"With Distance in Mind"

Well here we are in August already. The months are really whizzing by and it‘ll  be Christmas before we know it! The first batch of youngsters are finished training now - we have had them up to 70 miles - and we are now starting off the the later birds. Weather permitting, we will give them 4 weeks' solid training, then leave them alone till next year, not forgetting the shooting season which starts September till February.

I think it has been the same in England but the young bird losses here have been really extreme. For example, for St Junien 360 young birds were entered and only 150 have got home, so with the training ours have had we are sure they will be ok till next year where we will race them as yearlings bearing in mind last year's youngsters did not race either and we are extremely pleased with the way they raced this year as yearlings. In the Barcelona yearling team we started racing 99 and we still have 88 left which will go on to race in the Barcelona International next year

We had the opportunity to race this weekend 91 miles with the first batch of youngsters we have trained but they are starting to moult and again we have very heavy rain and this does not seem to stop the French from liberating. We are not willing to throw them away just for the sake of getting them into a race. They have been well schooled and, weather permitting, I will give them a 60 or 70 mile toss tomorrow then we will leave them alone and start training the later arrivals.

It‘s very difficult to try to enter the young birds into races for us as they start racing them on the 8th June and we are still receiving birds in June and July as the distance fanciers do not pair up too early, so plenty of training is what we shall be doing with them. We have not raced our own young bird team either because, as you know, we had the disaster of our stock shed blowing down in March so our own youngsters are also that much later but we don‘t see this as a problem as last year's Barcelona Challenge youngsters were not raced either, just well trained. Out of the 9 sprint races this year we have won 7 of them with our yearlings and these, too, were young birds of ours that did not race last year as youngsters

The young bird race programme starts on the 8th June with a 70 mile race then they race every week 15th June is 101 miles then the distance increases week after week up to the final two races of 319 then 350 miles so by the time we have finished training it would mean jumping them straight into a race of around 200 miles and, as I have already said, we feel it is too big a jump for their first race, but next year as yearlings we will enter them in plenty of races of around 150-200 miles in preparation before they race Angouleme 350 miles.

For the past 4 weeks the 1st young bird team have trained every day if not raining or bad weather and out of the 92 we still have 92.

When we first started training they were all over the place coming back on their own, sometimes taking 2 or 3 hours more than they should and John really seems to panic. We had exactly the same last year a few early mess ups then the team seem to get it together and come home as a batch. What seems to cause this is really baffling to us as we don’t start training until John is happy they are ranging off for an hour, then we only start them at a 5 mile toss. I pick excellent lib sites, nice and open and high up. It does seem to be the shorter tosses that are the problem, with the birds taking the longest times but until they are banging home like bullets John doesn’t like me to move them on too far. Sophie-Lou and I seem to be living in the car at the moment as when we go on 60 and 70 mile tosses we are gone for 5 or 6 hours, as most of the drive is through villages where you can only do 30mph .

So far this week Monday 11th, Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th we have been unable to train as it’s been non stop rain. Where’s our summer got to, that’s what I want to know?

On Sunday 10th August we had our club BBQ. There were about 70 or 80 fanciers there and the booze was flowing freely. We had to leave early so John could get the birds fed and cleaned out. He just can’t seem to give himself a day off!!!

We have a new friend, John Harverson, who has just bought a barn about 12 miles away from us and is renovating it into a house, a massive project in no uncertain terms. Bless him, he doesn’t even have electricity or a bathroom yet. He’s sleeping on the top floor of the barn on a blow up bed with the wind howling through as there is a massive hole in the roof. His only company is a couple of resident bats! John also has pigeons and they are living on the ground floor in a makeshift aviary but eventually they will take most of the top floor and fly out of Dorma windows, so needless to say John has been at ours quite a bit lately for a meal and a shower and I think just for a bit of company. It’s quite nice though having another Brit about.

Another very good friend of ours, Mathieu Buret, has been whipping some serious butt down at his club winning the YB races every week and last weekend he was 1st old bird 1st yb and 1st yearling so he is chuffed to bits as he’s never won a race before but since listening to John on how to feed etc he’s winning every week.

Last weekend we had the pleasure of our mate Lee Sullivan and his wife Karen and their son Tommy and Lee’s brother Gary for a visit. I `d like to say thanks as they picked some bits up from my mum’s for me, quite a bit of stuff actually and they had to bring their 4x4 as my mum had been shopping. She had bought a swimming pool and the usual shopping she buys me plus bits and bobs you can’t get here so thanks guys for that, not that we’ve had the weather to put it up yet at the moment. We could do with some welly boots! Also Karen, thanks for all your help cooking breakfast, doing the bbq food, washing up etc. I thought you were supposed to be the one having a rest. I must admit it was nice someone else doing it for a change so don`t leave it so long next time. I know you are flat out at work but it was really nice to see you all.

Next to come out was Paul & Janet Rennison. It is always lovely to see them and we are really pleased that Janet is getting much better. We will see them again soon as they are regular visitors and they are more like family.

Then on the 16th August Connor finally came home. He has been over in England with my mum for 5 weeks but is back home now. He has been off school for 7 weeks now and still has two more weeks then he starts college so quite an exciting time for him although he is nervous after being at his old school since we have been here  where there were only 25 children in the whole school. It will be quite a shock going to a really big college but I`m sure he will be just fine once he has been there for a week or two.

Well that`s just about it for now. Finally it`s AUCTION TIME where once again you will be able to buy some of the best distance birds from top fanciers as we are going to be holding our second auction of young birds, for prize money Barcelona 2009. This time we are going to have a live internet\telephone auction as we feel we might gain more interest this way as it is more convenient to just pick up the phone or look online and bid. Bidding will FINISH  AT 9PM ON 31ST AUGUST. Full advert of lots will be on www.pigeonportal.com and www.elimarpigeons.com Once again there are some cracking youngsters up for sale so why not place a bid and possibly bag yourself a  winner at a very reasonable price! If any of you have had any success with youngsters purchased at our 1st auction please let us know as we would be extremely pleased to hear from you, also to let you know that John is over the moon with the quality of the pigeons you have entrusted to us so again thank you one and all for supporting us in our venture.

That`s all for now. As always, look after each other.

Lou