Archery in the garden and a coffee break with cake

Early Sunday morning I headed round the loch to do a supermarket shop that had to include elderflower cordial for the archery club cake I was going to make later in the morning. I did the shopping and headed home only realising when I was nearly there that I'd forgotten to get elderflower cordial! It wasn't on the list! I had supposed having in my head would be sufficient. Let's just say I won't rely on my head for shopping list stuff again.

There was a possibility that the local shop would have the cordial so I passed our track and carried on to the next village. Woohoo! They had some – cake-making saved.

Then, as I unpacked the shopping I spotted what look like an elderflower cordial bottle tucked in behind where vegetables are kept. It turned out to be grapefruit and honeysuckle cordial and its use-by date was way back.

Anyway, the cake got made. I'd chosen elderflower cake because I'd found a recipe by Olivia Potts and I'd found such a recipe because elderflower cake is what Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have chosen for their wedding cake later this month. It was good.

The coffee and cake table well into proceedings
while it rained a bit outside

The newly opening wild cherry blossom was bright against the raincloud sky.

The day brightened up again and we continued our shoot. We ended up shooting a half Stafford round, three dozen arrows at thirty metres. I hadn't done any archery for about a year but my mended broken arm coped fine and I think the mopping, scrubbing and hoovering I do at the day care centre, not to mention  dealing with dragon-energised shrubs at home, have kept other requisite muscles (back and shoulders) ready to go.

Dennis, the archery club chairman, did not shoot but he spent some of his time re-fletching arrows. I found two of them on a chair that had been brought into the washhouse after everyone had gone.

Two arrows needing another feather each

Toad wants to gets people back soon to shoot the other half of the Stafford round. I'm all for it not just because it's fun but also because he finds the need for an archery range is the best motivation for grass-cutting. The ground might look fairly smooth in the photo but it's actually quite bumpy and mowing is hard work.