Tag Archives: fire

out with the old

29 October, 2013

We burned the old target bosses on Sunday. It’s a club ritual every year. A Windsor round, a barbeque, some red wine, the gathering gloom, and the five or six oldest, most shot-out straw bosses on the fire, along with all the dead wood and leaves off the field and the broken boss stands. Once you snip the strings, they unravel like snakes.

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This time, there was a howling wind (the night would see the worst storm in Britain for a while) and the lot went up ferociously. A couple of the local residents came along to see the monster burn, and seemed surprised that we were an archery club rather than some kind of southern Beltane celebrators.

“So, is this so you guys have good luck with your arrows for the year?”

“Yes, yes, I suppose so.”

 

 

out with the old

14 October, 2012

End of the outdoor season, and we’re burning the old target bosses, after a chilly club Windsor shoot. My hands were numb. I didn’t even put in a second class score.

Some of our shot-out old bosses were Italian, caused by the Great British Boss Drought of a few years ago. They were tougher. Burnt last.

The club, stuffed with excellent barbeque sausages, gathered round and laughed and larked and drank red wine and and stared into the fire, like bands of humans have done for millennia. That glorious half-light of a damp evening, and friends, and the glorious smell of damp straw going up in smoke. As good as it gets.