We're not dead ...

... it just feels as though we are.

Recently a few people have rung to ask if we have fallen off the face of the Earth. No, and yes. We're still physically anchored to the planet, but have been so disgustingly debilitated by the horrible flu this year that for the last four or so weeks we have done exactly nothing.

Actually, that's not quite true. This is what I have done for the last four weeks:
* Get off plane from New Zealand, all enthused about great event with lovely people.
* Start feeling a bit under the weather.
* Struggle through the next week toughing it out.
* Attend grandmother's funeral in blisteringly cold weather.
* Sleep for the weekend, which was unfortunately the same weekend as Harry Potter VII came out and Bunch of Classes was on – an event at which I was meant to be teaching a class and running a pot-luck feast. Luckily J took over the latter, bless him.
* Was dragged out TV shopping on Sunday morning with J, because TV is more important than me not dying. As a result of my weak and febrile state, he now has a big shiny TV that I paid more than twice as much as I wanted to for. I'm taking the blessings back.
* Struggled into work on Monday for deadline.
* Slept Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon, J announces that he is now sick with the flu, too. I pointed out that if he'd stayed in the spare room as I asked him to, he would still be healthy and we'd both have had more sleep. He grunts at me and asks me to cook up soup. I am thankful that expensive deli soup exists, since it's no effort but tastes good.
* Saturday, after three days of coughing, J asks me to look at his ears. "They're bleeding," I say. "That's not a good sign. You should go to the doctor, or maybe the hospital."
* Sunday, much as Saturday.
* Monday morning at 12.30am, J decides to go to the hospital. This is seven hours before I start work. I walk him up to Newtown, make sure he's settled, taxi back.
* On arriving home I pick up the cat to move her out of the way. Notice she has a lump on the side of her face. Leave instructions for J to take cat to vet next day.
* 4.45am J gets home, he has managed to cough holes in both eardrums. Some boys just don't know when to stop in the "I have this worse than you" game.
* Monday evening after long deadline day I take cat to vet with her now larger lump. Abscess, requires surgery.
* Tuesday, pick up groggy cat with drain through face. Hand over almost exactly the same amount I paid for the TV. Goodbye dreams of new laptop and printer, goodbye! Bring cat home to a novel life of being indoors and wearing a bucket. Luckily, she is both toilet trained and fastidious, plus a genuinely sweet cat, especially given she used to be feral.
* Last week and a half is spent with three sick people being asleep a lot and awake at odd hours and living on toast and deli soup. Missed at least three other things I really really wanted to go to and was so sick I hallucinated Harry Potter passages.

So, in short, I'm not avoiding anyone or anything except inasmuch as I like most of you and do not want to infect you. Also, have exactly enough energy to walk up hill to ATM and back. This is actually a big improvement on Monday when running for the train required 10 minutes panting until lungs worked again.

If someone near you sneezes, RUN, FLEE, THROW ON A FACEMASK! This is a horrible, horrible flu and is knocking people over like some crazed skittles metaphor that I'd construct elegantly if only my brain was not still full of snot.

And there are three posts lined up ready to go as soon as I can write again: Midwinter, Peerage Secrets You May As Well Know, and, my personal favourite, What My Cat Looks Like in a Bucket. You lot stay well. And to Phil, Deense and other plague victims, get better!

An aside ...

I could have sworn I'd posted here more recently, but no. Er, been v busy sewing, writing, travelling and at the moment coughing up a lung (again?! It must be the lack of sleep that gets me because in all other ways I'm as healthy as a horse (a happy horse, not a pit pony.))

Having a strange day dealing with death in the family and the serendipitous finding of old friends at the same time, plus a package that I had thought sacrificed to the mail gods finally arrived from England today, much postal happiness! But enough of this blather, what do I think this is: LJ? On to today's rant, the subject of which is Harry Potter.

And a few of you are looking at me askance. There's the "Sweetie, this is a mad SCA rant Blog, you're confused" brigade, they should hold off for a few days and I will finish up the glowing wrap-up of MidWinter; there's the "Dude, you have degrees in Eng Lit and have a suspiciously thick pile of notebooks beside your bed that would suggest a touch of authorialism, what's going on?" set, they should read on for an explanation; and there's the "ARGH! ARGH! She mentioned He Who Must Not Be Named!!" gang and to them I say, seriously, and you thought Animal Liberationists were zealots? Take a deep breath and get over it.

So, Harry Potter. I like JK Rowling's magnum opus. I was late coming to it, just after book 3 hit the shelves, and so came in at the time when it was taking its more adult turn. I liked the first two books well enough, but they were light and sweet for the most part, and if they'd stayed like that, I wouldn't have kept reading, or at least not in hardback. But they didn't. Things grew darker.

And I realised why I was enjoying reading: because these were, as all good kids should be, focussed on death. Death is the cornerstone of great children's literature, whether narrowly escaping it, being touched by it, needing to administer it for a greater good, or embracing it as a final peace. From the Brothers Grimm to Joan Aiken, from Beowulf to the Bible, everything that I was passionate about reading as a child keyed into the sense of mortality that I had so strongly as a young child (then lost for a little while as a teenager, then met differently after my most serious near-death experience (because I'd had enough life by then to reach some sort of calm about the whole thing)).

So books three and four are my favourites, where the structures of the kids' world slowly reveal themselves as unsafe, unprotecting, and able to be beaten. But the traditional virtues of loyalty, perserverence and ingenuity are valued, too. No one is valued solely for their looks, the heroes are all stupid on occasion (more so in books five and six) and the bad guys are presented with enough ambivalence that their badness is usually not wholly certain (Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy aside).

Books five and six have been fascinating for their treatment of a post September 11, 2001 world. Terrorism and its media responses litter the page. Civil liberties are eroded as governments panic. Watching JKR's responses to the turn of the millennium has been fascinating, even if her editors clearly threw up their hands and stepped down from parts of their posts after book 4 (because 5 and 6 could have stood a little sharpening).

More than just seeing the children grow up in 'real' fictive time (which is interesting in itself), the series has presented a world that fractures under the weight of an unexpected attack. I can't think of any other children's literature set in any roughly 'real' world that deals this explicitly with the current climate.

Yes Potter has plot problems (usually inconsistencies that would have been caught by keener editors), yes she's not a perfect writer, yes the whole blockbuster juggernaut thing is annoying. But I will be getting up early tomorrow to go and pick up my copy, and I will enjoy reading it, just as I enjoyed watching the film last weekend (and somehow I ended up enjoying that twice. Brilliant Umbridge, but I missed the Prophet vs the Quibbler subplot.)

As to what I think will happen, look away now if it's Friday night and you don't even want speculative spoilers, feel free to read through and laugh if it's after that and I'm horribly wrong:
* I think Voldemort will die and Harry will live, powers intact and perhaps no longer needing glasses or possibly without his scar since JKR has made such a point of physicallising issues in her texts.
* I think the characters we care about who die will include Hagrid, because he's pretty much fulfilled all of his narrative functions and she was desperately looking for somewhere to stash him in the last book. I suspect a Weasley may cop it, probably not mum because JKR has some well-grounded dead mother issues, and that means Dad can't die either, or either of the two younger kids. Percy could well be in for it -- sacrificing himself to save one or more family members in a way that is both apologetic and redemptive at the same time, otherwise my money would be on Charlie, since all he does is ride dragons and act like Lord Flashheart.
* If we really do lose one of the Big Three, my money would be on Hermione, since this has all been one giant first novel and first-time novellists often kill off "themselves".
* If she kills Neville, I will swear a whole lot. I'm keen for him to end up with Luna Lovegood, and for the two of them to break new ground in cryptoherbology.
* Snape good or bad? I'm going for good based on nothing more than Dumbledore's trust and my undying passion for Alan Rickman. Suspect he will play crucial role in denoument, quite likely to end up dead hero. After all, what else is there for him to do? (Stepping right away from his endless terrifying adventures in slashland.)
* I'm willing to wager a tiny amount on Draco turning out good, too, and ending up as head of Slytherin House while teaching potions. Alternatively, he ends up as Voldemort's butt monkey and dies in a scene of cliffhanging anticipation. But I suspect that if there are any cliffhangers involving Draco, he'll turn the balance in Harry's favour at a crucial moment. Because JKR finds it really hard to make smart people plain old bad.
* Depending on how much influence JKR had on the last film, Ron could turn out to be more central. Rupert Grint was cheerfully stealing all the scenes in the film (mostly because he's a slightly better actor than the others) but he seemed to be awfully foregrounded, as he was in book six, although that was mostly to give the subplots somewhere to hang.
* Harry will end up very happy, perhaps an auror or teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. Because JKR is the most motherly mother in the world, and there is no way on Earth she's killing her baby.

In just over 12 hours, I can find out for myself!

Canterbury Faire III: The return of the midgets!

Can I just point out that as I begin to write this there is a genuine gale bordering on cyclone blowing outside. So if it suddenly starts sounding a bit odd, part of the roof will have blown off and I'll be holding a brolly over the computer.

For all the lovely people who have sent nice notes regarding la or le rumourmongering eedjit, it really is just the horror of the possibility that someone thinks my tastes in men run to anything other than the Sean Bean-esque (which J actually is (and 10 points Blayney for being the only one to notice the comment he picked up on)).

I still plan to slap the rumour monger should I find him or her, because anyone that much of an eeeedjit just deserves a good slap.

But since I have unwittingly provided a good belly laugh to so many people on this, it's worth the eyerolling at my end. And, as Marie pointed out, our eeedjit at least had the good sense to slander two people whose partners wouldn't be the least bit upset by such eeeedjitcy. And yes, no-one says idiot like the Irish, so that's a guest voice making an appearance in this blog entry. And unlike all my other impressions (save an uncanny Uther on helium), I can actually do a passable Irish. My funny Scots voice is, alas, more Polish.

But none of this is telling you more about the wonders of Canterbury Faire! And that is what I have sat down to do. Mind you, before we get any further along, I must point one vital thing out. It will not be that good next year. In fact, it's likely to be rubbish. Utter bollocks. Under no circumstances should you contemplate coming. Seriously, stay home.

Because the hordes are starting to make it seem like Festival, and that's not right!

Much of the event covered off in parts one and two, so if you've not read them, go down a few posts and you'll find them. This one's more of the round-up stuff. It's also extremely fragmentary because it's been written over a fortnight and my memory is a shambles: like my photography it's either clear and sharp, or blurred beyond any use ...

While CF is my personal happy event each year, it wasn't all wine and roses this year as a short time before, the Barony lost a little boy who was very dear and sweet and far too young. His sister Alexandria is a little girl who I've spoken to quite a bit over the last three years, she's also very sweet and such a girly girl, her mum dresses her in smocked frocks and makes her the most astonishing garb (for which mum was awarded a Lillies last year and very well deserved). Alex is one of those kids who will ask questions when she has them, so when she needed some tucking in one night and I was one of the only adults around, we did her toothbrushing and then had a bit of a chat. She understood about death, and was more saddened by the loss side than bound up in any sort of existential crisis, but she was having a very hard time coming to grips with why some people were blaming others over the sequence of events (bacterial infection at the same time all the other kids had been down with the flu, too late by the time difference spotted).

I looked around for someone smarter than me to answer that, but the only other people about were the kids in the next room. So I was blunt but tactful. "It's because adults hate admitting that sometimes there's nothing you can do. Even if Harry had gone to the hospital sooner, it might not have been soon enough. And if it had turned out to just be flu too when he was just a little bit sick, there would have been criticism that going to the hospital was a waste of resources."

"And sometimes people die even when they're in the hospital," she told me. "But wouldn't it be more sensible to see that everyone is upset and for everyone to try and be kind rather than blame each other?"

(I told you that she was a very sweet girl.)

I agreed that this would be much more sensible. "But grown-ups try to control things. And sometimes that's good because we're controlling things like having enough food or being in bed at a sensible time, but there are other things you can't control, and that's everything from big things like trucks and earthquakes, to little things like bacteria. And so you just have to try your best with them."

"So what should we do?" she asked.

I wished really hard to be replaced with someone suitably spiritual or philosophical, but alas, no luck. "We try to do as many positive things as we can. So if it's a choice between going outside on a beautiful day or sitting inside watching dumb TV, go outside. And if you want to try something new like singing but you're embarrassed, don't be, because you might be good at it and even if you're not then you'll have had a new experience. And if people say you should do something you don't want to do, tell them you don't want to. And, unless its something that has to be done like going to school or somewhere mum and dad need to go, don't go. And above all, tell people that you love them when you do."

She looked at me appraisingly. "That's good advice," she said.

"I'm old," I said on the outside. "You learn stuff." (You're young, I thought on the inside, this is just the stuff people haven't told you about yet because they were hoping you wouldn't need it. And I've left you room for any gods you may have, so I won't have your mum looking for my intestines later.)

"Bed time?" I asked.

