The tides are turning

Recently there have been quite a few things that haven't gone the right way for my self and my family, but it seems to be on the up now :)

I think the good streak started with Marco passing the NCT, me passing all my college exams, my sister, Lorna, yesterday got word that she had gotten a distinction in her grade 8 flute and piccolo exam, this morning mam heard she had passed her masters after a difficult Viva and this afternoon I passed my driving test :D So tonight we are celebrating with a take away.

Hopefully this good streak will continue so that dad and Shane will be able to get new jobs. Fingers crossed!

Belfast day 2

Yesterday went well also, I shot my highest score for 36 arrows at 70m this season. I finished well in the ranking round and seeded in 1st place, 15 points ahead the second seed. I knew in the back of my head that I only had to win my first match to win the overall competition. This thought did not help in the matches. The first match went find but I messed up the gold medal match because i knew i had already won the two day event. In the end Tara beat me by 2 points because i shot a six. I was still happy though, in the end i brought home 4 medals and the trophy so it was a good weekends shooting.

The weather during the shoot yesterday was a bit mental. The morning was really warm, I had suncream on before i had even left the house. Then later on there was a shower, followed by more sunshine. Next came a huge thunder and lightning storm, which caused the matches to be delayed by an hour. And then it poured rain during the award presentations.

There was certainly a lot of static electricity in the air :)

Belfast Saturday Results

Just a quick update on today's shoot in Belfast, I was happy with my shooting in the morning. I ranked second in the 720 round and then came up against Tara in my first match and won. The gold medal match was against one of the Northern Ireland women. A strong breeze picked up for this but i shop well and won the match :)

Hopefully tomorrow will go well too.

Belfast

Euronations 2008, from NI Archery

I saw the shooting list for the Premier Event in Belfast last night. It's not great. The overall entry is low, there are only 5 women's compound shooting on Saturday, so I will only have a maximum of 3 matches. It's a bit disappointing. There are also very few international archers attending. It seems the hype about this shoot was all false. Oh well, I am still going to go out and shoot my best. The target lists are available at NIAS.

I also got word today that i have been officially selected to shoot at the Senior Euronation again this year. Its going to be Scotland on the first weekend in July.

In other news, we managed to get a cancellation for my cars N.C.T. yesterday, so we were busy all day fixing up as much as we could. The earliest appointment we could get bore this anywhere was in September. We replaced the brake pads, the odd bulb and gave it a wash. We had an idea that there was a problem with the exhaust, but we were keeping our fingers crossed that it would pass. Unfortunately Marco failed :( And he developed a fault with the indicator relay on the way home too. So today was spent fixing up the car again. In order to fix the indicator the steering wheel had to be removes, this was not an easy job. Dad and myself spent nearly 5 hours trying to do it but in the end we surrendered and I drove it to a mechanic in Trim who fixed it in 20 minuets for me :)

Because the car need to do a retest using the test centre equipment, technically we need an appointment for the test. But I decided to chance my arm and bring the car to the centre and see if they would test it without an appointment. And with a bit of persuasion I got a test within 10 minutes of arriving :D Marco passed with flying colours. I am delighted, I can now drive the car without worrying about getting 5 penalty points if i am stopped at a Garda check point.

Good Weekends Shooting

Myself and Dee at the Summerhill Shoot

I had a good weekend shooting in Summerhill. After a few weeks without proper training due to study, I wasn't expecting a huge score. But I shot well on Saturday, shooting below my average but still hight enough to count as my second qualifying score for the Euronations team. :) That means a trip to Scotland in July to shoot with the Irish Team.

I was also asked yesterday to shoot in the Premier event in Belfast next weekend. This is a World Ranking Event, the first world ranking event I will attend. I haven't seen a shooting list, but usually there are top world class archers at this event. I was booked in yesterday, and arranged to stay woth a good friend of mine, Sean, who is living in Belfast City at the moment. It should be a good experience :)

Summer

Above is Quaver and Jackson, Whiz can be seen in the background.

For some reason I could not add a picture to the last post :( the button just wouldn't work


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Summer

At last the weather appears to be picking up :) I love when its like this, a nice calm, dry warm day. There is just a hint of a breeze and the sun is not too strong. Perfect shooting weather. But I know if i start to shoot for a little while i will spend hours shooting and won't get much study done. So i will put it off for a few days and hope that this is not the only nice day of the year.

I did take a break for a while, sat out on the patio with a nice cup of tea for a bit of a chat. The 3 dogs and the cat were lazing about sunning them selves beside us. Normally the Quaver, the cat and Whiz and Jackson, the 2 dalmatians, ignore each others presence. But today seemed to get on quite well. Until whiz got to near and the cat gave him a harmless box.

It was nice to just sit out and relax, hopefully there will be many more days like this :)

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