Double Wars highlights for AS 46 - edited and added to!

Weather - warm, hot at times, rain early in the week only. Putting up tents in the rain is pesky, but taking them down in the rain is worse.

Location - pretty good, though now very full (70 pavilions?? and only a couple of dome homes). The premium on fighting space was obvious especially when fighters don't bother using the time before noon to do anything, and fencers (backed up by her Majesty) insist on getting their time in on schedule.
Our pavilion was not as distinctive as in past years, there being so many fine ones, but it did form the background to almost everyone's photos of court. :-)
One drawback - the sauna wasn't well ventilated, and began to smell a bit dodgy before the end of the event. Sigh.

Company - excellent! Catching up with Nordmark friends from past years,
visiting with the Polderslotters under the glory that is their new dining fly,
meeting a whole new community (fencers) that I didn't know very well at all before,
meeting the current crop of principality and baronial heads in Nordmark and Aarnimetsa - even a complete newcomer for whom this was his very first event. I thought him very brave for venturing to a camping event for his first event ever!

Food - very fine.
We were in the royal encampment (another first) along with Nandolf and Siliesia and son T., Vrank, Paul, Ozbeg and Kat, and TRM. The camp kitchen was excellently equipped, and we were fed by Gunnild and Volker, who previously have fed LaRP groups on extended games.

Apparently Larpers are even cheaper beggars than the SCA folk are(!) so the budget was very modest; if we arm them with more generous funds another year, we might eat even better than we did. Yowza.

As it was, we had an excellent selection of German middle-class food for the week - most days some variety soup/stew of bacon/pork, beans or lentils, and cabbage. 

One day was boiled(?) beef with a modestly-hot horseradish sauce; any boiled meat sounds suspect, til you try it for tenderness. Plus sourdough bread that Gunnild baked fresh most days in the 'dutch' oven (a covered roasting dish that you put in the embers). One day G. made round doughnuts, fried over the fire - another day it was griddlecakes.

Volker enjoys making mead, but was experimenting this year with mustards. He is v. critical of his results though so we came home with a couple of jars of 'disappointing' mustard - all of them were worth trying, and excellent on the salami and hams.

And they (along with Paul, and several servers) cooked and served a royal dinner midweek, which threw my sweetie and me onto the mercies of the Dutch group, who were planning to feed us anyway.

On one of the last evenings Silisia baked a couple of salmon in foil with butter and lemon, and it was *amazing* (I just about clobbered Heinrich for going on about the joys of pizza when there was such fresh salmon to be had).

And of course all our favourite local treats - we embarrass our Swedish friends for pining after flavoured squeeze cheese. It comes in a tube like toothpaste, but it's still a real cheese! OMMM NOMMMM NOMMMM.

Classes - my own classes went well. I found exactly the right people to attend my beginners illumination class, with only one experienced illuminator sitting in. The people who were there were both interested in novice skills, and in the little things you learn only by trying it out (mixing paints, quantities, caring for brushes)  things I was very happy to learn early on. At least two of them told me it was very useful and helpful, which was lovely.

Frankly I owe a great debt to ethnowoman  for teaching me what I know about illumination, and shamelessly steal her advice from her own starter class from many years ago.

The first Luttrell Psalter class was well attended by keen viewers, but the second was a no-show, which was ok because I was having a pretty rough day.

Sadly, I didn't find the time or energy to attend many other classes, much as I wanted to. Nordmarkers are spoiled for choice of hugely skilled people!

The one class I did attend was goncalves I.33 class, which introduced me to the lovely fencers Fardang and Eirik, Stephano and Martin. Also an opportunity to get bruised in new and exciting ways, and make loud clanging noises off my buckler. My bucker is The Coolest Toy I've received in years (possibly since the Luttrell! or maybe my slope), and I told His Majesty so (he brought it back from Estrella for me).

Doing courts again - I felt a bit rusty but Robert and I carried off two courts, one short and one long, and he carried two of them on his own, which was a major accomplishment.
Many people said very fine things about our heralding, which was wonderful because usually people only talk about court when it goes bad! The space chosen had great accoustics which was a help, and great views.

Heraldic titles - Matthew Schwarzdrachen, in addition to recognising nusbacher  for her heraldry in court at Tretower with a Herald-at-large title of 'Sans Merci', accorded us Heraldic titles as well: Rouge Maunche for me, and Caversham (name of a town) for Robert.

Together we make an excellent example of the variety of titles possible - motto, heraldic charge or locative. :-)

A beautiful grant - a second (confirmed) grant of arms, this time from Drachenwald, with a beautiful scroll by aryanhwy  with (surprise!) a strong emphasis on personal heraldry  :-)

Three lovely and lovingly made Peers: well received, thoughtfully elevated.

ETA - herald at large vs extraordinary, and more about food, mmmmmm. And about C&I debts.