What a weekend that was! It kicked off on Friday with a fantastic meet-up and dinner in Cheltenham alongside some of my business partners and friends. Great people, great conversations… but also a fair bit of randomness thrown in for good measure!
The evening took an unexpected turn when Nick James handed me a large envelope. Curious as to what he was giving me, I opened it to find four old issues of the *American Racing Pigeon Digest*. Turns out he’d found them among boxes of old marketing material he’d recently acquired. So there I was, sitting in the pub, flicking through a 1996 advert from none other than Mike Ganus. Now, none of my Cheltenham mates are pigeon people (despite hearing me bang on about pigeons often enough!), so the moment felt pretty random to say the least.
But the randomness didn’t stop there.
Brian Parnall was also at the meet-up – someone I hadn’t seen in over ten years, since first meeting him alongside Michael Taggart. It was brilliant to catch up, but things took another curious twist as I was walking through town to meet the gang earlier that day. I passed a shop called *Chameleons* in Cheltenham. For some reason, I felt the urge to take a photo of the sign. Why? Well, funnily enough, Gabs and I had just visited *Slitherin Reptiles Ltd* in Coalville the day before. We’ve recently been exploring the idea of supplying quail eggs to the reptile community, and Slitherin took their first six boxes to trial. While we were there, I saw a real-life chameleon – and I’ve been fascinated by them since I was a kid! So seeing the *Chameleons* shop sign the following day felt like a strange little nudge from the universe.
And the weirdness didn’t end there…
Later that night, after an amazing meal, I caught Brian out of the corner of my eye taking a photo of the *exact same* shop sign! When I asked him why, he told me *Chameleons* was actually the name of his company. We both laughed at the coincidence, but then it got even weirder. Turns out Brian had been looking into keeping quail and mealworms only the week before! What are the chances? Sometimes, you really have to wonder how the universe works.
Early Saturday morning, I was back on the road, this time heading down to the Epsom Pigeon Fayre. It was great to catch up with people and live stream the Breeder/Buyer auction that John Gladwin was running. I also managed to pick up some brilliant training baskets for Zandie from D&D Aviaries, Sheds and Pigeon Products while I was there.
On top of that, I secured eight Frans Zwols pigeons from John – they’re heading out to the USA soon to help launch Zwols Pigeons USA for one loft racing. Then it was back up to Ashby.
As if that wasn’t enough for one weekend, we had Mally in hospital from Friday onwards, so I was a bit preoccupied with worry about him. Thankfully, after two nights in Derby hospital, we picked him up yesterday afternoon and he’s doing much better.
Meanwhile, my mind has been racing after the biz chats on Friday night in Cheltenham. I’ve been catching up online, sorting through 80 quail chicks (Gabs did an amazing job looking after them while I was away!), and keeping an eye on the new Pioneer Pigeons youngsters that are hatching and ready to move out.
It’s been a busy one… but a great one too. Back at it now!
Mark Lyford
