Travelling from Devon to Reading seemed a bit of trip considering the torrential rain

Our outlook on the weekend ahead was somewhat bleak.

But WOW!! Half way up to Reading on the M4 sunshine and a clear road lead the way to which was the start of a fantastic weekend of sublime Horseback Archery.

Once we actually arrived at Englefield and found our way through the Village of over 52 countries, we stabled our boys; Gully and Dan, then helped set up the track along with Hilary and Mike; once Tim and Harry (his horse) arrived it was time for us to let the lads stretch their legs and see what the new environment had to offer before our demo the next morning.  Our ride was wonderful, cantering around the Englefield Estate and up its hill with free running Deer, to cool our guys off we walked through the Village of tents and Yurts from the 52 different countries, as evening was drawing in, they had light fires for BBQ's and wore their native traditional clothing, the flags where hung around the tents and many camps were merry from the much drinking with each other and gatherings.  An expression from one foreign man of 'look a cow horse' was quite amusing - he must have not seen a coloured horse before!!

It was very surreal riding through the yurts and tents saying hello to people from afar which couldn't speak our language, I for one was so very proud of my little Dan who had not only, never seen anything like this before but behaved like he had done this every day of his life, what a brilliant little guy he is.

Our Saturday morning demo Myself was on Dan showing the Hungo method using 3 fingers so too was Sally on Gully, and Tim on Harry showed the Japanese style with his Yumi bow shooting both the traditional style and the 3 shot style, it was somewhat of a warm up, we had little interest because of the lack of advertising and people were still arriving and we were situated the other side of the Village, it gave us a nice slow introduction to the track and noise from the Arabian tents next to us and gave us a chance to settle ourselves. By the afternoon the crowd was large and fairly enthusiastic and we also were accompanied by Mike who showed the Hungo style but with a speedy 1 shot aboard Dance Away (afterward none as Blast off) the fiery chestnut mare which was kindly lent to Mike by the organiser of the show. There was also a very interesting demonstration from Mark Stretton who spoke about the English Longbow and its use as a Hunting Bow and a War bow; he not only showed the damage that a 120lb longbow with an armour piecing arrow, but he also demonstrated the immense capacity of the longbow as a very deadly hunting bow for killing a range of animals in the medieval times.  This was not only wonderful to see but with his enormous amount of knowledge it made for a very interesting watch, a photo of the broad heads can be seen on our photo slid.

The Sunday proved to be the most BEAUTIFUL and most FANTASTIC day, we had an enormous crowd that cheered and yelled and screamed at our every run and hit of the target, the horses were encouraged by the cheering and clapping. We were very honoured to have a commentary done by Yvonne Morley, she gave a description of the styles of archery and a bit of background about the horses and ourselves. We also had fabulous arrow collectors Patrick, David & Caroline along with stewards at either end of the track Hilary and Guy whom had been wonderful throughout the weekend and without their help it would not have been possible. Lots of people were interested and many where disappointed when we had to stop, for our horses where extremely tired and so too were we.  We managed to speak with loads of interested people which we hope to hear from some of them for further involvement.

All in all it was a great weekend which although we were utterly exhausted and egger to get home without traffic etc, it was so worth it and we very much hope to be at the next Festival of Falconry 2010.  Fingers crossed