The voyage (slowly) home
My busy nature over laziness is keeping me away from this place. This is taken from a convo with Gibsy (and I can't be bothered with altering it greatly).
BUSA indoors was held at York on the saturday, and it was a reasonable day of waltzing around the place, taking photos and giving out snacks to those members of BUTTS (+ Kellog and Miles). I didn't qualify for a place on the shooting line because I forgot to submit a score before 28th Jan. I was there as a photographer and general hanger on, and felt only a mild desire to go out there and shoot. The journey back to Birmingham was interesting to say the least. The gradually worsening gear problems of the minibus taking 12 of us home eventually gave up the ghost on the M1 near Doncaster. It was quite surprising, since the vehicle had a 2007 numberplate. The university transport services couldn't be contacted at that time on a saturday, and so we tried to get in touch with a number of breakdown services.
A cold wind and spatters of rain frequently chilled the bones of those huddled on the motorway verge. We were there for just over three hours (sometime past midnight), although the excessive quantities of snack food (bought by my good self at the York Uni Costcutter) luckily sustained the party, since none of us had eaten since lunchtime or earlier. There was news of a breakdown truck that could tow the minibus back to Birmingham, although there was only enough room on said vehicle to take four along with them. They were also over an hour away, and some of my friends were growing mildly hypothermic.
Another car repair vehicle was there already on the hard shoulder, although the problem could not be fixed by his equipment or expertise. With gear failure, repair really wasn't an option anyway. He took 8 of us to the nearest hotel in the back of his truck (leaving four with the minibus). We were prompted into the back of his vehicle amongst the tools, and felt very much like illegal immigrants, huddled together with no view of the outside world. He said jokingly that keeping the light on in the back would cost us extra. One of the archery team (compounder Jimm Taylor) dropped his car contingent off in Birmingham when he heard of our plight and drove all the way back up to Doncaster. He arrived at the hotel at just past 2am, and took three of the group home with him. He was an absolute legend for doing that, and got a bottle of JD for his actions as a gift from the 'verge crew.
The rest of us (Andrew W, Jo H, Helen S, Lucia and I) were shattered at this point and flomped on the hotel room beds. We made it back to Brum by various means the next day. Lucia, Helen and I took a car ride with Tim. His already laid-out plans to stay overnight in a place just north of York worked out very well for those stranded by this incident.
Shot a half-Portsmouth last night, and things looked increasingly promising. If I could only keep up the good ends (best was 10,10,6) and loose the bad.
BUSA indoors was held at York on the saturday, and it was a reasonable day of waltzing around the place, taking photos and giving out snacks to those members of BUTTS (+ Kellog and Miles). I didn't qualify for a place on the shooting line because I forgot to submit a score before 28th Jan. I was there as a photographer and general hanger on, and felt only a mild desire to go out there and shoot. The journey back to Birmingham was interesting to say the least. The gradually worsening gear problems of the minibus taking 12 of us home eventually gave up the ghost on the M1 near Doncaster. It was quite surprising, since the vehicle had a 2007 numberplate. The university transport services couldn't be contacted at that time on a saturday, and so we tried to get in touch with a number of breakdown services.
A cold wind and spatters of rain frequently chilled the bones of those huddled on the motorway verge. We were there for just over three hours (sometime past midnight), although the excessive quantities of snack food (bought by my good self at the York Uni Costcutter) luckily sustained the party, since none of us had eaten since lunchtime or earlier. There was news of a breakdown truck that could tow the minibus back to Birmingham, although there was only enough room on said vehicle to take four along with them. They were also over an hour away, and some of my friends were growing mildly hypothermic.
Another car repair vehicle was there already on the hard shoulder, although the problem could not be fixed by his equipment or expertise. With gear failure, repair really wasn't an option anyway. He took 8 of us to the nearest hotel in the back of his truck (leaving four with the minibus). We were prompted into the back of his vehicle amongst the tools, and felt very much like illegal immigrants, huddled together with no view of the outside world. He said jokingly that keeping the light on in the back would cost us extra. One of the archery team (compounder Jimm Taylor) dropped his car contingent off in Birmingham when he heard of our plight and drove all the way back up to Doncaster. He arrived at the hotel at just past 2am, and took three of the group home with him. He was an absolute legend for doing that, and got a bottle of JD for his actions as a gift from the 'verge crew.
The rest of us (Andrew W, Jo H, Helen S, Lucia and I) were shattered at this point and flomped on the hotel room beds. We made it back to Brum by various means the next day. Lucia, Helen and I took a car ride with Tim. His already laid-out plans to stay overnight in a place just north of York worked out very well for those stranded by this incident.
Shot a half-Portsmouth last night, and things looked increasingly promising. If I could only keep up the good ends (best was 10,10,6) and loose the bad.