“What would you like to do?” Roland asks me. (He is my old boyfriend from years ago – now just a dear friend.)

It is gone four in the afternoon and I have called in on my way home from visiting Ellie at her horse farm (see my blog post entitled “Talking Horse”). Now I am not really one for just sitting about doing nothing, so if a good friend asks me what I would like to do I usually answer honestly.

“Honestly?” I look at him with an expression that says I am hankering to do something more exciting than to sit around having a drink, and I have had enough chit chat, considering I have spent the day talking horse ( not hoarse, of course, of course, of course…).

“I think I know what you want,” he shakes his head but he means yes, “but it’s a bit of an effort….”

“What about using the small one? Won’t that do?”

“Come on then,” he beckons me outside. (I do not need to twist his arm too much because he is very soft-hearted.)

We walk over to the shed and I help him to bring out the special square resin target (with a heart, lungs and liver line- printed in the middle), the smaller bow, a quiver and nine arrows, some of which are different lengths and weights. We normally use the life-size resin deer but I am happy to use any target because I just love archery.

Funnily enough, I find that I miss the resin deer; after all, it is more rewarding to lodge an arrow in a  fake deer’s slender ankle or pretty ear than to hit a line drawing of a lung on a box. It seems that we both feel the same way.

“I’m going to show you a trick now,” Roly announces as he brings out two white plastic paint buckets from the shed and arranges them thirty metres or so from our stick which marks the spot to stand.

He holds the bow and arrow horizontally and aims the arrow up into the sky in the direction of one of the buckets.The idea is to send the arrow at the perfect trajectory to enable it to rise extremely high whilst at the same time progressing forwards to its target, the white bucket. You have to take into account the wind and the height reached. Roland sends off every arrow, soaring very beautifully and landing like slalom poles around the buckets, but not in them.

“I’ve never been able to do it,” he admits, “Of course, it is incredibly hard to achieve, especially with all the variables, like the wind changes, the differences between one type of arrow and another, and the dual considerations of height and distance. I don’t know what the probability of getting an arrow into bucket would be, but it’s not very likely. Let’s see who can get nearest the bucket”.

It is my turn. I take to this cloud shooting lark like a duck to water. I am a tad over-zestful and send one or two arrows precariously close to the neighbour’s property but all is well, the neighbours are taking the wise precaution of staying indoors. One of my arrows falls only twelve hundred centimetres wide of the mark – Roland’s best was not dissimilar – and I am thrilled.

Several goes later, we have collected my friend’s arrows (all wide of their marks) and we are walking back to the starting place stick when I suddenly have a premonition…

“Next time I shall land one in the bucket!”I call out.

Roland laughs.

The first two arrows are the long wooden arrows; I get carried away with the pleasant feeling of my muscles pulling against the string of the bow, and winning; thus both arrows go too far and drop into the boughs of a bordering gum tree. Chastened by the experience, I send the next three carbon-fibre arrows at acute angles upwards (almost straight up) and the arrows drop elegantly but very short of the buckets.

Arrow number six is one of the stumpy little gold ones with red and black flights that really need renewing. I aim, make allowances for a light breeze coming from the right and ping the arrow into the air. It feels good as it leaves my fingers. It looks good as propels from the bow. The arrow reaches its apogee and begins the descent; it gathers speed as it drops… right into the bucket! I am overwhelmed with joy, and would like to scream and jump up and down; I look at Roland’s face of disbelief and his theatrical walk away; and I restrain my natural urges.

“I told you I would do it!” I say modestly.

“You said you would do it,” he agrees, “It’s remarkable, unheard of, and not a fluke, but let’s not  talk about it ever again.”

And here are the photographs.

*By the way, cloud shooting is a dangerous sport. Do not try this at home. My little arrow came down with a force that sent it through the bottom of the bucket and into the earth beneath – think what it could do to a person. It should not be attempted without the supervision of a trained archer (like Roland), and a huge block of isolated land.