Photo by Tom: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommilner/
This is my fourth Solstice Shoot and marks my 3rd year anniversary of shooting in NFAS. This is one reason I’ll always be doing this shoot (amongst others!) Every year it’s been great, and this was no exception! As I do more shoots, I’m getting more and more confident about talking to people, which is also adding to the increased enjoyment of this sport. There were a few absent faces that I had hoped to see there (Morwenna & Hector, Andy & Wendy, Sam, Lucy & Mark), but the majority of friends were there! Plus this course contained many of the beautiful hessian faces painted by Paul Somerfield that we use for our Boxing day shoot!
The weather forecast was not looking very favorably at us – in fact the weather on the way there was awful. However we got there just as the rain eased up, pitched our tent and started on the Black Rat cider 
After spending a few hours in the beer tent and Artemis tent I finally went to bed (at about 2am whoops! – I swear my archery would be better if I actually got more rest and didn’t drink!) This weekend I was to be shooting in class that I’d never shot in before – Hunting Tackle – I was going to be shooting a 24lb recurve with wooden arrows and feathers spined for a much heavier bow! Oh well – no other choice as my shoulder injury wouldn’t allow me to pull anything else!
Saturday morning came – along with torrential rain! Standing on that first peg waiting for the signal to start shooting was very miserable – but I did find out some exciting news! The newly married Neil and Annabel Bishop from Thornbury had announced that they were expecting twins! How fab! Eventual the rain moved on and we all had a great day! I only blanked one target and managed to score on average 14 a target Some pictures from the day can be seen below:
Neil Bishop - came third overall for Gents HT!!!
Annabel with her baby bump x
Me and Mark looking proud of our arrows! Mark won silver in Gents Longbow!
The evening entertainment consisted of great grub, musical accompaniments and of course SCRUMPY!
Me & Craig - lovely lad - he just wont stop growing! He's only 16!!!
See what I mean? That stuff makes you loopy 
After another late (ish) night I awoke without hangover or headache to a better morning (weatherwise) There were a few tired looking peeps slumped in their cars (you all know who u r – especially you Huw!), but the final day was here! I was to be shooting with Owen, Ken Penrose, Ben Hussey and Craig Burt – all brilliant archers! I really didn’t want to let myself down and be shown up – even though I was a girl shooting HTÂ for the first time – I wanted to try and keep up with them and their compounds and barebows! Below are some more pictures from the weekend:
One of Paul's beautiful faces
Owen & Ken - both amazing Compound Limited archers - Owen managed to win gold with Ken in second place! Great job guys
Waiting for our go...Ken, Craig, Ben, Tom with Karen, Mark, Andy & Lorraine in the distance
Ben - who won bronze in Mens Barebow, takes aim as Craig & Owen look on
My stunning trophy xxx
I had shot so well in the first half of the day – I actually averaged 16.3 a target! But dropped down rapidly the second half – managed to blank 3 targets too. At the end of the day I asked Owen where I was on the leader board going into day two (I don’t often look as I don’t like the pressure) and was told that I was in 2nd place. When I found out that I had scored 22 more points than the previous day I felt ecstatic!I not only won a bottle of bubbly on the raffle but I ended up winning the Ladies HT category! Can’t believe my name will be going on the trophy alongside such great names as Sue Kelly and Cherry Wilden!
Big thanks to all my archery friends for such a fun weekend experience, well done to Jo for making it around the course and to huge thank you to Druids for another amazing two-day shoot
Sam xxx
