Lyra is a dog that lives in our building. She’s a Cocker Spaniel, she has long ears, and she loves seeing people. She loves seeing people so much that she runs around in circles while peeing. Frankly, I am not convinced that this is “happy to see you” pee, vs. “I am scared and can’t even” pee, but her owners are adamant that it’s happy pee.
Also, Andrea loves Cocker Spaniels. Like, so much.
A few days back, Andrea had a bad day. So I pulled some strings, got the phone number for Lyra’s owners, and arranged a playdate for the two of them. That quick opportunity to pet a fluffy puppy led to today – a day when Lyra’s parents were busy, and we got to watch her for the day.
What did we do with this pup, you may ask?
WELL!
We stayed home and did some work, first off. Then, we went for a WALK! It was fun, it was lovely, and it was a beautifully warm and sunny day. One of the earlier ones of the year, if I’m remembering right, and a perfect day to take a nice long walk around the park.
Hot on the heels of throwing axes, I went back to my roots with a wee bit of archery.
I’ve shot bows for so long… even making my own (very rough) bows when I was young. Something about wanting to be Robin Hood, or one of the characters from the Redwall series maybe?
<Okay, I actually stopped writing this for like 30min while I researched Redwall, just to see what’s actually happened with it. I mean, I read ALL the books when I was younger, and it turns out that a few new ones have been released! I may have to track them down, now… especially since it turns out that the author hasn’t been accused of anything horrible! Which is kind of miraculous, these days. Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled blog post>
The core here is that I enjoy archery, and I’ve wanted to try it out here in Ireland for a while. The problem has been that it’s a circular requirements loop – “You can’t shoot at an archery range unless you have a permit”, followed by, “You have to shoot at an archery range to apply to get a permit”. I finally got sick of it, called them, said I knew what I was doing and that I “had a permit from a previous club in the United States”. Which is technically true, since I’ve shot at a ton of clubs in the USA after going through their quick safety briefing.
Well, it worked. A good reminder that trying to follow detailed rules is silly, and that just reaching out to the club is the right way to deal with things around here.
I went, I mentioned the person I’d spoken with, people had never heard from them, I said “that’s fine, I know what I’m doing just give me a bow”, they looked unconvinced, I stayed quiet until they gave me a bow, and then I safely shot arrows at targets. I mean, it’s not rocket science, and once I was able to start shooting everything went beautifully smoothly.
I chatted with people, got some interesting advice from a former Olympian, tried it out, decided that I preferred my own style of shooting (with no offence to those standards, I’m sure that technique was the best back when it was originally taught), and I had a grand old time.
A friend of mine from the MBA invited me along – I’m more of an archery guy, myself, but when I got the invitation I hopped right on it. I mean… throwing axes! It feels like something I should be into, so why not give it a shot, right?
Well, I’m glad that I went. It was at a spot up in Northern Dublin, the North Strand actually, that’s been building itself up as a sort of “mini silicon valley” of sorts… some cool warehouse companies, garage gyms, and that sort of thing. Axe throwing being one of them.
I don’t really have too much to say about it, truth be told, nor do I have any really good pictures… Really, I’m mainly adding this post in as a record-keeping exercise, since it really was a good time, and I don’t want to risk losing the website or anything.
I went, we threw axes, we hung out, it was a good time. Their coaches helped me figure it out, and we joined in on the evening’s competition. I didn’t win… which is good, since I really shouldn’t have won on a first try, right?
