Lyme Valley Archers and Spirit of Sherwood Shoots

Lyme Valley Archers and Spirit of Sherwood Shoots

by Queen Bee

KLFA Roving Reporter and Crossbow Queen

Because Lyme Valley Archers is a three hour journey I was staying with fellow archers in Matlock on Saturday night. Never one to miss an opportunity to follow a brown road sign I began my visit with the moated Kirby Muxloe Castle in Leicestershire.

It was a beautifully photogenic day and I shot off a fair few pictures of the red ruin and white-clouded blue sky reflected in the moat. Just as I crouched for a shot a small white terrier shot across the grass towards a group of geese, that had added interest to my photos, and frightened them off onto the water. I shouted at the owner to control her dog and she screamed back, “I’ve had permission!” “What, to terrify and chase geese?” I replied. “Why don’t you f**k off,” she snapped, obviously on the defensive. Eloquently put, I thought. However, I’d more or less finished to set off towards Ashby de la Zouch castle nearby.

An inviting brown sign to Battlefields Railway found me trundling along a disused railway track where I spent an hour re-living my steam train journeys to school in Wiltshire. As luck would have it a steam train was due any moment, so I waited with baited breath and ready camera on the edge of the platform eager to snap a huge, shiny, steaming beast.

The ‘steaming beast’ hove into view almost silently and before we could raise our lenses it let off a tiny plume of white smoke and trundled slowly and silently to a halt. Although it was nice enough to photograph, it was far from a steaming beast. It’s livery was maroon and its name was Cumbria and it was indeed shiny, but the engineers were not friendly and I was shouted at for getting too close. Never mind, job done I headed off to the castle.

By this time it was midday and it took some time to wait for a space in the packed town car park where all the vehicle owners seemed to be in the castle grounds. I looked round quickly and left with very few photographs. Pictures of prams, pushchairs and tour groups don’t do a great deal to enhance a picture.

Sunday morning dawned sunny and warm with an Autumnal hint. John had told me LVA was about 50 minutes drive, so I left just before eight, leaving a good hour for ‘eventualities.’

I set the satnav for Long Eaton which turned out to be 28 minutes away and couldn’t understand why John had said 50. I’d given myself plenty of time so cruised at 50 and came upon the first NFAS sign in about half an hour. The second one pointed me down Melbourne Road and then nothing. I drove up and down and round and round and could find no sign of the shoot ground. I telephoned John who asked if I’d come across the roundabout to Audley. No, I hadn’t, and when I put the town in my satnav it was a good hour away. I told him I always had difficulty finding Long Eaton. Naturally he was totally surprised and said I should be shooting at Lyme Valley!

This is why I always insist I should never be allowed out on my own now.

Last week I’d driven Mike to Spirit of Sherwood with no trouble at all – apart from chatting so much I’d ignored my satnav and had to do a quick shufty back on to the proper route a couple of times, but the journey was basically uneventful.

I was looking forward to shooting at a new venue and this was Spirit’s second since being allowed to accept crossbows.

We were provided with 40 targets which, although not too difficult, couldn’t be shot complacently. Mike shot a blinder and trounced all opposition to receive a well-deserved gold, whilst I finished 12 short of 800 – my current goal.

Now, furnished with a postcode, I had barely an hour to drive 50 miles. Putting over half a century of road experience driving vehicles of all sizes into play I set off northwards.

Keeping as near the speed limit as was safe, through country lanes, along dual carriageways and city ring roads, I watched the estimated arrival time drop from 2 minutes before kick-off down to 15 minutes. Large NFAS signs directed me ever nearer to my goal and at 9.45 my satnav told me I’d arrived. I had to disagree with her as there was no obvious sign, so I wasted 11 of the precious minutes until I noticed a load of cars at the top of a field.

Bouncing to the far end I booked in with two minutes to go!

There were 2×20 targets and the shoot started about 10.15 and if you’ve never shot at Lyme Valley be warned – it is almost vertical. As usual, the shoot was amazing with excellent use of both sides of the narrow, treed valley. There were only about four shots on the flat with most targets being between 25 and 50 yards very steeply up or down the valley sides. I was shooting with a good group and when I told one archer that we all had nicknames in the KLFA he told me he was known as Grumpy. I’d seen him before but never shot with him and had always formed the impression that he was, indeed, grumpy! But I soon had him laughing and joking.

I’d accidentally exaggerated my first half score by 24 into 422 and for the second half was worried about not getting 800 so subsequently shot rubbish! However, I finished with a very satisfactory total score for the difficult course.

Because the dozens of steps were so steep and deep by the end of the day my knees would barely function and I knew that carrying a heavy crossbow on this terrain for 7 hours was now out of the question. I was very sad as I have always enjoyed shooting this most challenging of courses.

I wasn’t looking forward to the three hour journey home and having inadvertently driven past Alton Towers four times in two days if I never drive past it again it will be too soon!