"I'm not supposed to go to bed without anyone here," she replied in the universal kid code of I reckon I can get another hour out of this one ...

"Dickon's right next door, and I'm next to him. Give a yell and we'll come running."

Dickon, bless him, opened his door to ask what he was being dobbed in for.

This revealed that every single other child in the dormitory was in the Baskin-kerr kids' room 'getting ready for bedtime', read: gossiping and playing games depending on age bracket. Dickon, Pippin and Grace proclaimed as one that it wasn't their fault.

I decided that since I was a mad aunty rather than a parental type, it wasn't up to me to send them all scurrying off, but I would try and waylay their parents as they came into the hall at the other end of the dorm and give them enough warning to get back to the appropriate rooms if they would look out for Alex and make sure she got some good sleep. A deal was struck, and we all kept up our ends. And this is why I remain the amusing aunty figure, I'd make a terrible parent.


As it turns out, I did have a good photo of Court, here is Vitale being granted a Court Barony. This was the only photo I could find with both Royals looking good. One of the bad side-effects of court is that someone is usually saying a word that starts with w or v or p and none of these produce good faces. Either that or the person kneeling in front is caught mid-kneel and it looks like a bizarre fetish shot that you would find on a site called Wool-Covered Butts. Again, not quite the look we were going for.



As you can see, the kids took Court with all the seriousness and attention that they bring to other endeavours in their busy lives. Here Pippin and Roisin compete for Flattest Child in Camp.

Tragically, I kept laughing so hard at the regular bon mots from these two that I didn't write any of them down, which was a shame because they are two very original kids, in every sense of the phrase. Roisin was the kid who last year, on being told that Fair is nicer than Festival because there are snakes at Festival that can kill you, replied in all seriousness: " I don't think mummy's signed a permission for me to be dead."

Her mum is Fen and her sister is Orla, and how they ever get anything done while laughing at brilliant Roisinisms is beyond me. When she's older I plan to buy her some George Orwell and other good books of journalism and encourage her to make it a career, because the child has a genius.

For some reason I ended up with lots of in-focus shots of Tycho. Possibly because he is one of the only people to stand still for more than a second ...

Tycho was publicly asked to join the order of the Laurel at Canty Fair for his work in knifesmithing. At the time he said yes, and you should SEE the work he does, just lovely. Since then, though, he has thought on the topic and decided it would not be fair because he doesn't have enough time to devote to another order and wouldn't want to be a freeloading peer (my term, he was far nicer). I have immense respect for both him and his decision on this, but at the same time, it's a bit of a loss for us. He is a good voice of sense and reason and we Laurels sometimes need a little calming.

I had a very funny conversation with Rowan after Festival where I expressed surprise that the King had given me a Rowan (award, not Mistress, she's Jeremy's). She replied, "I think you're quite courteous, well, except on Laurel council ..." which is, alas, true. It would be nice to have more assertive but calm voices that could cut through or de-heighten emotive arguments in council without the crankiness I come with. It's the trouble with having an order full of artists, there's a lot of highly strung nostril flaring; it's like being back around thoroughbreds, though so far I've managed to resist twisting anyone's ear until they behave, but it's not easy! All my natural instincts say go for the ear and say loudly but calmly: "Whoa down there."

Other things at Fair included the fighter auction. I've mentioned this earlier, but without shots. Here's J, being v butch. He could tell me who that is falling over, but he's asleep. It was a fun tournament to watch, and apparently made much more money than they were planning on. Which means more fireworks at Coronation, Yay! I mentioned the format earlier, too, but as a reminder, each fighter had seven ribbons and you could take away various numbers per bout depending on where you hit them. After you lost all seven, you were out of the tournament. It added a great deal of fun to the day and quite a bit of evil if your name was Baron Inigo, for he is tricksy! (And took six ribbons from one fighter in one bout.)


The fighting stopped for the wedding of Claire and Christopher, Madeleine and Maria were bridesmaids and Marienna and Asbjorn were attendants. Sadly, most of my shots were rubbish due to a combination of dirty lens and no skill whatsoever. But it was a lovely ceremony and a very happy occasion for everyone. It was especially nice in that we were all able to join the celebration as a part of life in a normal township. The celebrant wore traditional ecclesiastical robes and the mundane guests all dressed to fit in. So it was like a genuine moment in the life of the real town of Southron Gaard. I liked this a lot, because the community there always feels very real to me, not just a bunch of friends and acquaintances sharing a giant LRP dress-up fest.



Asbjorn had fun being one of the wedding party, when it was asked if any had just cause why these two should not be wed, he drew his sword a few inches and glared about. But of course, everyone had tonnes of just cause as to why they SHOULD be wed, so there were no issues there.

It was still odd seeing Master Christopher in Elizabethan as I am so used to Master Yoshitoshi in Japanese. But he looked very fine indeed, and it certainly gives Lady Claire much more scope for frockage!

I had a mad time trying to find them a card to go with the pressie we found (which was all Japanese, DOH!) and found really beautiful envelopes, one of which I was going to fill with a nicely calligraphed note on a scrap of paper katherine found for me. I still have the envelopes. Sometimes I am the least organised person on Earth.


Afterwards the auction went back to the last few rounds. Alfar was very amusing and allowed little Ethan a bout. Ethan took the opportunity to gut His Majesty mercilessly. He's cunning, that one.

It was interesting watching the little kids who haven't been immersed in the SCA since birth or toddlerdom. And when I say immersed, I mean at camping events in particular, as Persi is wonderful at normal events but found it all a little much to be away from home every night and surrounded by strange noisy people. I think that parts of Fair were a little bit much for Ethan, too, while Maddie, Nikki and Willie took them more in their stride. But Ethan was surrounded by so many new and exciting things and was having a grand time being admired by everyone. Also, doesn't have as many connections with the other kids as Maddie, Willie and Nikki have. Well, he didn't. Next year he will, because he was such a firm favourite with all the others. So whenever he started to get a bit worked up this year, the other kids understood it was just acclimatising. That peer support in the junior set is what first amazed me about the NZ groups, and I'm happy to see it catching on at Festival and other Terra Rossa events, too.

At May Crown there were a bunch of kids I knew at the feast and some were in sulky teenage mode. But they all found the dark sofa-filled corner of the hall and sat around chatting with each other and included the younger ones, too. The older ones made the younger ones feel more grown up, the younger ones kept the older ones nicer and better-tempered. There are some hippie things that are good and worthwhile, and this sort of natural commune is one of them.

It appears I also had a shot of the Amberherthe toga party, including the puffin pinata. Let me just say that it was far scarier being there. J and I went dressed in our normal clothes and told everyone that we were barbarians and were visiting their city wishing to learn Latin. It appears that all the Latin some people know is really quite rude. And we're back to Sir Vitale ...

You would not believe how many hits it took to take out that puffin, BTW.



The A&S was, as usual, very good. But not so good on the labelling. I couldn't for the life of me work out who had made these items, and the njalbinding was particularly well done, so I wanted to enthuse at someone. I think that a name was thrown at me a little later, but I didn't write it down, and so it is, alas, gone forever. Except that I know Bartholomew will leave a comment enlightening me, because that's another thing I like about Southron Gaard!

The band weaving was pretty good, too, although I wanted to have a word with the weaver about tension and how they planned to do the finishing. Still, I'll probably see this being worn somewhere next year and can see how it all came together then. The callig and illum in the background was also biffo.

For some reason Myne incorporated an evil chicken impersonation into her A&S display ...

One of the good things about Canty Faire being so small is that the A&S displays are able to go on at the level of "Here's what I did, here's why I did it." "Oh, that's interesting, I like these bits, have you read X or thought about incorporating Y? Good job, you, well done!"

Now theoretically that's what Laurel Prize Tourney at Festival is like. And sometimes it works the right way. But more often it's too crowded and filled with non-laurels who've forgotten about Laurel-only hour and then no matter how often you ask people if they want a form, they say no until they decide 10 minutes later they really do ... and it's just too much, even if you do pay very close attention to just being a good listening Laurel, the sheer number of entrants and laurels means you only have a couple of minutes per person if you want to see everyone. So instead we tend to make choices and sometimes overlook things we think we know or think we wouldn't be that interested in. Which means that we miss out on good stuff. In the overall scheme of things it evens out, because we all make different choices and so can compare notes afterwards, but it's still annoying.

One of the people I had most fun talking to at Fair was William de Wyke about shoes and leather. In fact, he did a running repair for me when I blew out one of my turn shoes, and then sent me home with smuggled goop (not as dodgy as it sounds, and that reminds me, MUST get recipe this time ...) so that I could do the same myself. In addition to his research on cordwaining and cobbling, he has been working on various accessories including this very nice scabbard. He is talking about starting up a guild, his laurel Alys suggested that he start two, one for cobblers and one for cordwainers and then have inter-guild rivalry and see them issue a series of complaints against each other. Sometimes I think that local government is missing out greatly and that Alys really needs to reconsider depriving them of her evil genius. Because while she would doubtless set opposing sides of the council at each other's throats, she would also use the cover provided by the fracas to push through fully funded educational and social services that would improve the world. I'm just not convinced she wouldn't be having more fun watching the debates ...

William also made the chape for the scabbard. Damned talented people, we hates them! Except that he's a good teaching talented person, so there's every chance that he can show me how its all done enough for me to work it out some day. I was very impressed, and enjoyed his chat on how it had all come together, including the disaster parts, very much. I heartily encourage people to include the disaster parts in their A&S chats as they are a great relief for all the listeners. Not to mention a good way of conveying what not to do.


In addition to 'things' A&S, Canterbury Faire has a good tradition of performance A&S. The highlights are trotted out at the half-circle theatre, so called because the audience sits in a predictable geometric shape. Here's (from left) Baron Master Sigurd, Baroness Mistress Eleanora, Baron Sir Inigo, Baroness Cecilia, and, up in the back, Amanda on the far left, Lea in the middle and Dickon on the far right. I think I've mentioned before Lea's infatuation with Dickon, which is very cute (if you ever wish to tease Dickon, just say: "But it'll be OK, because when she's 18, you'll be 28 ..." he wails and says: "I don't want to be that guy!" Dickon rocks.) In the shot two before this, Lea is sitting next to Amanda, then she's half way over, by two after, she's beside him, where she stayed throughout the performance. It's his own fault for being such a piggyback provider, he's like the teenaged version of J.

The performances were up and down; there was a professional play troupe that I found rather over-mannered and not really to my taste. To be fair, they were wearing costumes that were jarring with the event, so I wasn;t in the right headspace, and they were also still in rehearsal and trying to do a condensed scene in a strange environment. Also, I'm astonishingly picky and annoying. Vitale and Finr did some highly amusing schtick which was made all the funnier by the contrast of the gregarious knight with the taciturn skald. The music was uniformly good; singing in particular has come a very long way from my first fair three years ago. The organisation has met up with the talent and there is a level of sophistication that reflects the amount of time and passion people have brought to the task. There was also a play that had a girl playing the Empress or Queen who looked very much like my darling Hillary (who has just landed a dream job at the Museum of London), I saw a girl who looked very much like her at Festival and kept wanting to run up and say "Are you from Southron Gaard?" but I try to maintain at least a veneer of cool. A very very thin one ...

As always, the kids were a joy to interact with, even if we seem to have been put into the role of dependable transport (if only we had the wheelbarrow!) Sir Inigo and co built another hay fort and there was a sleepout which included a moderate amount of giggling, but led to pleas for age differentiated sleepouts next year so that the big kids could keep on with their gasbagging till much later without disturbing the little kids. Why is it that I can foresee wails of protest from the kids just below the age cut off?

Amusingly, it's really J that most of the kids love the most. I'm just the one who comes with the package. So apparently grumpy works for the young set. I think that we do, however, meet the criteria for the adults that I considered to be my friends when I was that age: we listen to the kids as though they are people, we try to explain things when they ask us questions, we see their points of view even when we have to say that their parents are still right, and we know that they aren't always interested in the same things adults are. In the same way, the Canty Faire kids are very good at knowing that adults need time too and are also people. I really like the way they see their parents as real people for the most part. Even the little ones have some understanding of it. In a world where communication in families seems increasingly to fall by the wayside, this is a very good thing to have as a norm. All the B-k kids, Rosetta and Alexandria in particular have made me go a wee bit misty eyed in their descriptions of how good their parents are.

They also have very high opinions of the populace, which made me laugh when one little girl was telling me how she wants to grow up to be just like Christia, and another wondered if it might not be easier to pursue C&I and be like Belle. The boys were more even-handed and were cherry-picking qualities from several knights, barons and other notables for their aspirational figures. I hope that happens on this side of the ditch, too, though I suspect you need to be the welcome outsider figure to actually hear it.

I'm sure that I'm missing some terribly important things I wanted to talk about. I did go over with all sorts of plans to talk with adults and be very Laurelly. In fact I ended up babysitting and chasing hedgehogs a lot.

