Fireworks & fun at Mary's & Tony's

Our friends, Mary & Tony, invited us to their house for a fun-filled, very noisy, party, which generally comprised:

1) Shoot guns
2) Eat (dinner)
3) Shoot guns
4) Eat again (desert)
5) Look at/pet/chase the chickens
6) Watch seriously impressive fireworks (from a way too close distance!)

Most of the guys spent the day at Tony's new & improved shooting range, with a couple of the girls also joining in. One of Tony's friends, Mikey, brought along some of his new acquisitions & I got to try a couple of his pistols & his AK47 assault rifle. I also got to shoot some of Tony's guns, including his AK47 & CZ57 pistol. This was the oldest pistol there (dating from the late 1940s, I believe) but looks like something James Bond would use due to the style & way that Tony restored it. Tony quite likes British Enfield rifles & was searching through his British ammunition when he found some ammo from World War Two. He set this aside to ensure that the 'Brit' got to shoot the British rifle with the British ammunition. The ammo may have been just over 60 years old but it still had a serious kick to it & as I fired the rifle you could see the shockwave created in the dusty ground as the bullet passed above - insane!

Mary has been raising chickens so that she can have fresh eggs on demand. The 'chooks' as we insisted on calling them had just been moved into their hen house & enclosure. We got to have a look at them & even named a few (take a bow Paxo, Bisto, & Cadbury). Beth, Cheryl, Mary, & Christine & Stephanie (the twins that Mary used to work with) also picked some of the chickens up to pet them. We also helped out with making sure that all of the birds returned to the chook house for the evening to ensure that they were safe from potential predators present out in the 'sticks'.

Mikey brought some fireworks for the evening entertainment, but these weren't your usual fireworks. Two hours setting up radio controlled, reinforced mortar tubes in the front garden ensured a huge display for us & probably all the neighbours within at least a 10-mile radius! The fireworks were absolutely stunning but there were times when it did seem that we were perhaps just a little bit to close to the huge explosions just a few feet away from us that were sending fireworks into the Stratosphere!