Curious Aardvark
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Taller than the average Dwarf
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Midlands England
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wow - now that was a busy few days.
At one point on the sunday morning I was sitting all alone in my car in the middle of a field. The wind had bent the poles on the awning i put up and then hastily took down (echoes of wyoming there) and I was feeling very sad and lonely. And then the phone rang (I suspect never before Has Dave m's voice on the end of a phone inspired so much joy) and an hour later there were 11 of us in a field with slings :-) Brilliant day.
After lunch the rain just came down in sheets - torrential. And unfortunately for ronan he left about 10 minutes before I remembered there was a pub half a mile away where we could all sit and chat and get a cup of coffee. Which we proceeded to do till the rain stopped then back to the field for some serious tuition. And having seen someone crack themselves on the head with a golfball loaded sling - I can honestly say that if you're learning figure 8 - do it with an empty sling :-) Trained up a number of total novices to perform at least one style well enough to send the ball forward more often than not. One guy - seb, definitely a natural, hopefully to appear on the forum at some point. After cracking sidearm in about an hour he put a golf ball well over 120 yards. Nice one.
If Ronan and his daughter & brother look a bit odd on the official photo - it's because I've had to pull them off a video clip and paste him in lol
We were also graced with the presence of the Goth Mobile Infantry's High commander and Propaganda officer :-) An added honour for us all ;-) Age wise there was a good 50 years between the youngest and oldest attendees. Just about the right balance I reckon. If you don't have at least three generations at a slingfest - you're slacking somewhere lol
I've learnt a few more things about running a slingfest - and at some point in the near future I will pass it all on. And next year I'll try and reserve a barn or cow shed for the midday bbq which will be a proper Aardvark stylee blowout, rather than just the few burgers and thai style prawn cakes I did this time round :-)
Once the targets were propped up with a couple of old tractor tires (major advantage of doing this on a farm - lots of stuff you can scrounge :-) the frames worked amazingly. Given the hammering they took from both wind and rain and the odd stray missile. The single casualty seems to be a loosened bolt on one of the uprights. But I think That was the one I glued in wonky anyway. The netting came down this afternoon - excellent condition, looks untouched. Just needs to be bigger but it's definitely the right material for the job. I really have to thank all the people who attended - they made the hard work worthwhile :-) Major thanks also go to Aussieslinger - every one who didn't already have an aussie sling - went home with one :-) And Kudos - as always - to Gunsonwheels who supplied the amazing pennants that just looked so stupendously good blowing in the wind and framing the gateway. Just sorry I had nowhere to hang the small ones.
Also Dave - who I've mentioned at various points in the past and who also helped set things up, now has a new nickname. He's Rainmaker Dave (previously he was Medium dave as Big dave does taichi with me). The weather was fine till he turned up in shorts and literally the second he got out of his car - it started to rain lol :-)
Oh yes and we have a slogan for the official t-shirt. But I need someone to translate it into Latin for me :-) 'We Came, We Saw, We Slung, We Got Wet !' Pics later, now it's back to clearing stuff away lol Got a cracking video of people scattered all over the field engaged in various slingng activities that I'll upload to youtube at some point. It'll warm the cockles of your little heartsies.
But yeah, it was good. I'll do it again - and given it's taken 4 days pretty much exclusively doing nothing else - that's not light commitment (all my clients who've phoned over the last four days have simply been told - 'he's on holiday - back tuesday' [yes even the emergency calls] :-) My nieces - who I haven't seen for 3 years - flew in from canada On slingfest day - and was I at the airport to meet them ? No I was in a field with some other nutters playing with slings. I'm either committed - or I ought to be, it's a tough call lol
[i]to be continued....[/i]
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