IT is the time of year when shooting commitments seem to dominate our social calendar. After several days in Scotland deer stalking, this week has seen us driving to a friend’s farm where John had been invited to a shoot.

We love this visit. Me for the chance to see a close friend, and John to have a poke round their farm. Three of our or friends sons are actively involved in game shooting.

One has been apprenticed to an internationally renowned gunsmith. Another runs two successful commercial shoots. And the youngest son aspires to do better than both of them.

Two of the lads are off to Argentina in the spring to load on dove shoots and find careers as sporting agents, after both qualifying as shooting coaches. Conversations in this household do not stray far from this sporting genre.

Our friend’s farm contains a deer park that dates back hundreds of years. A lot of time, and money, is spent on maintaining the fencing around the park, as the deer, and unfortunately poachers, have a habit of wrecking them.

One memorable year that we were there, several stags managed to walk out of the park over a frozen lake which our friends had assumed was an impregnable barrier to escape. Forgetting that although the deer were not in the habit of swimming to freedom, they could walk their way out.

No problems this week though. Blue skies, no rain, unseasonably warm in fact.

A gust or two of wind would have helped the birds fly better I was informed, but all in all a perfect day for a spot of countryside sport.

Fortunately for the birds not many of the guns there were good shots, so I was delighted to see most of the pheasants cocking a snoot at the guns as they soared to freedom.

This was because unlike on the shoots that we usually go to, the majority of the guns were from professions such as estate agents, dentists and doctors. Not farming.

So a wide range of day to day experience and experiences were on offer. Mind you, I would not expect any of our farming friends to write me a prescription or fill a hole in my tooth.

Just once though I felt at one with the pheasants and dived for the safety of the hedge and a large tree for shelter on a stand.

The gun in question who gave me such a scare, did apologise after the drive, offering his excitement and inexperience as an excuse. I hope lessons were learned and luckily no one was hurt. Just pride. And no pheasants.

So the interior of a warm comfortable bookshop where I spent the next day signing copies of my book, Hen’s, hooves, woollies and wellies by Bobbi Mothersdale (that’s the real me), was very welcoming. And books flew out of the shop.