Well, Chippy had a brilliant idea for his stag do – archery. He found a place in Canterbury that catered for big groups and today was the day. I was picked up by Batty at 8am and we drove back to Dave’s house to collect the others, then made our way in convoy to Canterbury.
Once we arrived at our destination, we all signed waivers (in case we got maimed or worse) and were given our braces and tabs. These were leather goods designed to protect your fingers and arm during the day.
We then decided on our team names. Chippy, Jose, the two Steves and I called ourselves Chippy and his Strangely Merry Men (seemed appropriate). Dave, Matt, Bernie, Brian and Batty became The Wheelie Bin Ladens. The two dads, Robert and Paul, and Dean teamed up with two others players to become The Cleos (though I think this should have been spelt Clios)
We were then given our colour coded arrows. The team I was on had black arrows. The fletchs at the end of the arrows were also colour coded so each team member could identify their own arrows. Mine had yellow and pink fletchs (very nice!!). We then had a few practice sessions and also learned the art of finding arrows that had gone astray.
We then began the games proper. We were given a variety of target ranges from wild animals to flying geese (plastic and resin – not real!!!).
During the games, one of the more challenging games was to hit a coyote in a herd of sheep. You got one point for hitting the coyote, 2 points for killing the coyote, but minus one point for hitting a sheep. Luckily, Jose, Matt and I all managed to score kills on that round (kills on the coyote that is)
The next round was a bit easier. All we had to do was hit three massive black targets. The only thing was you had to hit them as many times as possible within 30 seconds. We were also allowed to put opposing teams off. During our turn, I managed to fire off five arrows out of the six I had and all five hit their mark. The team managed a total of 12 points.
When the Wheelie Bin Ladens came up, we did our best to distract them. I managed to distract Bernie (a plane enthusiast) by shouting “Bernie, what’s that airplane?” I can’t believe he actually fell for it, as he stopped to look!!
Then, it was off to the Merlin’s Wand trial. Here, we all lined up and when Steve the marshall gave the order, we all fired at once. No real skill here, as it was a total free for all.
We then had a break for drinks and doughnuts before the last game of the day.
Each of us had to hit one of the practice targets. If we managed to hit it with one of our six arrows, we were through to the next round. Easy for everyone at first, but then it got harder. Just hitting the target wasn’t enough. You then had to hit the black circle or one of the colours inside it (in the order black, blue, red and cream). One each successive round, more and more people went out. It finally came down to three of us all have a score of 38 so we needed a tiebreak. The final three we Batty, a 13 year old lady called Amber, who was celebrating her birthday and me!!! We took our shots and the marshalls counted our scores.
After more refreshments, the rankings were announced. The Cleos / Clios won quite resoundingly, my team came in fourth and the Wheelie Bin Ladens came in last (never mind, chaps). Then the rankings of the individual round came through. The actual scores were Amber in third place with 32, Batty in second place with 34 and me in first place with 36. Woohoo!!! However, Batty and I decided (before the winner was announced) that as it was Amber’s birthday, it would round her special day off nicely if we gave her the first prize.
After a totally excellent, Dave drove us back to Ashford and dropped Matt and I home. I’m now paying for my day in the sun, as I’ve very burnt and in need of plenty of aftersun. Still, we all had a wonderful day and have agreed that we will definitely be doing this again in the future.
Special thanks for Steve, Rebecca and Jim for making sure everything went smoothly and providing excellent hospitality and entertainment.
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