Following on from the success of my ice skating I decided to do two more sporty firsts. On Saturday 20th April, a few miles from home, my two youngest daughters and I spent a couple of hours honing our golfing skills, shooting a few arrows and generally having a good time.
I've never been a fan of golf and on the odd occasions I've tried it, have been fairly rubbish to say the least and to be honest, this was no exception. But hang on a minute I hear you say, aren't you supposed to be doing things for the first time, Alison? And here you are banging on about being rubbish at golf when you've done it before. Yes, you're absolutely right, but the deal was nine holes of pitch and putt or in my case swing, miss, swing, hit ground, search for divot to replace it, swing, miss, swing, hit ball a few feet into water, look for ball, get muddy, find ball, drop on course, swing, miss, swing ... you get the picture! This was the part I'd done before, although in my defence it was only once and many years ago, and clearly no one would have been able to tell I wasn't a novice.
So then we got to the 'fifty firsts' and after the nine holes, of which the highlight was winning 'Augusta' in four shots, we retired to the club house and stoked up on coffee before heading off to the driving range. Now I had never been to a driving range before and to be honest, despite the fact that the golf had been a whole lot more fun than I had remembered it would be, I still wasn't hugely enthusiastic. But actually it turned out to be quite a thrill - there weren't as many misses in between the swings and no divots anywhere in sight, which was a definite improvement and I managed to hit a few good shots, which actually travelled quite some distance. OK, so they weren't always in the direction I originally intended, but I didn't hit anyone and the club never left my hands. Oh, and it was so rewarding to imagine the balls were all those little niggles in life that get you down, you know, the people who have made your life unnecessarily difficult at work, the neighbours keeping you awake all night playing the same three songs over and over again at their impromptu party, which is still going strong at 5 am, those marvellous 'computer says no' moments that seem to occur right when you're in the middle of some important piece of work and you've forgotten to save - I could go on.
After the driving range it was the turn of archery. Now this was the one I had really been looking forward to. Yeah, good one - I could barely pull the arrow back, such are my weakling biceps ... and I go to the gym every week! Then I had problems actually keeping the arrow in the bow and I have to admit I was tempted to go back and ask for a child sized one. Finally I managed to shoot my first arrow, only for it to nose dive approximately 2 feet from where I was standing into the ground - I kid you not!! This was definitely NOT my forte! Anyway I persevered and I managed to hit the target twice, once in the white ring and once in the black ring - not worth counting the points though! I also mangaged to fire some longer shots with a bit more power, but struggled to combine distance and accuracy. We just won't mention the fact that the two small children, both under 5, were marginally better than me!
All in all though a very enjoyable couple of hours and two more off the list, now I've just got to work out what to do next!
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