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abendgulesWhat was the same:
Beautiful site, with run of the castle after hours.
People enjoying camping, doing medieval stuff together, letting the kids run, and playing nicely.
What was different:
A whole week plus a weekend of camping, where![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goncalves kept saying things like 'it's only Tuesday! Hah!'. Where there were days on end of tournaments and shoots.
Our encampment was very different withoutedith_hedingham and jpgsawyer, and Paul and Anne, and armillary and Sorcha and emoni - the usual bustle and chat was gone, making it very quiet. Most of the bustle had moved to Vitus and Isabel's encampment on the other sid of the castle. It felt like splendid isolation, as we found Lynette had set up her shiny new pavilion to the right of the castle.
We borrowed the core of Edith and Thomas' cooking kit (the bits you couldn't break by dropping them) that enabled us to cook over a fire comfortably and my sweetie shared cooking withnusbacher and her girls, eating our main meal at midday with badgersandjam and aryanhwy and Joel and G, and Hakeem our newest Thamesreach fighter.
Our meals were markedly more simple than what Edith, Thomas, Paul and Anne produced and developed but once more we avoided wasting away. The beef bourgignion was awesome, and the day of fried chicken at lunch, followed by chicken dumplings in rich broth at supper (nusbacher and girls cooking), was especially excellent.
It felt more familiar as the week progressed, and more people accrued around the camp.
I was very impressed by the new shared pavilion and shade that Flintheath set up on the bowling green and it quickly became a friendly social centre for many people. It held up well in the wind and occasional rain, and remained cheery well after hours.
Duarte's Dragon's Den didn't happen this year, but I think there were still sufficient places to gather socially to visit and chat and keep company - heck, a bunch of happy folk gathered at the unsheltered end of the bowling green, rain or shine, to enjoy a drink and play Queen Signy's Game by lantern-light.
The extended sunshades were a very elegant addition to the fountain court, providing a natural viewing space and dais for court. They didn't stand up well to high winds, but fortunately noone tried to hold court at that point and some helpful gents in motorcycle leathers helped HG Alessandre Melusine and me disassemble them.
The schedule for fencing was ambitious - it exceeded the numbers of attendees (about four fencers most days at least til Thursday) though it wasn't for lack of trying, and we had fewer fencers overall I think than in previous years. I gained one authorisation in soft parry (needs paperwork), and I learned some basics in case towards that authorisation to come, mostly from HE Pol.
I helped a new fencer get some practice in towards authorisation, and he seemed to really enjoy it - I was surprised to discover the lanky dark haired teenager was the same fair little boy whose AoA I'd scribed a few years ago for Yule Ball. Yikes.
With sparring and practicing (and lending weapons) I helped young Lord Taddy (sp?) authorise in dagger, which pleased him greatly.
I took part in a Protector event for the first time - the terrific, difficult and very popular field course developed bybadgersandjam, to determine the next archery protector. It had nearly a dozen participants, which I think is a first, and it was way, waaaay harder than it looked, shooting up and down steep slopes, through gaps in the rock wall and a mini clout, finishing with a target shot from a chair. I chose to kneel rather than sit with my longbow, and I think got the best result I could have - along with shooting some plague carrying rats.
Master Gottfried's 6 yr old son A proved really keen - he practices archery twice a week with his grandfather, who allows him gloves for shooting with 'til you're old enough for calluses'. That's the spirit.
I'm ready to indulge almost any kid who's genuinely enthusiastic about archery and shows steadiness and focus to shoot - I still love seeing kids enjoy shooting. It's one of the strongest activities in the Society in Eire and NI, and I can see why - affordable for families and something they can do together.
A surprise hit of the event was glass painting - painting up unbreakable beer glasses with acrylic enamel, to look like medieval heraldic glass examples. I had many takers on this project, and lots of oooohs and aaaaahs as we worked, and one day I left the fencing field to discover a glass painting session had broken out without me, because those who had started painting really wanted to finish their work at the event.
I was very pleased to find that other people thought it was as cool as I did to 'paint your own', and the results were wonderful and put to use almost immediately (well as soon as the enamel dried).
In some ways it was an ideal activity for a long event - you had time to both work out a design on paper, test the paint on the practice glass, let a layer of paint harden before starting the next one, come back later to finish. It was very rewarding to see peoples' works emerge.
Oddly, almost no scribing for me this year - one scroll calligraphed, tapping intobadgersandjam's excellent supply of blanks, on request, but no classes for me this time round.
Next year is Raglan X, and the plan is to share the organisation with the principality - it's been too big for a single shire to run for years, so it's time to share it more officially. I saw a lot of new volunteers this year in all settings (day steward, night steward, toilet paper steward?? gatekeeper) which was excellent. I think it will be in great hands.
