Whew What a Scorcher!

Blimey a week ago it was vest,shirt, cardigan, and woolly hat to venture outside. Now it's shorts and now't else.
A couple of hot days and the garden has burst into life so I've been pottering about, putting a new top on the patio table made from cheap decking, putting up a new parasol, dredging the pond and cleaning out the pump to get the waterfall going again.
Chap came over to collect the yew bow yesterday which meant I could go up to Cloth of Gold today and shoot round with my mate Mick the Blacksmith. We were joined by Brian which was just as well because I was smashing arrows at a prodigious rate (it is a bit stony) and he lent me 3 of his old ones.
It was great to shoot in a very relaxed informal manner, often just shooting from the red peg, which gave me practice at the longer shots that I rarely get to take. We didn't bother to score either.
On one very long shot, the Tiger, I used some arrows that had lost their points, that gave me a faster arrow and a flatter trajectory, of course the arrow bounced off the Tigers arse! Quite a noticeable difference going from about 400gn to 300gn whereas going from a 100gn point to a 70gn point makes virtually no difference. The arrows did flirt a little in the air, I shall have to see where the balance point is and see if I can learn anything from that for my flight arrows, mind, they have much smaller fletchings....
I'd been looking forward to trying the moving target, a bear on a zip wire. Mick and Brian kindly let me stay on the peg while they took turns working the rope to draw the bear back and then release it while the other shot. It took me about 9 shots but I eventually hit it. It's very interesting and almost impossible to analyse exactly what one does, it is very liberating not being able to hold and aim as such and IMO encourages an instinctive approach. I tended to draw swing and loose in a fairly smooth movement rather than waiting at full draw. What I found most interesting was that despite shooting poorly prior to the flying bear, the next target I hit nicely first arrow from both A and B pegs (the course is 18 targets with two sets of pegs, A & B for each). I feel I'd become more relaxed and in tune with the bow.

We finished off in the pub with a welcomed pint, ham sandwich and bowl of chips.

On the bow making front I've been running some Ipe through the bandsaw to make tapered laminations for the crossbow prod project and maybe a belly for a laminate flight ELB.

Cheerio! Too hot to do much more!