It was an excellent event, stewarded by the one-working-collarboned Master Llewellyn and with great food (as always) and a convivial atmosphere overall. There was some weirdness; the locals tramping and driving through site over the long weekend was a tad confronting, and katherine's revenge belling was very funny but no one should ever tell her she is less than lovely.

It being the first time Iarnulfr was back led to some tentativeness on both sides of the old divide, which people handled with dignity and maturity. Because they're all good at being grown-ups. But I was very happy to see him because I like having a forge at an event and I like his inspiring of "stuff" around a campsite. And although he has been thoroughly Terra Rossaned in the last five-odd years, it was interesting to see how quickly he and Jenny Kiwied ...

To touch on politics briefly, I did wish that the old seneschallate had followed through on the original theory of a truth and reconciliation style report over the college difficulties all those years ago, because the way the report was handled meant the significant systems problems that were a major cause (not least those from the university) were never aired, and there are a some residual feelings of confusion and crossness in older players. That was my mistake, I think. I should have insisted it be a Crown-run matter rather than handing it off. That way any anger would have attached only to us, and we could have listened our way through it.

On the up side, there's an entire generation of younger players who have no idea what the fuck I am talking about in that last paragraph. Suffice to say that when it comes to issues that aren't black and white and don't need mundane resolutions, I now almost wholly recommend that they are dealt with by the in-game side; the K&Q, or the B&B, not the more mundane seneschallate. My reasons for this are simple. Seneschals look for the bases of problems and blame apportionment when they are solving them. This is a necessary part of their job.

Royalty, on the other hand, should be all about wanting the group to thrive and every individual within it succeed. That's what creates a healthy kingdom. Now and then they have to inadverantly crush people's dreams, usually in baronial selection processes, but on the whole it's all about the rewarding and encouraging. So the urge is to say "Oh look, that's what the problem was! Let's never do that again!"

I screwed up in believing that same end could come about through other agents.

On the other hand, Seneschals are indispensible when it comes to significant problems that do have or still have a mundane component (some problems have a small window when there may be a need for mundane involvement, which later closes.) One of the people who I have enjoyed meeting most and grown to respect the most in the last few years was Collum, the Seneschal of River Haven. He had a giant problem fall into his lap which was very mundane-law-necessary. He did everything exactly right, and interacted perfectly with his local landed royalty (Somerled and Caelia, who were great) and then with us so that we just had to give the final sign-off to his process. Subsequently he has gone through another similar issue, if not so severe, and been a wonder to another set of B&B and K&Qs.

Alfar actually asked me to start writing up some of these monarchopolitical insights for others, which I should really do this month ...

This is not the greatest photo, but that bare belly is indeed Baron Callum who was portraying Buddha in the gods and monsters tournament. A more terrifying sight I cannot imagine across the field. His great good humour in the role was matched by his great stoicism when the belly bruises began to appear later in the day. I am told, too, that there were more tales in the Mong, which I sincerely miss hearing. There are few storytellers quite so captivating. Fingers crossed he writes it all up for next years Tales.


And this was Baron Sigurd's Ghost of Fighters Past. A simple, yet inspired concept. The scent of unwashed gambeson and linament adding a subtle touch of realism to the ensemble ...

Sigurd also had good news at Fair, which I think he's let out, but in case it's not universally known, just some quiet yaying at this end. I'm a bit sad J mangled his elbow, since I think it would have been very fun to be stepping up at Midwinter. I imagine that sadness will have waned by about September ...


Finally, a lovely shot of Roisin and one of my favourite Ynys Fawrians whose name I can never get straight. Lovely chap, good artisan in a variety of fields, straight talking gentle humourist who owns a great hat. And, like us, perennial piggybacker. Truly is it said that the next generation stands on the shoulders of this one. Or, more accurately, sits comfortably somewhere in the back region after repeated cries of "Up, up!" and "Carry me!"

[Edited to correct the spelling of Alexandria's name, who is also Amethyst. Yeah, yeah, you lot have met my memory ...]

Interim post ...

So, I started on this other post, and it's newsy and has photos and is about Canty Faire, but it's looking like it will be a novella so in the interim, thanks for the cheery messages, keep on giggling at the derangity of some, and rest assured that I have lost exactly no sleep though still feel put out that some people aren't aware of my generally excellent taste in men.

We won't be up in Qld this weekend because I have to work on Monday and the impending storm means that J isn't keen on driving anymore. He was meant to let Blayney and Gabriel know this, but may not have as yet. But he has a headache so we should cut him a little slack.

In the meantime, this is for Deense and anyone else who has fallen prey to the compelling horror that is Robin Hood 2006. I'm not suggesting the show is good in any way other than the same way candy floss is. But it does lead to a very easy Hood Bingo. Click on the image for readable text. Feel free to use as a drinking game, with a responsible limit young uns. There will probably be updates of this ...

More philosophy, and some grammar!

In today's rant, we will be discussing logic and irony.

All of this stems out of last night, when J and I went to a party. It was Spyder and Gordy's farewell party, which was both sad and good. Sad because Spyd won't be just down the road, good because she is going to live in a great house in a great part of Victoria and have the life she and Gordy and AJ want to be living, while still being within an eight-hour drive at J speeds.

And it's not as though we see her and Gordy all the time anyway, what with them having a toddler and us having too much work, it's just that we could ...

So it was good luck in the end that I'd procrastinated for so long about buying my flights to Tassie, because I wouldn't have been able to go. (Although I felt very bad, NotElf! Hope that it was all great!)

However, no sooner had I started chatting to folk than two old pals told me of an astonishing rumour (which other people had heard, but no bugger could tell me where it had come from, you're all crap!) Apparently I'm meant to be having an affair with someone who shall remain nameless because he's a pretty decent person and I'm more interested in talking about the abstracts here.

While I was very happy to see that my friends are in fact my friends and all treated it as the least likely thing they had ever heard (which, if I was naming names, you, gentle reader would be doing, too), I was still annoyed that there is someone out there who thought this plausible.

And they've been putting it about because there were at least two entry vectors for last night's rumour (rumours and epidemiology are a good fit).

So while people who know me (and the other person) will bark with laughter (the standard reaction so far, never better exemplified than in Jen), people who don't will be left with this idea that fails all the tests of logic.

Indeed, it's the sheer stupidity that really galls me. Especially because I have no idea where my textbooks are and so had to go to Wikipedia to get the following definition of a formal proof, and I generally hate Wiki (though this was a good page, by normal, not just Wiki standards).

SO:
A typical proof consists of axioms, rules of inference, and theorems. An axiom is a sentence that may be asserted in a proof at any time. A theorem is any sentence that can be proved in the system. A rule of inference allows a theorem to be proved from one or more previously established theorems and/or axioms. Most formal systems have either a rich set of rules of inference but few or no axioms; or a rich set of axioms but few rules of inference.

Consistency, soundness, and completeness

Among the valuable properties that formal systems can have are:

• Consistency, which means that none of the theorems of the system contradict one another.
• Soundness, which means that the system's rules of proof will never allow a false inference from a true premise. If a system is sound and its axioms are true then its theorems are also guaranteed to be true.
• Completeness, which means that there are no true sentences in the system that cannot, at least in principle, be proved in the system.

Now, this rumour fails on all of these properties. Let's be brutal here. Although I still have great eyes and nice hair and skin and a pleasant speaking voice, I am a broad-arsed middle-aged woman who is seriously stumpy. What makes me attractive is my blazing sense of being mostly right, most of the time. That surety, that sense of moral and logical focus is compelling (as evidenced by the minor wibbles of my friends whenever I express insecurity on anything). It's a family trait that I have in spades and on its good side it can be a very appealing thing. The downside of course is that I piss people off, but I choose to live with that.

However, you cannot possess a sense of moral certainty while doing something selfishly cruel and hurtful. It's hard enough to maintain a position when you are doing something that you know to be right and for the good of the many when you know that it will hurt the feelings of a few. So by being the sort of person who would have an affair, I would stop being attractive enough to be the sort of person anyone would want to have an affair with.

Then you hit soundness of the system. In a sound system you might have:
All humans require oxygen to survive.
Pete is a human.
Pete requires oxygen to survive.

Each of these statements is true in itself, and they flow logically within the system, without any false inferences. For an example of false inferences, try this simple change:
All humans require oxygen to survive.
Fido requires oxygen to survive.
Fido is a human.

This is a common flaw in argument where two true axioms are used to create a false inference through a false understanding of the system's rules. It's also where people tend to screw up in those Mensa tests you read in the paper ... not to mention some of the journalism, but that's another rant.

The argument presented seems to be Miss D is female, person X is male, therefore they must be getting it on. But if fails fundamental tests such as are we ever in the same place at the same time without hordes of other people? Is either of us an improvement on the partners we currently have? Are either of us in the least the other's type? In every case, no.

In terms of the completeness, it's a complete failure, too, because after the most basic axioms such as I am a human and female, every axiom required to build this argument would fail the test of reality.

So, obviously I do want to slap the person who is spreading this (and if I find you, rest assured that I will), but the bigger problem for me is the crushing dramatic irony.

Note that dramatic irony is not the same as irony. If I say that I am so very tall, I am being ironic (and also sarcastic in all likelihood).

Dramatic irony comes about when you spend a sizable portion of the week writing to another friend about how they may be, through no malice or anything other than a slight tendency to emotive responses, exaggerating the evidence behind their feelings of persecution in the SCA and how there is a general tendency to pleasantness and thoughtfulness in the group -- while any alien observing the system as a whole would be waiting for me to hit Saturday night and suddenly realise that though my earlier statements were mostly true for most people, they were no longer able to be believed for each member of the group as a whole. Because clearly some people are on crack.

And this is frustrating as hell, because I want to be able to help this friend who is in a very unhappy place, and I do believe her when she says she has felt persecuted, and I know that she copped a lot of crap from a handful of people in particular. And I also believe the people around her when they say that a lot of the things she has incorporated into that sense of attack were nothing to do with her at all.

But last night, once recovered from the initial sense of WTF??!, I wondered, who the hell would spread that? And another good friend asked "Who have you pissed off that much?" And I realised that without once touching the world of rationality in which I live, this person had still managed to affect me and annoy me and aggravate me into an emotive response.

So I was left with more sympathy for my persecuted friend, which is what I am trying to focus on far more than my urge to hunt and slap some nameless fuckwit.

As to other reactions: J rolled his eyes and smiled exasperatedly.

Mr X replied: "It would never work, you're a night person and I'm a morning person."

Philosophical mutterings

When I was a young girl I had a teacher who urged me to study economics. Despite having a high regard for this teacher, I couldn't, because, as I told him "I can't get past the fact that it's all made up. It's a gang of people persuading each other what things are worth and the world falling into line with their valuations."

I still believe that, which is why I sometimes find myself wondering what the hell I am doing playing SCA.

I should preface the following with the facts that I genuinely enjoy much of the SCA. I find the skills fascinating, I love and like many people that I would never have met outside the game, I find value in the ethos of supporting the weak and demanding justice from the strong, I am grateful for everything I have learned and understood, from handstitching to John Dowland, from Elizabethan politics to English war techniques of the 14th century.

But I keep hitting a philosophical wall.

Are we a society (and I mean a group of people bound by common purpose) or are we a club?

Either we are a society bound by common values based on chivalry and courtly grace and common directions based on historic research, or we're a club of nutters playing who has the best frock or fastest stick.

And I find that, to me, the difference is crucial.

The former gives you all the things I love in the SCA. It gives you Rowan and Mouse sitting down with a newbie and explaining how frocks go together. It gives you Elfinn and Muirghein passing snacks to the broken girl napping behind the table. It gives you Gabrielle and Marguerite miming how different pleats fall and then providing lists of where to use each. It gives you AEdward giving all his fighter auction opponents best of three bouts. It gives you Batholomew and Katherine housing strangers and friends with equal warmth. It gives you Cornelius standing with a hose on his friend's roof against an oncoming fire. It gives you Bethan turning a ragtag crew of singers into a crack team of harmonists. It gives you Sara standing feeding her perfectly dressed baby while behind her Rodrigo sits on a hand-wrought stool stirring pottage in one of Alex's cooking pots. It gives you Tycho who points out fighting tips to young men while chopping carrots with a knife he wrought himself. It gives you Anton and Katherine debating transliterations and translations of Plato in the wee small hours.

These things capture the imagination; they give impetus to working well at one's own crafts, from garb to politics. They give meaning to status; if a Duchess's interest or thanks is given weight by people like this, then being a Duchess has worth in itself. At the same time these people and their acts (and many others, too) provide goals: if I work hard, I wil be like them; if I act in a lesser way, I will disappoint them, so I should not.

In a society without gods or mystic wonders, this secular grace stands as a way of directing purpose and the encouragement of the gracious becomes a sign of favour. It is our most authentically medieval artefact; the support of the ranking and powerful having real import.

