Tag: Archery

New Year’s Day

As the first day of Freshers’ Week, today – if you work in higher education – almost felt more like New Year’s Day than 1 January itself. There’s a buzz around the campus again, the kind of buzz you miss when everyone’s away over the summer months. Its absence stands out like a sore thumb, but so does the warmth you feel when it returns. As it turns out, that warmth may well be conducive to creativity too. I’ve spent nearly every week since my last post scribbling waffle in my notebook to varying degrees of desperation, but ultimately, nothing I wrote had any life in it. Most of it stopped making sense in the end – I was flogging a dead horse. Happily, I don’t feel that way typing this. It feels like the fire underneath has been reignited, to an extent.

I gave four short appointments to students today, new faces who were each looking for part-time work. I obviously can’t go into detail about who I spoke to or what we discussed, but I can tell you that seeing them become visibly more relaxed about their prospects was immensely satisfying. There can’t be many situations where you can see weights lifted from people’s shoulders in real time. I always say that I’ve felt valued over the last 18 months, but that’s never been truer than it was today. I made a difference, however small, and when that happens you can’t possibly struggle for new material. There are virtues to extol, and not only in my professional life, but my personal life too. My archery beginner’s course looms on Saturday – the first session, at least. I’m looking forward to it, and to hitting more than the woodwork this time. I just need to make sure I build up my upper body strength a bit first, because those bows are tough without a decent pair of biceps. I’m sure I’ll let you know how it goes. Here’s hoping I have another reason to smile by next Monday!

Mason

The Woodwork

There have been times in the years since 2017 when I’ve assumed I’d never pick up a bow and arrow again. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, though – I was making up excuses in my head. After all, my last club, while welcoming, was fraught with obstacles and difficulties. Dad had to drive me there and back, I couldn’t go at all if the field was sodden, and in the winter we retreated to an indoor shooting range only accessible via a seemingly neverending flight of stairs. When I threw in the towel and left after just over a year, I had no reason to think any other club would be any different. Perhaps archery had put up yet another barrier that would be tricky or impossible to overcome. Mind you, that was before I lived in Winchester. There’s a club that meets 15 minutes – if that – from my flat, would you believe. What’s more, they were all too happy to let me have another go, so at 10am on Saturday morning that’s exactly what I did.

I must have been there for little more than half an hour, but it was well worth setting my alarm on a weekend for. I shot six arrows at 20 yards, the same distance I’d previously been used to. Two of those hit the wooden legs – but the woodwork’s still part of the target, isn’t it? It was exciting and I slotted back in very nicely, however rusty I may be. Besides, the beginner’s course they’ve recommended can sort that out. I don’t want to say too much for now in case it all comes to nothing, but I just wanted to bask in how much I enjoyed it, and the fact I pulled my finger out and made it happen. Given how naturally laid back I am, it would have been all too easy not to bother and restrict it to a pipe dream.

What next? The club will be in touch once a date has been agreed for the course, apparently. We’ll have to see what transpires, but I’m sure our paths will cross again before long. Even if I never shoot again, I need to return the wrist guard I forgot to take off!

Mason

You Can Call Me Al

Somebody once suggested that, if I ever end up writing for a living, I should adopt a pseudonym to release my work under. I thought about this for a while, and at first it seemed cool that I could have some amount of mystery around my true identity, but I quickly put it to bed when I couldn’t come up with anything decent. Not only that, but nobody would ever know what I had written was my work! This blog therefore carries my regular birth name, as I hadn’t ever expected to replace it when it began three years ago, but this week I suddenly thought of a story I feel compelled to tell here. It gave rise to the most likely alternative I could ever have to “Mason Hawker” – and all through a simple misunderstanding.

If the weather behaves itself on Sunday, I hope to go back to archery again, as various reasons have prevented me from going since shortly before my birthday in August. Before that, though, the club held a session in early June that allowed us regulars to meet the newest arrivals to the group at a relaxed and casual shoot. The weather was perfect for it, with not a single cloud in the sky or breath of wind in the air, and the turnout was much bigger than I had expected – especially when you consider that we had previously been quite a small club, on a field off the beaten track. Dad thought that there could have been as many as 50 people present, meaning there would be ample opportunity for mingling throughout the session. Sure enough, we all chatted away to one another, shaking hands and making introductions as we shared bows (since there were more people than there were bows to go around) and snaffled chocolate bars with tea at half-time. It had been a positive shoot for me so far – I’m more rusty on some days than I am on others, but today I had hit my fair share of golds on the target, and I was pleased to have stretched the muscles in my arms dealing with a sixteen-pound bow. I therefore felt like I’d earned my cuppa and chocolate bar, both of which were gratefully accepted and went down a treat. As I sat quietly for a moment, pondering the morning’s results and the rest of my day, I could see one of the new members approaching in the corner of my eye, and quickly turned my head to greet them warmly. It’s taken us a while to get here, I’ll admit, but this is the point at which I was unwittingly given my potential pen name in just a single fleeting moment.

As is customary when two or more people meet for the first time, our exchange swiftly reached the stage where names would have to be swapped. The man to whom I was speaking was – and is – very friendly, but I was still determined, as I always am, not to trip over my words and make a good first impression. Naturally, therefore, the inevitable happened, and my hopes of avoiding any awkwardness were quickly flushed down the toilet.

He’d given me his name (which I’ve since forgotten, I might add). Good. Things were going well. All I had to do was say my own in return, and then my work would be done. I waited for the question:

“What’s your name, sorry?”

“Just say it, you idiot,” I thought to myself. My lips parted, ready to speak. And after a hesitant second, sound emerged. “Er…Mason,” I uttered timidly.

Note the “er”, which definitely was not intended to be part of the end response. My companion should have completely disregarded that first bit – and definitely should not have mistaken it for my first name.

“Al Mason?” he asked, somewhat confused by my unease.

I corrected him, of course, but there you have it – Al Mason, an inconspicuous fusion of my own real name and a misheard false one. It’s not going to catch on, but for the sake of this post, as my old drinking buddy Paul Simon once sang, you can call me Al. I trust there’ll be no such confusion on my next archery outing.

Al