuff. Are my hands going to be big enough to hold it? I have very small hands, smaller than most people and have trouble putting petrol in the car cause the grip on the pump is too big. Is this going to be a problem? What does the place look like? How is it set up? Do I shoot blanks or real bullets? Someone told me this week that because people have killed themselves in shooting galleries (I’ve even added a new word to my vocabulary – shooting gallery), that they now use blanks rather than bullets. I felt almost disappointed, but a bit relieved that if I missed, I wasn’t going to kill anyone. When I throw a Frisbee for the dawgs, everyone who knows me moves away, cause they never know which direction the Frisbee will end up going. Even I don’t know. Is this going to be a problem shooting a gun?

 This is a bit of an interesting dichotomy for me. I am anti guns. I don’t believe that they have a use in today’s society. Particularly not in the city. And here I am, getting ready to shoot one. How does this match with my beliefs? Still haven’t worked that one out. I’ve never had a problem with shooting as a sport. So maybe this is where my birthday outing fits. I will eventually sort it in my mind.

 In the meantime, I’m really excited with a lot of other mixed feelings. Probably a bit of nervousness. I guess anything new has a bit of nervousness in it. The thing is I’m doing it with good people. People who know me, and I trust. I know it will be a good evening.

 Stayed tuned for photos and the next instalment.

 Madeleine

Thursday, 17 August 2006

 Everyone needs something to believe in - a higher power, a religion, themselves, What I find interesting is what people choose to believe in and what they do with it. My experience is that when people find “something to believe in” they make it a way of life. It becomes not only part of who they are, but a large part of their value system.

 I find that TA (Transactional Analysis) is one of these somethings. I am on a list for TA people to discuss the theory and talk about their experiences. People have taken this theory and made it gospel. If you don’ t live this way, there is something wrong with you. The twelve steps program seems to be the same. I guess this is one way that human beings learn who is part of their pack and who is not. Most people at least profess to take in other people who do not believe the way they do, but religion is one area that many people simply cannot accept others who do not believe exactly the same as they do.

 Funny this. Why do people need something to believe in? Why is simply not being alive sufficient? Is it part of the pack mentality – we group ourselves on what people believe in. Someone once asked me why I had never killed myself? What was it that has kept me alive all these years? The first word that came to my head was – curiosity. So is that what I believe in? Doesn’t seem to fit with the definition I came up with as to what “something to believe in” is. So I guess I don’t believe in anything really. Maybe I don’t need to believe in anything. Maybe I don’t worry enough about why I am here on this earth. Maybe I don’t worry about what will happen to me when I die? Is this why some people believe that you have to have something to believe in?

 Madeleine

Thursday 29 June 2006