Beautiful site, with run of the castle after hours.
People enjoying camping, doing medieval stuff together, letting the kids run, and playing nicely.
What was different:
A whole week plus a weekend of camping, where
goncalves kept saying things like 'it's only Tuesday! Hah!'. Where there were days on end of tournaments and shoots.Our encampment was very different without
edith_hedingham and jpgsawyer, and Paul and Anne, and armillary and Sorcha and emoni - the usual bustle and chat was gone, making it very quiet. Most of the bustle had moved to Vitus and Isabel's encampment on the other sid of the castle. It felt like splendid isolation, as we found Lynette had set up her shiny new pavilion to the right of the castle.We borrowed the core of Edith and Thomas' cooking kit (the bits you couldn't break by dropping them) that enabled us to cook over a fire comfortably and my sweetie shared cooking with
nusbacher and her girls, eating our main meal at midday with badgersandjam and aryanhwy and Joel and G, and Hakeem our newest Thamesreach fighter.Our meals were markedly more simple than what Edith, Thomas, Paul and Anne produced and developed but once more we avoided wasting away. The beef bourgignion was awesome, and the day of fried chicken at lunch, followed by chicken dumplings in rich broth at supper (
nusbacher and girls cooking), was especially excellent.It felt more familiar as the week progressed, and more people accrued around the camp.
I was very impressed by the new shared pavilion and shade that Flintheath set up on the bowling green and it quickly became a friendly social centre for many people. It held up well in the wind and occasional rain, and remained cheery well after hours.
Duarte's Dragon's Den didn't happen this year, but I think there were still sufficient places to gather socially to visit and chat and keep company - heck, a bunch of happy folk gathered at the unsheltered end of the bowling green, rain or shine, to enjoy a drink and play Queen Signy's Game by lantern-light.
The extended sunshades were a very elegant addition to the fountain court, providing a natural viewing space and dais for court. They didn't stand up well to high winds, but fortunately noone tried to hold court at that point and some helpful gents in motorcycle leathers helped HG Alessandre Melusine and me disassemble them.
The schedule for fencing was ambitious - it exceeded the numbers of attendees (about four fencers most days at least til Thursday) though it wasn't for lack of trying, and we had fewer fencers overall I think than in previous years. I gained one authorisation in soft parry (needs paperwork), and I learned some basics in case towards that authorisation to come, mostly from HE Pol.
I helped a new fencer get some practice in towards authorisation, and he seemed to really enjoy it - I was surprised to discover the lanky dark haired teenager was the same fair little boy whose AoA I'd scribed a few years ago for Yule Ball. Yikes.
With sparring and practicing (and lending weapons) I helped young Lord Taddy (sp?) authorise in dagger, which pleased him greatly.
I took part in a Protector event for the first time - the terrific, difficult and very popular field course developed by
badgersandjam, to determine the next archery protector. It had nearly a dozen participants, which I think is a first, and it was way, waaaay harder than it looked, shooting up and down steep slopes, through gaps in the rock wall and a mini clout, finishing with a target shot from a chair. I chose to kneel rather than sit with my longbow, and I think got the best result I could have - along with shooting some plague carrying rats.Master Gottfried's 6 yr old son A proved really keen - he practices archery twice a week with his grandfather, who allows him gloves for shooting with 'til you're old enough for calluses'. That's the spirit.
I'm ready to indulge almost any kid who's genuinely enthusiastic about archery and shows steadiness and focus to shoot - I still love seeing kids enjoy shooting. It's one of the strongest activities in the Society in Eire and NI, and I can see why - affordable for families and something they can do together.
A surprise hit of the event was glass painting - painting up unbreakable beer glasses with acrylic enamel, to look like medieval heraldic glass examples. I had many takers on this project, and lots of oooohs and aaaaahs as we worked, and one day I left the fencing field to discover a glass painting session had broken out without me, because those who had started painting really wanted to finish their work at the event.
I was very pleased to find that other people thought it was as cool as I did to 'paint your own', and the results were wonderful and put to use almost immediately (well as soon as the enamel dried).
In some ways it was an ideal activity for a long event - you had time to both work out a design on paper, test the paint on the practice glass, let a layer of paint harden before starting the next one, come back later to finish. It was very rewarding to see peoples' works emerge.
Oddly, almost no scribing for me this year - one scroll calligraphed, tapping into
badgersandjam's excellent supply of blanks, on request, but no classes for me this time round.Next year is Raglan X, and the plan is to share the organisation with the principality - it's been too big for a single shire to run for years, so it's time to share it more officially. I saw a lot of new volunteers this year in all settings (day steward, night steward, toilet paper steward?? gatekeeper) which was excellent. I think it will be in great hands.