On the other hand, the club model leads to all the things I truly hate. This is is the model that rewards the sport and boy scout badge approach, whose proponents claim that it is supporting meritocracy, but who really construct a group that values our least democratic elements.

Here winning is the mark of the great tournament fighter. Noblesse comes with entitlement, not oblige. Rank commands respect, and does not see fit to earn it. Skills and resources are used as a mark of superiority, not seen as a resource to teach and share. Power becomes a way of ensuring personal success, rather than a duty to work for the whole.

I was reminded of all these things sharply over the last two months. At Festival I had a number of discussions with some fairly fabulous new young people. Regular questions included why some peers were good and others obnoxious; I could only prevaricate when it came to named culprits and suggest that there may be other issues in their lives. But as a general rule, it was determined by the SCA model they worked to, with those who saw their peerage as a well-deserved 'win' being generally ghastly, while those who saw it as a duty (while still being able to be happy about it, of course) being generally good.

Then at Crown I met up with two fighters who were there because they disagreed with everything about the current system. One of them still believed in the worth of his consort and was fighting for her. The other was fighting for himself. Both lost, but they reminded me of other SCA kings in other times who had looked to the throne as some kind of personal vindication. And I did not like the thought of that style Crown at the head of a Kingdom I helped build.

Because there is enough of that in the mundane world, where we have substituted a warped idea of merit for things of actual worth.

And the reason for all of this weighing on me? I am not at all sure that my way of thinking is the majority way.

And if it's not, then I should let people have their style of fun and go back to theatre, where I can now add costume to my list of credentials.

Oh the nagging ...

Memo to self: New Blogger mad, hates comments, requires manual turning on thereof. Almost as bad as line of dialogue on TV just now: You were built to seduce and run, Chad, you just can't help it! Secomd memo to self: If real life ever occasions moment when such a line would be apposite, turn on heel and run like the limpy wind!!!!

Yes, yes, I have been very lackadaisical with the blogging of late. This is because I have been working on a new frock, plus trying to tidy the house, plus having an apprentice shuffle, plus having lovely houseguests. Add to that May Crown, loads of work and a great need to catch up on sleep, and the blog had no chance.

So, a quick update before more serious updates later in the week (and yes, they're partially written so they will actually happen). The following are in no particular order.

* The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists/Whaling/Communists had me in stitches for a week. I blame Maeve/Jen (who is now 30! How can she be so old? How can she be so young?) for me wasting several very enjoyable evenings on these three. Mr Gideon Defoe deserves your cash, go out and purchase his tiny tomes of giggledom at your first opportunity. They are very silly, but like all good silliness, it builds cheerfully, so persevere if you find the first dozen pages ridiculous. Each is as the name suggests, and if you think the mix of The Pirate Captain and Charles Darwin is inspired, wait till you see the PC and Karl Marx ...

* Laurel minutes should not be nearly 8000 words long. And that was after I left out the bad jokes. Honestly ...

* Apprentice 1 remains in place, albeit too busy to sew till November. A2 is off to be a Baroness and so is free unless she wants to come back, in which case her A will have been kept toasty warm for her. A3 was offered a squiredom before he was an official A. This was OK, because he had dreamed of being a squire, and it was to a knight good enough that I was prepared to let him go (he wouldn't have been given a general dispensation!), but now I'm not sure if I should take his A number as reserved or not, which matters because I am about to take on an official A4 or A3, depending on how we look at things, who is keen and lovely and has promised to be soft around we aged folk. And since her name doesn't start with A, I have to find her an A nickname ...

* J has torn the ligaments in his right elbow fighting in May Crown. They are not torn all the way through nor off the bone, but badly enough for six weeks out of fighting and no heavy lifting. Hilariously we discovered last night that there was talk he'd thrown the bout. Such talk was clearly from people who noticed neither the immense look of pain on his face at the tournament, nor the immense grumble of frustration after the tournament. And if that rumour started because he and I had a little private chat before the semis, it was him checking with me that I'd keep to our minimalist plans if he won the tournament, which was statistically likely.

I also had to laugh at some of the people offering to teach him some technique so that he would stop injuring himself. Yes he has tweaked this elbow before, but it's all for the one reason in that his muscles are far more developed in one direction than in the other. It is tangentially to do with SCA fighting, in that he has big strong whip the sword back muscles, and lithe, fast move it forward ones, but he just needs to lift some weights when his ligaments are less sore to even his muscles up so that his body stops working against itself. I would mock him, but I have pulled my own shoulder out of its socket reaching for an umbrella in the past, which would make me mockable, except my friend Sue broke her own humerus in two arm wrestling, so she wins in the stupid things with overdeveloped muscles game.

* We did Bridgewalk back in March, it was FANTASTIC. We went at night when the smoking ceremony was on; it's an aboriginal tradition to cleanse a place. It was beautiful, and enormous fun. I'm glad I badgered J into coming, and he was glad, too. Here's a photo of the bridge:


Taken from the middle lane where one would normally be flattened within minutes. I love the sculptural nature of this bridge, and I love the courage of the people who built it; both political courage for funding such a big project in the middle of a Depression and actual courage for doing such a difficult job with such rudimentary safety equipment. There is a cycle path on the western side of the bridge that is one of the world's most fun rides on a nice day; you can see all the way down the river and hear the penguins mipping as they play near Luna Park.

Of course, we were not the only people walking. In this shot you can see the smoke, but also the lights from the thousands of caps with LEDs that were given out to all the walkers. It was a nice touch by the sponsor, and it meant that all around The Rocks afterwards you could spot who had been there at that time. I'm quite looking forward to the centenary, now. Which I suspect may come about before John Howard apologises for the stolen generation, but after he leaves office, fingers crossed! (Probably not as tightly as Peter Costello's ...)


* I was a foul and grumpy haggis for most of Festival, the small reasons for which will be covered off in a subsequent post, but the big reason for which was that my foot was agonisingly painful the whole time. Aside from dust, that site is so evil in its rockiness. It was my fault for wearing period shoes, but seriously; OW!

* Anyway, we went up to see the ponies at Glenworth, site of next year's Festival and took a few photos of the property (NB, we're at the other end, but it all looks like this):

You will immediately note two major differences to Crossroads; it has grass and it is green. It is soft underfoot and when you trip, you do not damage yourself unduly. There is water, in little trickles that are quite safe for young folk of more than toddlerdom.

There are trees, and it's a valley, so there is shade and no gale-force dust-laden wind. I think that we might start camping again ...
More soon, sleep time now.

Oops!

Deense and Baroness H have both pointed out that I somehow turned off comments on that last post I am not censoring, nor am I technologically ept enough to do that by choice. sorry! Eh, these things happen ...

Ahem ... well, that was a longer pause than anticipated ...

Right. OK then. Back.

Well, sort of back. God I’m tired. This is not the Festival post. Nor is it the Canterbury Faire part III post. This is the grumpy post. But I'll update before another five weeks pass, so don't fret.

I seem to have spent most of the last year having things go boom around me because people do not listen to other people. Recently this has seriously upset a bunch of people that I really care about, and even led to me being yelled at (in itself a fair cop) because a third party couldn’t be arsed actually paying attention to what was said in a conversation (not fair!). This has all made me think that we have a problem.

I understand that we live in a time of deep self-involvement. I understand that we are all busy and all Very Important. But I think that the only two ethical options for people in this time of Busy and Important Lives is to either pay serious attention to the words and opinions of everyone around you, or opt out of other people entirely.

What seems to be happening a lot, though, is one of two things: either the conversations are “I am listening to you talking about me and now I’ve stopped listening, I’ve decided that this is the point I plan to be outraged about” or else “I have had this conversation entirely in my head and now I plan to tell you the results without involving you in any way.”

Now, if this just meant that I got a wake-up call to break out the kid gloves with more people than I thought possible, I would not be having this grump, because god knows that it’s a universal truth that I could be nicer. But this sort of crap is seriously hurting people who are already nice.

At Festival I lost count of the number of times that people were being told off for not meeting someone else’s standards. Now I’m all for having standards, but there’s a right way and a wrong way for raising them in others. On the upside, I saw two good examples of the right way.

Baron Hrothgar leaned across to us during Fighter Auction and asked for a bag or a goblet to hide Berengar’s Coke in. He borrowed one of my bags and B drank it from the concealed can (Hey ... I never got that bag back ... hang on ...;-) This was done with gentle ease and Berengar took it with the grace it was offered. Nice.

In a bigger case in point, Duke Cornelius had made several comments on the Lochac List about wanting to raise the standard for merchants at Festival. He and Count Stephen were merchanting and they had constructed a period stall which was accoutred very properly, alas I failed to take photos. They didn’t nag, bitch or moan, they just set an example of what to do. Very nice.

Contrast this with the several people who went out of their way to go up to filk-singing folks and tell them they were Very Wrong to sing filks. OK, if you have a perfectly period campsite and someone wanders into your camp and sings songs about goblins, you would have a right to say: “Shut up you lupin!” And yet Rowan never did in all those years because she has class. But these people were being accosted in private camps surrounded by nylon tents or up in areas away from most of the site. What possesses someone to trek over to someone else and say: “You’re doing it all wrong!” (unless what they are doing is actually something vital such as CPR or hitching a trailer to a car, in which case, fair enough but that’s different!)

And what possesses people to pursue filk singers, the gentlest and most easily wounded of all our non-period elements, yet walk straight past Coke cans, nylon tents, trainers, bad T-tunics, Laurels suggesting braid for said bad T-tunics (oh the humanity!), eyeglasses, sunglasses, discussions on Vista, whiteboards of doom, sixteenth century jewellery with fifteenth century frocks and plastic containers to pack it all back into?

Not that I’m saying all those things point to Satan’s minions. In fact, they all point to the SCA, because we do allow for lowest common denominator. And that’s not a bad thing, because the lowest common denominator in year one is often a costume laurel in year 10 (seriously, I have photos of many of us, it wasn’t pretty.) If you give help, or set a good example, you raise the bar properly.

But what these people were doing was instead walking up, venting, and then feeling better that they’d had their say regardless of how it left the people they said it to feeling.

Here’s a tip, we English like to call it Repressing. I know that the Americans are against the very concept and do whatever they can to root it out, however they also voted for Bush and Cheney twice, so I am invalidating their status as grown-ups until they have a new government and some gun control laws.

Repression is an essential part of being a grown-up, it’s what stops J saying “Why yes, darling, you are a fat bastard these days.” It’s what stops me smothering him in his sleep when he doesn’t do the dishes. And it’s not causing us mental anguish, it’s distinguishing us from our five-year-old selves.

There ARE times for you to have hard words with your friends, that’s not what I’m talking about. Those times are the occasions that make you see the depth of your friends’ characters and their love for you and they are ultimately good things.

But there AREN’T times when it’s a good idea to go up to people to whom you are not close and essentially tell them off for not doing what you want. Because the answer to that will always involve short phrases starting with F and ending with uck you.

It’s not just in the SCA that this is happening, either, but since this is an SCA blog, we’ll stick to SCAdian examples.

The only thing worse that this is the type of conversation where once person doesn’t even involve the other in the conversation, just makes their announcements and that’s it. Two year olds do this. Then they grow out of it by the time they’re five.

I’d far rather people just BE sociopaths, because that way you don’t waste loads of time treating them as normal.

Feel free to gripe about things in game that annoy you. But do it with a skerrick of consideration for the people you plan to gripe to. If you are just going to have a yell so that you feel better at the end of it, then that’s not good enough. We’re not Americans here, we don’t need to “Get it all off our chests”. Suck it up and hold it in, you won’t explode and any therapist that tells you that you will is only after large hourly fees.

Crap, it’s midnight again, no wonder I’m tired. Tomorrow is buy gold fabric for embroidery, clean house, find hemp ‘string’ for Deense’s corset and finish Festival washing day. I may catch up on my blogging ...

More Canterbury Faire

Yeah, yeah, I know I said I'd get around to this weeks ago. But the flu is very tiring and I seem to have spent the last three weeks either running around like a headless chicken or having a quick nap due to exhaustion. Alas, more of the former than the latter. Now Blogger has forced me to upgrade to their new flash version, which I may one day bother learning how to use, and the cat is being high maintenance. I just want another nap ...

But instead, let's reimmerse ourselves in the fir-scented hedgehog-spotted glory that was Canterbury Faire!

While there were more people there than last year, I think there were fewer Aussies, just loads of Kiwis, many of them spankingly new. The young metal weapons people were great fun, and bore up very well to a drunken loony hassling them at the waterhole. katherine and Bartholomew had some cunning plans to avoid repeat problems next year involving an embassy and peppercorns. At the same time there were many familiar faces, which was very good indeed.

