Troll Hunt 2018

The one competition I looked forward to all year long. Simulated indoor hunting where one gets to shoot at animal figures at varying ranges and heights. Sounds easy enough but there are rules and regulations and scoring to be taken into consideration. Not to mention the varying ‘classes’ for the competition. Due to my advancing years, I was in the ‘Master’ class of the longbow section. Being a master has nothing to do with competence.

We were some eighty people up for the fun and games and I was one of eight competitors in my class. Unfortunately for me, one or two of them are old national ex-champions. Hard to beat, they have been doing this for years and I have been at it for just over 12 months. Not to mention the fact that our club doesn’t have the room to practice at ranges much over 20 yards and some of the targets on the day were about 30 yards away. I missed a few shots on each round. The shooting gets done over three rounds, ten targets per round and two arrows per target. 60 shots in total plus 3 bonus shots, one on each round. The bonus shots are at the ‘trolls’ which can give up to 25 extra points if you hit one. I didn’t. I did last year but wasn’t quite up to it this year.
However, my final score had improved from last year. There, I ended up with a final tally of 334 points including a bonus 25, where this year I hit a clean 351 points.
Pleased with my progress, I ended up being number 4 out of 8. Not bad considering the standard of competition.

There will be another one of these indoor competitions in January 2019. I’ll be entering that one too. You never know. I might improve enough to get a third place..!!

Turning 65

I wonder how I got here. My last birthday marks the beginning of a new era in my life. I’ve made it to pension. I am now an Old Age Pensioner. Officially, an old git. Beware, I may get grumpy now.
Society has burdened me since I started working at the age of fifteen, 50 years ago. Now I am a burden on society. Whoopee. I feel no guilt. I have done my bit. I have even managed to squirrel a little money away for exactly this time so my economic future is perhaps more than merely ‘safe’. The last five years on early, pre-paid retirement have been fun but it gets serious now. I have to cash in on my own pension schemes and whatever I get out of that has to tide me over. I hope I live long enough to get all I can out of it! I celebrated the day with my wife and grandson. The day started with a huge breakfast, presents and a bucket of tea. At one point I had to get the youngster home again to his mother where there were more presents waiting for me. Suffice it to say, I’m OK for whisky for the next few weeks.

It was also my brothers birthday. He is now 69. We are obviously not twins. We share the same birthday by coincidence. He’s alive and well in the UK and we ring each other on the day each year. Nice to hear from him and catch up. I may visit next year. We’ll see.

For now though, I think I’ll just sit back and relax… In the words of the old song, “It’s been a long time coming”.