After months of training, the big weekend arrived. We were all set for the Junior National Outdoor Championships to be held at Archery GB headquarters at the National Sports Centre in Shropshire. Hundreds of families were travelling from all over the UK, with tents packed, hotels booked, and hopes high.
I would never have imagined, that even in our country, in mid-summer July, that seemingly biblical rainfall would swamp us all, or to this extent. We were ready to go and set up our archery tent on the Friday, to stand a chance of being on the front of the shooting line, and close to our allotted place for the tournament. Everyone wants their archery tent to be at the front of the line, but with big tournaments you really have to get there the day before to get a space.
Looking at the weather forecast, we knew we were going to get wet. It's nothing new for us to shoot in the rain, and I'd purposely bought all kinds of new wet weather gear for us in recent months - just in case.
As I was about to set off to buy picnic food and supplies for the weekend, I got a text, half a dozen emails, and then saw Twitter.
Cancelled. Not even postponed. Cancelled. The management at Archery HQ deemed the field unfit for use because of the torrential rain. On that Friday the rain had not stopped. It was relentless, hard, mud making rain, thoroughly unforgiving and miserable. Rain was the top news story on TV on Friday night, again. Floods, cancelled sports events, impassable roads and damaged properties.
It was a brave decision for someone to make, to cancel the tournament and leave so many youngsters disappointed, but I couldn't blame that person. It was the right decision.
Obviously in our house there was a huge adrenalin rush in the build up to the competition. All the UK's best young archers would have been there, the forthcoming London 2012 Olympics would have been the main topic of conversation, the Junior Team GB Development coaches would have been there spotting new talent and nurturing the current young squad members.
Not surprisingly I suppose, we woke to sunshine on Saturday and Sunday. There was the odd heavy shower, but nothing we couldn't have handled on a shoot. I'm sure the archery field would still have been a quagmire and not useable, so we will just have to forget about this weekend, and set our hopes on the next big event for us - the Indoor Nationals in December.
So what did we do with our weekend? We made the most of the break in the weather and mowed the lawn and enjoyed the Wimbledon Ladies' and Mens' Finals on TV. Of course, play was interrupted by rain.