Before we get into the long and convoluted anecdotes (yes, yes, I know my flaws), I wanted to share my realisation about the New Zealand SCA groups, especially Southron Gaard. It's this: they don't function like a village, as most SCA groups do. They function like a family.

It's taken me four years to really build my model on this, and I think that I can back it up pretty well. There are long-standing debates between people that go back 20 years. And when you try to get to the root of things, discussions break down and wonderful, rational people stop talking and give the equivalent responses to "She said something bad about our Kev."

Now the first time we went over and saw this, we made the mistake of thinking that it was all related to one issue. And then we learned about another issue, and another, and another ... and eventually I woke up one morning and said something like: "Too many people used to go out with each other!" and J replied "They've all known each other for 20 years!"

And once that we made allowance for X being odd around Y because they went out for two years and Y not liking Z because he subsequently married X (no graphs, because our geometry is not that good), we thought we were on the right track. And then we met more people, and we realised that we had only just begun and that instead of acting like a group of tightly-knit friends and enemies, they instead acted like an extended family with religious and class divides running in several directions, possibly with several adoptees.

Suddenly it all made sense! We stopped trying to unravel things and just accepted that their Sharon never did like our Kev. And there's the good side, too, the huge loyalty and endless patience that come with families. But it was a huge relief in one way, because J and I aren't related to this! We're the foreigners that get to drop in and drop out of the group, so no-one minds that we like pretty much everyone and that we will listen to X gripe about Y, then Y grip about X and still be very fond of both X and Y (admittedly, while we're listening to griping, we're really playing Tetris in our heads ...)

So, with that epiphany, we stopped trying to make all our friends like each other and just enjoyed the fact that they liked us. MUCH easier!

Now, a quick warning before you read on. I began to load all the other images I wanted to blog and realised there were LEGION. So I'll be popping some into the next post in a bid to keep this one within the realms of sanity (on the far, far borders). Also, I have completely forgotten everything I did a month ago. I blame age and flu and lack of sleep.

We flew in very late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. Due to a string of silly events, we were horridly disorganised and left Maeve the best woman in the world with a less organised house than we'd intended. Luckily, she's the best woman in the world, so she coped with élan.

Wednesday was a day of pottering about. First we took the Baskin-Kerrs out to lunch (after the kids kindly let us sleep in till 10, despite Grace wanting to go into her room), then we swanned about with kk and Grace and did fun stuff such as buy J a new hat and meet Anne Fields the spinning/weaving goddess. Very civilised indeed. The next morning was far less organised as everyone bundled into various vehicles to get to Canty Faire.

Bartholomew insisted we take the sportscar and was adamant that we should have the top down until I had to say that my burn time is about 15 seconds in NZ (because I'm pasty, dammit!). J was happy with it up and we sauntered off after helping with trailer hitching and kid wrangling. After much faffing about, we arrived after the van and trailer, to the raised eyebrows of the B&B, we blame shopping.

The first day at Faire was, as first day generally is, a ream of catching up and hanging about. We had excellent plans about catching up with the adults this year, but were in fact beset by chilluns from pretty much start to finish.

Still, Myne, the two sets of B&Bs and Llewellyn and a few others were all available for M&D cake (we both have January birthdays), so that was fun. And the first of the late-night gossip sessions began, despite our other firm plan of early nights.

Friday saw Everybody else arrive. Art and Blayney showed up (Yay!). The King and Queen emerged from their bunker (having arrived v late at night), Finn and Kass appeared with Persi and Ulf and Alys came in late (or possibly that was Saturday, it's all a blur. Whichever, I'm always happy to see them!)

We had a most amazing lunch with Adele and Therese catering for Their Majesties. Gavin and Ginevra were there, too, with us invited to bump up the numbers and also to amuse the royalty if everyone ran out of things to say. So, you know, the comedy guests. But the food was good and the conversation even better. Not thanks to me, of course, I managed only to make everyone laugh at my inability to say anything without accidental smut, but then, that was part of why I was on the invite list, I'm sure ...

BTW, for those who are wondering, Gavin continues to be the Gold Standard of Therese boyfriends. Hurrah!

Opening court allowed everyone to come up to speed with the weekend's events. There was to be a wedding and a fighter auction tournament on Saturday, after an auction that night, with a feast to round Saturday off and a market, which was possibly on Sunday? No idea anymore; brain made of sago. Finr the skald declaimed a long, but very good and apt poem about the Kingdom, surprisingly apposite for baronies he'd never met ...

There were some very well deserved awards given out, including some buttock-prodding AoAs and a Lily to Ginevra, who does genuinely lovely costuming and who is adorable (see below). There was one very unexpected award when the King gave me a Rowan (the Lochac courtesy award). I was more surprised than anyone, and G can stop laughing now (actually, she probably can't), and later asked if I had managed to somehow achieve graciousness without noticing, or if the definition of courtesy had finally enlarged to take in relentless honesty. His Majesty, however, was quite genuinely gracious and gave one of the nicest and most amusing speeches I've ever heard about myself. And alarmingly accurate in some points.

I enjoyed the court apart from the startling bits, and felt that Alfar and Gudrun made a series of excellent choices with both the awards and the inclusions for guardsmen. Good stuff.

After Court I managed to meet some more people, including new ones!

This is Caid's Sir Philipe. (All the best Kingdoms have one.) We met him early on in the event and he was wearing this swishy white houppelande. At the end of the event, he was still wearing it, and it was unstained. I wish to know if he has sprayed it with Scotchgard or made a deal with the devil.

This Sir Philipe was a lovely chap and fun to look at. I quite enjoyed his company, but he made the fatal error of not paying off his ex-girlfriends before he came back (he was from SG originally). So every time I would have an amusing chat with him, someone would follow hot on his heels and say "Pretty, but not so bright." It's a cruel world. I liked him, he was very polite to a doddery old duchess.

He did, however, have an excellent sense of timing and humour, regardless of the true state of his intelligence (which people younger than me can make into a project if they need to know). Young Matilda was harassed by a gentle for making a comment about Sir Phil's undoubted prettiness. "He's not enjoying all this unwanted attention!" they roused at her. The story was relayed to me, along with Matilda's subsequent teary moment.

I was immediately suspicious. I used to be pretty, and I LOVED people looking at me. Sure I loved it more if they subsequently grew to fear me, but it was best when they found me irresistible and terrifying. So I took a moment of the good knight's time that evening when he sauntered past Ulf and me. "Philipe," I said, "a young lady was told that she shouldn't comment on your looks because you find that objectifying and oppressive. But I don't think you'd strike so many mighty poses if that was true."

"God no," he replied in good humour. "I love it. Nothing like having your prettiness appreciated."

Ulf chimed in: "Is it true there were 11 girls waiting for you to finish your shower?"

Philipe tossed his (shiny, bouncy) hair and laughed. "Eleven? No! There were 15!"

Matilda was later reassured, and she thanked us, saying something al0ng the lines of "I was just complimenting him, it's not like I wanted to do anything except look."

Yes. Quite so.

We also caught up with Sir Vitale, also a Master (from the last time we saw him). This is a photo taken straight after the above one. If a picture tells a thousand words, then several of this picture's include "You may want to marry him, ladies, but I'm the one you want to shag you senseless." To which I'm forced to reply: "Not with that facial hair, you're not."

Despite the fact that he attracts the mocking of old women in the same way that chocolate attracts costume laurels, Vitale is good value. He spent a lot of the Faire helping out with everything and rescuing small children from each other and from tedium. He had his nice new girlie there for a bit, but I missed her (I think. Or I've forgotten. Sago ...) Still, nobody does dodgy with as much flair as His Excellency, and when Their Majes made him a Court Barony, it seemed very appropriate.


Myna, as mentioned in an earlier post, took her clothes off. I suspect that's why the boys came and sat with us ...

It was surprisingly hot for the first few days of CF. There was a rainstorm, which cooled things somewhat, but no cold nights. Which was good for those who were camping.

We had a wonderful dinner that night with Marienna and Asbjorn and the girls. We are very fond of all four of them, so were extremely happy to have been invited, although J forgot to tell me it was M's birthday, so he was in the doghouse afterwards (not for long, he forgot, too. We're not real bright but we can lift heavy things.)

Maria, their eldest girl, charmed me completely earlier that day when she introduced me to someone by my mundane name and added "Yes, she's my friend, we've been friends for years, haven't we?" I agreed and Maria graciously said to the other child, "But you can be her friend, too." After dinner the girls had bedtime lunacy, so we told a series of increasingly ridiculous stories that ended with tragic death for the evil princesses who refused to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Then we had a little adult time before J and I had to duck out to Fighter Auction and then were able to come back and chat properly. Which was grand. M&A are very very cool, and the girls went to sleep very sweetly after a bit of mouse-like giggling.

The Fighter Auction itself was in aid of the entertainments at MidWinter. People were bidding furiously, even for J, so I just emptied out my wallet so that I could maintain my stranglehold on his patronage. In truth, it's for the best, since he is the most inconsistent fighter I know in auction tourneys. More often than not he'll bomb out in three.

The actual tournament was held on the Saturday, and was a good afternoon's fighting. I'll post some shots in the next entry, although most of them are rubbish, due to a technical problem with my camera that Blayney calls 'filthy lens'. Thanks for trouble-shooting and fixing that one, Mr B! Each fighter had seven ribbons and would lose one for a limb, two for a head or body shot. So a right bastard (Baron Inigo) could cut of his opponent's four limbs, then head and leave them down to one after a single bout. When you lost all your ribbons, you died.

J did not do badly at all, losing only to Alfar and Philipe (I think), although someone else (or two) wounded him grievously. He came fourth, behind those two and Somerled of Redcliffe, who was without doubt the best-value fighter on the field ($25) and in very fine form all weekend.

The tournament stopped briefly for a wedding (more in the next post), which was very lovely and very good to see! That night there was a feast. OH the feast ... I had to stop eating after the first remove because it would have been gruesome otherwise. So VERY yummy. This time we were sitting with the Wiltons; Ulf, Alys, Llewellyn, Peregrine, Emayne, and a lovely woman to the left of J that I am having a sudden mental blank over ... seriously, how is anyone ever going to be able to tell the difference if I do develop dementia? ... Er, someone else we like a lot.

It was a hoot of a meal with much intentional and unintentional comedy on the part of our table. The kids were mostly trapped outside, so I was not a cushion for once, and the long twilight lent everything a soft glow of pleasantness. Or perhaps that was the wine. Brilliant food, though.

The next day there were wars, so I had a nap, and then the boffer tourney! It was a corker! The Baskin-Kerr kids were the finalists (due to their ruthless training regime) and Pippin knocked Grace out in the semis (due to an unfortunate shield charge, this was nearly literal. With tears in her eyes, Grace was very anxious to let us know she was hurt, not having a sook.) This left the boys. They mounted up on their valiant steeds, Sir Vitale and Sir Philipe. NB the spanking riding harness here modelled by Sir V.

The kids had been enjoying the straight tourney (is it necessary to point out that Ethan was a fiend and wielded his weapon with unholy glee? Young Willy, too, though more restrained, showed a keen eye for tactics and a loose leg.) but this aspect was new and exciting. The actual final did not last long; Dickon rode in against Pippin.

Which you can see in these next two images ... then they exchanged a flurry of blows, Dickon got one good shot in, Pippin fell off and thwacked his knee on Philipe's fan giving himself SUCH a bruise ... Unfortunately my shots of that all make Pippin look like a goose, and he was actually extremely brave about the whole thing. And courteous, he applauded his brother and thanked the 'horses'.

And, theoretically, that was that. But the two knights are very good sports.


So when the crowd of kids watching all came close looking just a little bit as though they'd missed out by not making it through to the finals, both lads got back down on their hands and knees and made neighing sounds. I think they were intending to give the munchikins pony rides.

However ... kids being kids, what actually happened was that it was on for young and old. Every knight who could be dragooned was suddenly on his knees covered in munchikins ...






















Luckily most had been fighting in the Gods and Monsters tournament (er, next paragraph) and were sensible enough to be wearing boxes. Soon every child was locked in mounted melee with every other child, and some of the bigger kids had been roped in to pony duty. Hilarious.

The Gods and Monsters tournament saw most of the Chiv and past barons up against the king, Ulf and the rest, with the former as gods and monsters and the latter as mortals.


Oh the humanity ... I may never recover from the bare-bellied sight of Callum as Buddha. hilarious, yet oh-so wrong. Tycho was Thor (of course), Vitale was Zeus, Sigurd an utterly inspired ghost of fighters past, and Inigo an ill-fated Mercury. They could all only be killed by blows to their weak points. Poor Inigo could only die to the lightest touch, and was thus a bruised piece of baron by the end of the day.

It was enjoyable to watch, but very very silly. Many thanks to Baron Master Sigurd and Vitale who insisted I join the consorts thought J was slacking off and just marshalling. There were treats! And I had a brief chance to hang with Eleanora, who is so calm and adorable.

