Have I mentioned that my boys – aka Love Of My Life (LOML) and Scrawny, Pimply way-full-of Attitude Teenager (SPAT) – decided to fully explore their interest in archery. You know, bows and arrows, Robin Hood – stuff like that? Well they got all kitted out with their flash new compound bows, complete with all the “necessary” gear – LOML had to wait longer for his to arrive from the USA because he has such a long reach (apparently due to the fact that his arms resemble those of a gorilla) and they didn’t have any bows long enough in Australia. Whatever happened to whittling a stick to a point and tying a piece of string to a curvy branch, I say??
Anyway….. they’ve been doing a bit of practicing and last weekend they embarked upon a road trip to Bundaberg in Central Queensland to participate in their very first archery competition. YAY, I thought, rubbing my hands together!! A whole weekend of peace!!! So I dutifully cooked all the meals, packed the tins of spaghetti, pkts of chips, chocolate and peanuts, (everyone knows that “emergency rations” translates to junk food) along with bananas and yoghurt (and we ALL know what came home un-eaten, don’t we?????), packed lots of water, warm clothes, extra sunscreen, asthma puffers, bandaids, blah, blah, blah. Jeff and Bryce – good friends, fellow archers and travelling companions – arrived at about midday, so I waved them good-bye, all set to “do mah own thang!!” After all the prep and stress of getting them ready I was so tired, I went to bed! Yep, that’s me – good-time party girl!
I digress – as per what usually happens when I tell a story! After a couple of hours sleep, I was raring to go – the boys called to say camp was set up and it was starting to rain. Me and the girls (my beautiful Staffy dogs) had tea and then I sat down at my torch about 8.30pm. So excited!!! This was my FIRST EVER night-time torching session!!! WOOHOO! It’s been usually too noisy to torch when people want to go to bed – my studio is at the end of the house but still attached to it and my house is not that big so everyone can still hear me…….so I respect the fact that “normal” people like to actually sleep between the hours of 10pm and 6am and that I’m the “not-normal” person who prefers to be awake at this time (or at least until 2am anyway). Back to torching…..I had a great time! Torched until 3am – kept the girls awake – then went to bed!
Same story for the rest of the weekend, torching, sleeping, torching, sleeping – felt the need for some human company so I caught up with Trish (Jeff’s missus that he left home too…) on Sunday afternoon.
Now the best bit of the story is this….the boys shot really well, especially for rank beginners and our son was awarded an Encouragement medal for doing so well (which I must add has become permanently stuck to his neck because he hasn’t taken it off yet!)! I was so proud my heart nearly burst! Our son has Tourettes Syndrome and because he has so many involuntary tics and shakes etc, this makes it extremely difficult for him to hold his bow steady and shoot straight. This award was specially organised for our son by one of the shooters in his group that was aware of his condition and wanted to reward him for the massive effort he put in over the weekend. Awesome!!
Worst bit of the story is…..they didn’t take the camera!! Nooooo!!!! So I’ve got no pics of the comp for you. I will, however, take some pics of the boys and their toys (and the medal, of course!) and post them shortly.
Have a great weekend, all! Chat again, soon…
Sandy
sandypandybeads blog 
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