Waddly Archer

This week I tried, in vain, to continue the water sports theme by booking in a kitesurfing lesson. Foiled by the wind (or lack thereof) at the eleventh hour, I was at a loss for what ‘new thing’ I could try. While contemplating this conundrum I was invited out to afternoon tea with some very dear friends of my parents in the beautiful Bethell’s Beach valley. As luck would have it, over the summer their Norwegian son-in-law had helped them to set up an archery range in their backyard. Bingo.

We wandered down to the archery range after a delicious piece of feijoa and ginger cake. While my daughter picked apples with my mum, and tui sang encouragingly from above, we laid out the bows and sorted the arrows. Feeling very Maid Marian, I confidently strung up the bow, only to find that I had inadvertently put it on backwards. Unfortunately, this was a sign of things to come; it turns out that I was not born to be an archer.

Not one of my arrows hit the rather large target board. Our friend kindly suggested that perhaps I should try the other bow, which supposedly gives the arrow a bit more flight. From this bow my arrows either went zinging way above the target into the bank behind, or fell rather pathetically to the ground a few metres short of the target. My husband and I swapped bows again, but I could blame my incompetence on my tools no more. I had a lot of fun and I’d like to try it again, but let’s hope I’m not called upon to hunt for live game to feed my family. They would get very hungry.

Top tips for the beginner archer: wear long sleeves (the arrows can rip past your forearm and leave quite a scrape) and find a very patient tutor.

The other new thing I’ve started is jogging. Those of you who know me well will probably need to read that sentence again to make sure you’ve read right, as I have traditionally been the girl who gets her mum to write notes on cross country day, and wouldn’t run for the bus if it was the last one on earth. But I picked up Kerre Woodham’s book Short Fat Chick in Paris for a bit of light reading, which is a follow-up to her first novel, Short Fat Chick to Marathon Runner. In the back of the book there are letters from people who were inspired by Kerre’s first book, and one of them was a mother of three young children. She wrote the following:

‘Fellow mothers of young children will agree that as a mum you are alone, but never alone! Running gives me an outlet where I can be with myself, by myself. No one can interrupt me and I can mentally file away my thoughts and worries, organise and plan the rest of the day and return home always feeling positive.’

I immediately put the book down and said hesitantly to my husband, ‘I feel like going for a jog.’ Expertly disguising the shock, he encouraged me to go RIGHT NOW – ‘You’ll probably never feel like going again!’ So I did. I just ran out the door and down the street, without getting changed or any of that palaver. I honestly thought I would only get a few metres down the road and have to stop, but – miraculously – I kept going. Admittedly it was only for about four or five minutes, until I returned home after running to the end of my street, around another cul-de-sac and back, but during that five minutes no one asked me for juice or vomited on me. I was hooked.

The next day I ran a little bit further, and a couple of days after that I ran/walked all the way to the dairy and back. I’m on a roll. I’m not aiming to run a marathon or even put any expectations on myself of a regular, structured routine; all I’m trying to do is keep going and keep enjoying it. I think it’s because of this that I actually want to do it. It’s not a chore; it’s time out, with healthy benefits to boot. I even tried running to the park with both kids in the pram, but my toddler kept yelling, ‘Too fast! Too fast, Mummy!’ which was slightly offputting (and a bit of an over-reaction – my jog is only very slightly faster than a walk).

I mentioned this new jogging thing to a good friend of mine, who immediately jumped on board and said she’d come with me once a week. Now we have a regular catch-up every Sunday at 5pm, and whether we walk or jog, we’re exercising our bodies and buoying up our souls. Magic.

And it’s FREE! 'All you have to do is doodly do it...'