I also got to see Christia being just an angel, and she knows why, but it was a really lovely act of grace that was beautifully given.

More things then happened, which if I'm very lucky J will tell me about tomorrow in time for the additional images post. I next recall things happening on Monday night, although I know that I enjoyed the market and Art's class some times before then, and also had fun hanging in the kitchen for an hour or two with Del and Stefano. Anyhoo, this is Arabella and Jeffrey's yurt. It's lovely! And extremely orange, which is a good thing. I discovered that the two of them are more deeply perverse than I had imagined (which I should have guessed at after the boobah doll revelations at MidWinter last). We should hang out more often ...


The ball saw mosty people in their best (er, I can't dance ... actually I couldn't be arsed. I did make some of my best jokes!). Here are the lovely newly weds Claire and Master not-Yoshitoshi. Is it Christopher now? I think so. Whoever, they were very happy and it is always good to see people who are meant to be married being so. I love the fact that while she is beaming at the camera, his attention has already diverted back to his bride in this shot. Awww ...



Adele had a spanking new gown and balzo and generally looked quite gorgeous. She has the most amazing colour sense and wears things that I would never dream of matching with her colouring, only to look divine and oh-so-period. Plus she can smuggle a few books in those sleeves for periods when the event gets a bit boring ...















The above shot is Matilda with her lovely new boy whose name starts with a vowel, probably E? He's great, and quite the handsome young fellow, which she very much deserves. to the left we can see a bit of Sancha and to the right a masked Ulf and possibly Sir Sebastien. Ulf and Alys were wearing VERY old garb, which was a hoot, and surprisingly pretty on Alys (who I am used to seeing wearing beautifuly made simple stuff, not shiny shiny blue, but on her it worked. maybe we need to hunt down cornflower wool next?)

Here we have my favourite bunny killers. The highlight of CF was the bunny slaughter, butchering and tanning by these two cuties. It was all done very swiftly and without pain to the bunnies, though a few of the onlookers were dazed. I stayed away because bunnies are below my happy to kill mammal size limit, but little Madeleine found the first half instuctive and intriguing. When you see these lovely young folk wearing wonderful fur garments, ask what the names were ...

In all seriousness, Peregrine and Emayne are very inspirational and adorable. If I could steal them back to Rowany, I would. As it happens, Llewellyn apprenticed them both at CF and they are now official parts of the Wilton hive mind of much researchy goodness. Plus oh-so-cute!



And while we're talking about cute, here's the worst photo I've ever taken of three of the prettiest girls in the barony. Sybilla on the left has wonderful skin and a voice like honey, Ginevra in the middle has the cutest face and lovely large chocolate eyes, and Matilda on the right has one of those classic china doll faces. Alas, I shot from below and made them all look ghastly. But in real life they were all like a chorus of cuteness at this moment. Actually, they're like that a lot.


On the topic of good looking, Myna made the most attractive Death I've seen in a while, combining Phantom, Peter S Beagle, Ingmar Bergman and a complete Bob. And yes, many giggles at the Latin. The ball was not a high point for me given the limpiness (TWO gammy legs is enough to get me out of dancing), but then they had a brief court, which we attended, and there WAS a high point when Iarnulfr was made a Court Baron. Riotous cheering all round. I thought it was a very good move and, in a lovely touch, Alfar bestowed a coronet made of fencing wire. So very apt for the man who can build Europe from dirt. For the rest of the event, Iarnulfr had an expression that was half "Wow." and half "If you say Your Excellency, I will poke you."

There are more tales of Iarnulfr, but they are for the next post which will need a bit of colour, so flames should do nicely.

By Tuesday we were all a bit tired. Here's Alfar, Gudrun and Art looking a bit tired, but very clean! I'm afraid that I did not do the best job of entertaining Gudrun. She kept disappearing, so I thought she'd found something fun to do! Maria, however, decided that she was her new favourite queen because they have the same hair colour. Eh, if I'm going to be dropped, it may as well be for Gudrun, she's pretty cool (and she was great with all the kids, which is quite the challenge when they assault en masse). You can see the latest SG map in the background, quite the work of art in itself, if only I'd thought to take shots ...


Final court rocked through quickly. I took photos but can't actually recall what was happening because I was being used as a trampoline by a four year old. But this is a nice shot of sundry B&Bs and Lea. Callum did a great job heralding the final court, standing in for the new herald whose name I am also blanking on, but who is now seeing Isobel and who is a bit of all right, in all senses of the term. Fine speaking voice, too. Again, more awards were handed out. Er ... they were good ...



Grace won the coif of chivalry for the page school. She gets very embarrassed when she wins things or is rewarded publicly. I think she may be a changeling, since it doesn't run in her brothers' gene pool at all.

Shortly after this she ran off barefoot followed by a horde of younger children, so I guess she really is a proper baskin-kerr wihtout any shadow of doubt.



And then it was time for pack-up, with some children being packed more than their luggage. Here Baxton sweeps Willy off away from his adoring fans (mostly Nicky). Note Willy's tiny little braies that he ran around in merrily all weekend (I suspect several pairs).

On the subject of Baxton, he had a kicking time at the biff and made his lady very proud of him. She is such a wonderful consort the way that she watches so intently and with so much support.

In the background of this shot are all the bags of bedding that the Baskin-Kerr family sorted for visitors. About 20. They are simply amazing. And their washing machine should get a gold star for effort above and beyond the call. the next day their many bannisters were draped with drying, and I suspect the day after, too ...


We traisped down to say goodbye to Amberherthe, and found the yurt naked, so took shots. Then we made Domus Canum eat what was left of the chocolate cake (Belle having evaded previous supper invites due to hanging out down the bottom commitments) and played Luggers, which we are both very good at. With many hands, it was all eventually light work, and Sir Philipe kept taking his shirt off to make it all seem less stressful. Thanks, Philipe!




The next day was a very good drive and lunch over the peninsula with Christia and Tycho, bad jokes abungo. Christia sent me home with her copy of In Service to the Crown, which I love beyond words and am thinking of doing a Broadway-style tribute to. She did NOT make me watch the Aveloc porn video, for which I am eternally grateful. We found this sign, which made me laugh an inordinate amount. As we have since established I was coming down with Angus's flu, I blame hysteria. And FINALLY we ate at Cooking With Gas. Lamb was great, hot chocolate not so much. But the desserts looked brilliant!

My last note for this post: if you are an old woman, and need to be at the airport at 5am, go to bed at 9, do not stay up all night. SO very un-pretty by the time we got home ... but so very glad we'd gone.

HELP!

I know that this is meant to be Canty Faire part 2, soon, I promise. In the meantime, I got carried away in my peerly niceness now that I have a courtesy award (yes, the end days are nigh) and volunteered myself to write an introductory piece for the St Ursulans' mag. On sitting down to write it, the following came out. On the one hand, it made ME laugh, but on the other hand I am not sure if it's the least bit useful or else too full of in-jokes and not speaking to a crowd of 17 and 18 year olds.

After meeting many dear cyber-stalkers recently (hi chaps!) I need to pick your brains and ask for feedback. And don't think that I'm looking for "Oh so witty, Duchess dear .." don't need praise, need to know what I've missed and what's too obscure. OK, maybe a teeny compliment on my spelling ...

Many, many, many thanks, I wish the snot would leave my brain so I could think again ...


SCA FAQ for St Ursulans

1. What is the SCA?
The SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism. It is a recreational group focussed on recreating aspects of life before 1600.

For the most part, members research and construct clothing, weaponry and other items from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, with Europe being the centre of our attentions. For most of the Middle Ages, the Middle East and North Africa were such important trade partners with Europe (and everyone invaded everyone else so frequently) that there is no border drawn between modern Europe and these territories. Some members also dabble in Roman reconstruction, whereas others prefer Eastern (Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian).

We have a broad range of activities ranging from fighting with practice swords, through costuming, brewing, cooking, dancing, singing and music to textile, equestrian and academic research. Our official events are conducted in period clothing (called garb) and are a cross between a giant dress-up party and a huge game of Pretend.

The SCA was started by a group of medieval history students in Berkeley in 1966 and now has over 30,000 paying members world-wide, with an estimated 60,000 more participants. While the College of St Ursula is for Sydney Uni students, SCA members come from all walks of life and across all age groups, with a lot of family participants.

2. Hang on, I thought you were a Sydney University club?
Well, we are. The College of St Ursula is a registered SU club that is affiliated to the Australian and International SCA. Our fees are much cheaper and our first responsibilities are to the university, but aside from that we interact pretty freely with the local SCA branches, especially the Barony of Rowany (Sydney region).

3. Sounds a bit hippy, doesn’t it?
Yeah, you’ve busted us. The founding crew were all a bunch of unreconstructed hippies who went on to do things like write best-selling fantasy novels and found IT companies. To this day there are an awful lot of caring Californianisms in the governing documents of the organisation.

But we’ve managed to survive over 40 years, so it’s hippy mixed with practicality. We try not to talk about modern politics, and there is a Society-wide injunction against official religious positions (you can believe whatever you like, we just don’t care). Best of all, tie-dye, patchouli and overt hugging by strangers are all frowned upon.

4. So what do you actually do?
Medieval stuff. We dress up in period garb for official events and spend our time there doing everything from singing and feasting on medieval food to hitting each other in the (armoured) head with sticks. It’s totally up to you.

At our (ungarbed) meetings, we sit around and plan cunning new things and projects and share research and tell tales of what we’ve been up to. Basically it’s a social-club meets craft-group meets martial art meets Lord of the Rings. And yeah, it will come as no surprise to learn that those Berkeley hippies were all Tolkien freaks, too. But you’re welcome to embrace whichever bits take your fancy and ignore the rest, just no elf ears or orc masks.

There are several camping events each year where people stay on site wearing garb the whole time. The biggest of these is Rowany Festival, which is held over the Easter holiday. Around 1000 people usually attend.

5. So would I be a serf?
No. The basic assumption is that everyone is of noble birth, and so the Society prides itself on treating everyone with courtesy. You’re free to dress up as a serf if you like, but you will be treated as a noble who is slumming it.

The nobility concept extends throughout the game. Local groups are usually headed up by Barons and Baronesses, and there are Kings and Queens for each Kingdom. In addition, there are many people who have contributed a great deal to the game over the years that we call peers, although it’s more common that members will hold a simple Award of Arms, known as armigers.

6. Royalty, peers, armigers – WTF?
Remember, Californian hippies. We didn’t make this shit up, we inherited it (long story, ask someone old over a glass of mead sometime). They wanted to have a system of titles and hierarchies that were appropriately medieval. Being American and it being the 60s, they skimped somewhat on their research and got a lot of things backwards in those early days. Despite the fact that most people in the SCA (including the original set) do things to a much higher standard these days, we keep the early kookiness since most of those guys are still alive and just a little bit scary when it comes to traditions.

On the whole, having the royalty and nobility structure adds to the fun of the game. Royalty can hand out awards to people who have added greatly to the Society, and the courts are often very good theatre. Plus it’s an easy way to identify people who have been around for a while and who know what they’re on about.

7. Does this all cost a lot?
Not necessarily. You can, of course, spend a small fortune, but there’s an emphasis on learning to make your own and being self-sufficient. Skills are freely taught and shared, with loaner gear available for newbies.

Hell, now we sound Amish ...

8. Does it take up a lot of time?
Like any hobby, you can spend as much or as little time on it as you feel you want to. We usually encourage students to keep their involvement reasonably low-key – uni costs too much to not pass everything first go – but the SCA provides an easy place to kick back and relax when it’s all getting a bit stressful.

9. What’s with the kooky names?
Er, yes. One of the things that we like to do is invent medieval personae who have real-sounding names, and then we use those names at events. Seriously, how many times do we have to mention the hippies? They were all a bunch of mad-keen role-players, too, but they were and are very sweet.

On the positive side, this is a really good way to launch into some serious medieval study as you look for a name and description that suits you and is authentic. Plus it makes it very easy to remember that you’re at an event and not accidentally launch into a discussion on the recent current affairs.

10. Are you sure you’re not just a bunch of rejects from Nerds FC?
Absolutely. In fact one of the recent presidents of the club is IN the current season. In all seriousness, we do have more than our fair share of trainspotters and geeks, but that’s because we provide a warm, interesting and supportive environment for everyone.

We also have actors, writers, lawyers, architects, accountants, illustrators and teachers abungo. Some of our members wonder what the hell they’re doing here (the writer has never ONCE played D&D, yet has a comprehensive library of medieval textiles), but we all find areas that capture our interest and expand our knowledge of the world and our own abilities.

11. Do I have to be a wench?
No. Women have access to all parts of SCA participation and all levels of power. So if you want to be an axe-wielding maniac who runs the treasury of the group, go wild. And if you want to wear a cleavage-enhancing frock, feel free, but be aware that you will drop crumbs down there until you get the hang of things.

The SCA has policies on equality across all groups, so really, you’re the only person who can limit your participation. That said, there are a lot more men than women who fight at the moment, but things are slowly changing there.

12. Will I meet girls/boys?
That we can promise you. Of all descriptions and persuasions if you head to one of the bigger events such as Rowany Festival. Whether you like any of them is another question entirely, but you will make friends. The biggest upside of this is that, as an international group, there is often a free sofa available when you travel overseas, just use the SCA connect-a-traveller network before you set off.

13. Is it all just a cover for ‘adult activities’?
Every now and then you will meet someone who tries to convince you the SCA is all about getting your kit off. Take a close look at these people and ask yourself: does it seem likely that they regularly get any?

While we’re perfectly happy for you to get your kit off with whomever you may choose, that’s your business. We’re a family-oriented club, there are kids about, and horses!

14. Do I really have to talk like a Shakespearean actor?
No. But we do ask that you not discuss modern (we call them mundane) topics at events. Most people spoke a fairly standard English in the Middle Ages, and it’s the same in the SCA. If you speak perfect Middle or Elizabethan English, feel free to show it off, but be prepared for some blank glances. Oh, and the people who speak with accents in the group? They’re actually foreign imports, we’ve got quite a few.

15. Are you all a little mad?
Yes, but if you can’t be mad at Uni, when can you be? As for the older members, it’s less mad than spending every Sunday at golf.

Canty Faire 1

I have the cold of doom, and I think that I would provide an interesting subject for a study on whether or not snot slows synapses (I vote yes.) So, to tide folks over until I can construct complex sentences again, some photos!

This was Harry the Hedgehog. The kids found him on the first night at Faire and took him around to show the Aussies what hedgehogs were like up close and personal. Usually they curl up into a ball and act all horrified when caught, not Harry. Clearly he has been living at the camp for long enough to learn that humans=food, so he was friendly, energetic and appealling. Pippin managed to spike himself several times trying to keep Harry on the cushion until they found a bin to carry him about in instead. No hedgehogs were harmed in the making of this photo, and Harry was returned to his place of capture with some salad.

There were a lot of students taken at the Faire, which always makes me recall Sir Brand loudly proclaiming that he likes to take his students in public. Here Sir Tycho is squiring John (sorry! got that wrong originally!) of Southron Gaard, a very promising 17 year old who is also a very sweet young man. Sundry members of Amberherthe (seriously, how do you spell that?) look on. NB Elizabetta's cute black frock on the far left. Also, behind Tycho, yet another Lochac Laurel falls prey to the Viking virus. I think that probably makes it endemic ...


This is Sir Tycho's other half, the indominatable Mistress Christian. She is saying "Evil Laurel" and would like those who have not met her to accept this as their take-home message.

If you're from around Rowany and you're thinking "looks a bit Celi-like to me", you're doing quite well, aside from the fact that M and G would crash-tackle any of their own who publicly appeared in anything that early. But she does have the best ever six-foot-something accessory to pull the whole look together.


This is Peregrine and Emayne. They are so appallingly cute that I had to keep taking photos of them. They are also known locally as the Bunny Butchers, for reasons that I will get to in the next post but are pretty much obvious.

I remember Peregrine at my first CF when he was a shy little metal weapons lad who had dipped his toe into the SCA waters just as something to do in his downtime. He's now Seneschal of Southron Gaard and I suspect him of future Kingliness so long as young Emayne thinks it would be fun. They rock. They were also recognised as students at the fair, apprentii to Master Llewellyn.

This is Angel's bee. She was sitting down on the hay near the Mong (Mangy Mongol's emporium of fine comestibles) when a bee crawled onto her shoulder. She tried to ease it off, but it wanted to stay, and since she's not allergic, she let it.

The bee came for a stroll around the camp and even popped into the A&S display (seen here, note Mine and her feathers in the background). After a while she popped back down to the Mong and sat about for while. The bee, happy with its journey, buzzed off back to where it came from.


This young man is Ethan, Svente and Merewynn's son. He was without doubt the fiercest kid at Faire, cheerfully slaying everyone he could. I am not sure if he is going to grow up to be a knight, a barrister or an opera singer (oh the lungs!), but whatever he wants to do, he will do it to the limits.

I'm not sure if you can see thanks to the bad shot (er, thank you Blayney for cleaning my lens and vastly improving later shots), but he has the coollest knitted arming cap on. He killed Alfar mightily, too.

"If I concentrate very hard, I might remember where I put my frock ..." Yes, Mine is in her undies, because Sybilla did the standard trick of asking her how an outfit went together, to which Mine's response is usually to show exactly how in detail. NB this will probably not work so well if you are a boy. In that case you should try the traditional wooing, dinner, chocolates and flowers. She's a vegetarian. Not that those comments are directed at anyone at all, oh no. (And if you ever sing Hello Yolly, I will recall my gelding skills.)


A knight! In a minidress! Yes they do things differently in the Crescent Isles. Nevertheless, you can tell that this is Sir Inigo by three obvious signs.

One: impeccable grooming. Note the regularity of pleats on that tunica.

Two: astonishing dapperness. Even in a red mini he conveys Paris Louvre more than Paris Hilton.

Three: bloody great big bruise on the back of his leg. He was cursed by the gods tournament to be beaten up hill and down dale for an afternoon, and spent much of Faire in interesting states of blueness.

He did seem awfully cheery about this outfit, I suspect it was the chance to not be at all subtle about showing off his well-formed thighs.

Inigo was not the only knight who posed for shots. Here is Sir Tycho being a good knight and making dinner for his camp. He also made all the fire irons you can see around him and many of the knives in the campsite. And that's why Alfar and Gudrun asked him to be a Laurel and he'll be joining the truly attractive order at MidWinter (yet more Norse laurels, I'm afraid, G.)

Note Lord Richard supervising on the left. Very important job, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sir Vitale wants to be the bad knight. You can tell this from his cheery leer and his porn-star facial hair. Yes, ladies, those are his actual pants and he is posing outside what can only be described as a seraglio (did it have etchings printed on the roof canvas? Alas, I was too afraid to look.)

Sadly, he has too much of a nice side to qualify for evil and thus he remains merely dodgy.

But well dodgy. Those mustaches would not look out of place on Ron Jeremy, and let us not investigate the reasons given for cutting his crotch so low (I was told sock storage, which seems cruel but practical.)

I hear you asking: "Are his feet really that big?" Sorry, ladies, that's just foreshortening. Although I hear that's an excuse that men use a lot ...

This is a classic Grace photo. She loves having her photo taken as much as I do. She does love being carried around more than practically anyone, though, and again J was the most frequent means of Grace transportation.

Poor Grace was doing her utmost to be as good and helpful as possible for all of Faire and yet kept getting into trouble. Even when, on one occasion, she had been genuinely nowhere near the events that she was blamed for (she was somewhat at fault for at least two other incidents, so sucked that blame up girlfully.) It's the curse of being the younger sister, the other kids only listen to her big brothers but the adults all see her as being an authority figure with their kids. I think I've spotted one of the reasons she wanted to hang around with us more ...

M, L and N were all cheerfully nutty by the last day of fair. As you can tell, L is the serious one. The Crescent Islanders do good kid, and these three were all smart, charming and discerning. If their parents trust you, then you're OK, if you don't have the seal of approval, you're avoided. And if you're on the OK list, you're climbed over whenever the mood strikes. Young Dickon and I put L and N to bed on the last night and had to deal with loads of little girl shenanigans as they did their best to stay awake. Dickon bravely bore up to all, and, when we finally shut the door behind us (having been suckered into leaving the light on, my fault, not his), he exhaled a sigh of "Good grief! They are such high maintenance!" For his trials, Dickon was allowed to join us in the adult ice creams the next day, and I suspect he will stay in that category.

The day after Faire we went for a drive with Christia and Tycho, and I had the one and only experience of car sickness in my life. At the time I thought it was having milk for breakfast and then the smell of chemical cleaners in the car (I am a delicate petal nose-wise), but since then I have realised it was having my inner ears filling up with snot. Fingers crossed I infected no-onw, many apologies if I did. It was a very good day, up the hills and over the peninsula. The countryside ALL looked like this. Which made things very kooky as I kept forgetting which hemisphere we were in. Especially when Christia and I sat in a ditch surrounded by mullein, yarrow, red clover, dandelions and valerian with hay and ash and oak trees in front of us. I do love NZ a great deal, but it continues to play kooky games with my mind. More and saner bits later. Back to bed for now with more Disprin and a book. Oh my exciting life ...

And in other news ...

I like to see what's in the papers on my birthday as a bit of a scene setter for the coming year. This year was a combination of the very good with Richard Hammond happily back on Top Gear, which you can see here, and the very daft, with Americans believing that a shield to block out the sun is a better way of dealing with Global Warming than, oh, I don't know, a functional EPA or not driving a fucking truck everywhere.

So, basically the War on Drugs is lost, and they are now offically ALL on crack. It's the only plausible explanation.

Older!

And occasionally I feel wiser, but then I do something utterly daft. Oh well, at least it usually involves physical comedy and everyone gets a good laugh.

In news, this was a lovely birthday and that was a lovely party! Except I cocked up on one important item, which was not checking my inbox on the other email account I own, wherein were sitting two bounces for invites that had gone out and come straight back out. J has configured everything tricksily, and apparently my home account goes through my GMail account, which would have been good to realise last week.

So I am so sorry to Wenchi and Mr K, who were definitely both invited, if only it had reached you! And of course there were several other people who I meant to invite but just never got my act together. But that's just general D crapness.

As to the people I did invite, it was wonderful to see everyone! And there was charm and good humour and delightfulness all round. Thanks so much to Art, Blayney, Bleddynn and Deense for the last-minute organisation help. Although Deense should have sat down and relaxed!! I feel that the onions brought your headache back and that is not a happy thought.

Eadie led the rush to the children's play corner, then some actual toddlers arrived and the taller kids had to vacate. After spending time choosing pillows with different textures and putting out toys, it was the old favourite game of Rocks in Pots that kept the midget set happy (give toddler pot, set loose on pebble pathway, watch as pebbles are redistributed, return later. It's a winner!) Is and AJ were alternately adorable and grumping for England, but every time the tears started, there were more rocks!

M&M's barbecue was a godsend and chugged along merrily through many, many bits of food. We were going to have some sausages tonight, but we accidentally had cake first and that was the end of us.

It was very good to see people I don't get to catch up with often, including Peter, Taryn and Sarah. I know that Sarah was having a fairly crappy day for other reasons and it was really good to see her being able to relax for a few hours (and resist J's evil pavlova blandishments!)

J was completely right about the amount of pavlova required to feed our peer group. I was very over-compensating with the food. Keria supplied all the pre-prepped catering and it was delicious! And packaged in very thoughtful little ways. The kiddie dips were very fun. Oliver decided that he was not for blue kiddy tzatziki, but not before sliming his whole face with it. Sorry, DV! Our neighbour Jim and Meags and her J have now had the beer fairy visit after we realised that an undrunk slab of Coopers would take up the whole fridge.

As to pressies, made out like the proverbial bandit! Thanks, chaps! The best thing was that every gift was very thoughtful and just right. It's not that I have issues about parental forgettings of birthdays ... oh, hang on, yes I do. J was a winner, too, with a perfect pair of earrings and a light and magnifying glass combination for sewing.

And a very big thank you to everyone who commented on the cleanliness of the living room and garden. While my knees may never forgive me, at least we're now set up for more entertaining. Although the cat thinks we've done it all for her and was very cross when the cushions came back inside.

Thanks, too, to Drakey, Myna, Blod, Margie and Aphie for their notes. I feel very loved and happily birthdayed. Now I have to go off and sew lots while planning more great novel and serving all my meals in the new Countess bits (so we drink soup for a while, it's good!) Must sew, or J will be naked at Canty Faire and that would be very, very bad.

The Seven-Point Plan for Conflict Calming

I have been very quiet. Because it's summer and hot weather makes my brain dribble out my ears. Due to heat-induced stupidity, I have been saving all my smarts for work. [Including the ones that stop me making glaring typos by blogging in the wee hours. Fixed now. Just the unglaring ones left.]

But a startling number of people have been emailing me for advice. Which is very funny, because I have over the years written several fake advice columns where I had to make up the questions. No less than eight people have asked me for conflict advice in the last month, and I didn't have to make up a single one of them.

Why? You may well ask. Because Miss D and Nelson Mandela aren't names that are immediately paired in most minds, even after all those years of ANC dues and that tricky diplomatic incident.

On the one hand, I am getting increasingly old and have not yet killed any of my contemporaries despite an appalling temper and violent streak. And on the other hand, I have had to learn how to deal with my appalling temper and violent streak well enough to pass for someone remotely gracious.

So, given that the basic material was so dodgy, I have in fact thought about how to resolve conflicts without tears an awful lot. In fact, I have a strategy, which I have been cheerfully sharing with people on an ad hoc basis. Tonight, I actually wrote it down. Here, in seven simple steps, is my strategy for dealing with practically every conflict.

1. How much of this situation is my fault?

It goes without saying that we find it really easy to see what other people have done to screw things up. What it took me years to learn was that I have always contributed in some way, too. Sometimes it was active, such as calling someone a twat. Sometimes it was passive, such as not talking to someone when I sensed they had a problem with me. Sometimes it was in good faith, such as treating an utter idiot like a normal person, sometimes it was in bad faith, such as not helping someone because it was all too hard.

No matter how small or large, you will always find that there is some part of the blame that rests with you. It is important to start here, because this will give you insights into why the other person or people involved act the way they do.

2. People are NOT psychic

You do not have a lot of the information about what's going on in the head of your opposition. Neither do they know about yours. Unless you have sat down and spoken calmly, honestly and at length on the issue, it's highly likely that both sides are ascribing to the other values and beliefs they simply do not hold. You may well have the right idea about what's motivating the other side, but you may also have the wrong idea. Talking is the only way to find out.

3. People are NOT bad American movies

As a writer, I find most American film pretty hard to watch as I can usually tell what will happen after about 10 minutes. Some people say there are only seven plots, and Hollywood seems to believe this. It is very easy to start ascribing motivations to people and then reacting to them based on what you believe their motivation to be. Once again, while you may well be right a lot of the time, sometimes you will be horribly wrong and it will make the situation infinitely worse.

There are two options here, you can either ask people what is motivating them, which you should do for people you care about, or you can address the specific issue and intentionally ignore whatever is behind it, which is faster for dealing with people you don't care about, but with whom you have an operational relationship.

4. Write out the argument

Take some paper and sit down and write out all of your points on the debate, then write out all of your opponent's points. NOT THE ONES YOU THINK THEY HAVE MADE, just the ones they have actually made and that you know came from them, not from hangers-on. Now sit down and see if you can make a valid case out of your opponent's argument. What parts of their beliefs are true and what parts are not? Are there areas where you agree on deeper issues?

For example, I believe the death penalty is indefensible. But I would agree with a pro-death penalty activist that serious crimes deserve serious punishments and that victims are going to feel a desire for revenge. This doesn't change my core beliefs, but it does change how I argue the case.


5. What can I give up to make this better?

In almost every conflict, there is some actual thing being debated. Power, money, time, possessions, oil ... the list is a long one. If you can clearly see the thing that is at the centre of the debate, then ask yourself if you can give up some of it to make the situation better.

So, can you share power? Split an inheritance? Play with a different group for a while? Concede one argument to win a bigger point? If there are concessions that you can make that will bring the conflict to a satisfactory resolution without you feeling that you have given up too much for your integrity, then make them.

6. Don't try to 'win'

When both sides in a debate are going for a win, it means that each is trying to make the other lose and that each will hold on like crazy to their positions, even when they start to suspect they're just a teeny bit bonkers.

I like to come to a debate in a bid to convince others that my position is strongest, but also willing to take input and modify that position when convinced by the other debators.

On the one hand, this actually does work and I often end up with something that is very close to my original position because other people feel happy that they have had wins on small issues that I was prepared to sacrifice. (Er, yes. That is Machiavellian. But like most Renaissance thinkers, he was onto something.)

Even if I can't come to a satisfactory conclusion, calmly sitting through the debate and saying "Whoa, you're personalising this issue here, can we just relax a little and come back to my central problem. You clearly have a different view of what should be happening, stop shouting and just tell me what that is." will make you look sane and rational and either convince the opposition that you are there in good faith, or else really, really piss them off. At which point you should stand up and say "I'm not prepared to stay here so that you can shout a lot. Give me a call when you calm down."

7. You can't work with crazy people

This one takes years to work out. But when you have rationally, calmly put your views, made concessions, tried to see things their way and tried to rid yourself of all the baggage you brought to the issue while communicating freely and openly ... and it's STILL all bonkers, sometimes you have to realise that the person opposing you is just mad.

This is an end-point position. Don't start with this assumption, no matter how tempting, but when it's the only logical answer, then it's probably true. Mad or on drugs. You cannot deal with this person, step away, close it down, stop contact.


In addition to the seven general points, there are two specific memos. Firstly, you are not responsible for the stupidity of others, and trying to be is a recipe for pain. Secondly, if you think someone is stupid or lacks integrity, don't vote for them.

And I freely admit that I learned number six from The West Wing. And number four from Miss William's debate classes.


In other news, birthday approaching, garden labourer coming tomorrow for clean-up and planting (yay!). Catering under control (bigger yay!) Forgot to invite about a dozen people that I really like and it's just embarrassing to do it now (boo!), so I'll have them over for dinner at some point instead (yay!).

And James, if you're still wondering about last-minute presents, try:

• Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask (movie, or any of the books)
• About 100 lace bobbins in the Bruges or Danish style
• A floor stand magnifying glass for embroidery
• The Complete New Yorker
• A year in the life of Shakespeare (it's a book)
  
• The Lord of the Rings complete soundtrack
• Fridge magnet poetry
• Pilates classes

Really, I should have just abandoned the party and spent all the cash buying myself things I now realise I'd quite like to have ...

Four Good Things and One Not So

Sorry for the appalling lack of postage lately. The holiday time of year is actually a very busy one for both J and I. He's at work at the moment and I'm trying to finish cleaning the house, creating a puppet show, weeding the garden and making Marie's hat all at the same time. So, naturally, I'm blogging.

Argh.

Anyway, I thought I would end the year talking about some of the good things that I have been up to lately, and then one thing that I think we could all do better.

The first good thing was the Hobby Horse Crusade which we attended a few weekends ago in Polit. Karl Faustus ran the event – he has an LJ, but I'm not sure how public it is, so I won't link him here. His household has a very clever concept whereby they match experienced event runners with not-so experienced ones and so pass on skills and ensure that the event will be fine no matter what.

At this event, KF's Beloved, Dame Joan Sutton and Countess Mathilde Adycote worked their kitchen magic, while BJ, better known as the youthful Lord Robert Stoner, ran the heavy tournament, the lovely Gabrielle of the Marshes ran the fencing and a young man named Erik ran the boffer. In addition, there was a quintain, hobby horse racing and general boffering to use up all the energy in the young people.

While he gave full credit to Count Stephen for his organisational help, Robert did a brilliant job with both the heavy biff and in encouraging cross-discipline support. The heavy tourney was won by Duke Cornelius in a nail-biting finish against Count Veniamen; they were enormous fun to watch and very similar in a lot of their Cunning Moves. Also very amusing, which was needed on such a hot and tiring day.

Cornelius accredited Veniamen with the victory, who denied it and claimed it was all Corney. Given that His Grace was hung-over and His Excellency was perspiring like a melting thing, I think they can both claim to be manly men of much mightiness and leave it at that. Well fought, at any rate.

J did not fight as he had begun the day with a pounding headache and then we spent the first hour of our journey travelling about eight miles in awful Sydney traffic; so his decision to leave his armour at home was the best one since taking it would have brought on heatstroke or a fully blown migraine (and I can't drive to get us home from these things.) A shame, though, as he would have enjoyed himself greatly.

The rapier tournament was, I think, won by Owen against Gabrielle, but I could be hideously wrong. Around the time of the finals I was chatting to the very courtly and charming Owen who had just called me Your Grace when a fly flew down my throat, leading to a solid two minutes of coughing, hacking and spitting. While the fly was ejected in all the fuss, I feel that it did my gracious image no good and once again thank the stars that there is Duchess Morwynna for people to look to in terms of dignity.

The boffer was the key part of the the day and it was won by a new young girl named Lauren who belongs to the same homeschooling network as Karl Faustus's elder daughter, Bethany. Now I have a terrible confession to make. I can never remember Bethany's mum's name. Because I am an idiot. Admittedly an idiot who was hit in the head with two tonnes of taxi, but I have a bad feeling I was this useless before that, too. Karl always refers to her as Beloved, which doesn't help. So my exchanges with her go like this: "It's really good to see you! Your daughters are really cool! Gotta go! (Before it becomes obvious I have no idea what your name is and you think I'm rude and/or stupid. Now you just think I'm rude.)"

Anyway, back to the boffer. Lauren is one of those cool young women who are strong and smart, which allowed her to quickly pick up that the way to win in the boffer was to evade your opponent's reach, then lunge in for the tap when they were planning something else. Several of the boys were so focussed on thwacking her in the rounds that they failed to spot her strategy and she was able to kill them all. She's wearing the olive green frock in these photos. Her young friend, Caitlin (wearing the light blue), was also a quick study at the technique and she won the chivalry prize as she was extremely gracious in her boffering. At the end of the day she gave her prize, a pretty unicorn hobbyhorse, away to Catherine, Joan and Crispin's oldest girl. This was very much appreciated by Catherine, who spent the entire evening and the next morning riding and grooming her steed (prizes courtesy of Their Excellencies Stephen and Mathilde). Caitlin dimissed her generosity saying that she was a bit old and would only have enjoyed the hobby horse a little bit as opposed to Catherine's a lot. All the adults immediately thought she was adorable.

I think that Bethany may have come second in the tournament – my brain had utterly melted in the heat, but since her little sister ended up playing on a hobby horse a great deal, I suspect that this was the case and that her prize, too, was given to a smaller small. She did, however, make it very clear that she will be Lochac Earl Marshall one day, and quite possibly a knight, too. I have never seen anyone who is such a stickler for technique and rules when it comes to boffer; not in the bossy way, but in the instructive and teaching way. It was fabbo! She was very keen that all the kids have fun and no-one get hurt. More generosity in the young!

The Court at which all the prizes were handed out was just lovely. I've mentioned before that there was no bad choice for the new B&B in Polit, but Allesandro and Isobel are doing a wonderful job and have a really good presence, plus good schtick; not too formal, not too jokey, but just right. They also fought on the day, alas, they were smoten.

Robert and nice young red-gold-haired boy whose name I think might be James or John (argh! no brain!) did some technical instruction with me in the boffer at the end of the day. We showed the midgets the need to bring the boffer in close to power a disarming blow, then just use a gentle rebound to actually hit the opponent, and we reminded them that when it came to knights at festival, they were to rebound with a thwack. Robert revealed the mounted position for boffer cavalry and we were instantly surrounded by kids who wanted to be seen as tall enough to be the horses. Alas, only a handful were, and some of those were too slight. I had one young man pointing out that he was a good two inches taller than me, and I had to confess that I weighed at least three stone more than he did. But he plans to eat a lot between now and Easter.

Robert again mentioned that he thinks we will need helmets if we are to do the mounted thing. I think he is right, this will require thought. There is already a fair bit of expenditure to be made, so I don't want to add to it. We may need to rethink this.

After all the biff there was a lovely relaxed feast which had been billed as 'unchallenging'. While the kidlets were all unafraid, it was all tasty and delicious, nothing bland or boring. Robert Stoner was given a Griffin's Egg at Court, which is the Polit award for people under 16 who have contributed a great deal to Polit or to served as examples to the youth of the barony. It was very well deserved! Then, in a very unexpected moment, I was given a Griffin's Egg, too, despite meeting only one of the categories and then barely. I felt very guilty, since I only inspire the children to violence and silliness, while Robert is a good example all round. But I was touched nonetheless and have been carrying the token around with me ever since.

It was very good to have an opportunity to talk a bit with the kids that night, although the heat was showing badly and I was much less coherent or energetic than I had intended. Still, when young Sophie came bouncing up and 'sang' a song at me that went "Giggle giggle you going giggle giggle fair giggle giggle time!" I was at least enough on the ball to join in with "Remember me to the one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine." Which amazed Crispin and amused Sophie no end. I must get down for another small Polit event so that I can chat properly with people like Bethany and Robert, Caitlin, Lauren and her nice brother; they are all the sorts of kids I liked when I was a kid – a little kooky, but in the interesting and individual way. And ridiculously good looking. Are there no ugly children in the SCA?

The best thing about this event was that all the kids felt quite welcomed, while there were things for the adults that made them feel right at home, too. No one was stuck in the corner, and the newbies felt just as much at ease as the oldtimers. I do hope that the new folk will come again. I even had time to briefly meet an adult I liked, Meredith, who, like all Merediths I have ever known, was smart and funny.

Later that night we stopped by Jeff and Barry's for supper, which was just delightful. I really miss seeing them more regularly, and Jeff and I were reminded of the fact that J and Ewa (Jeff's wife) are identical in many mannerisms. The old joke is that Jeff and I could never run off with each other (because we'd kill each other aside from anything else), but Jeff and J could. Ewa and I once planned that we would have rocking chairs on the verandah if we needed a contingency plan, and she would get to eat the soft ice cream from around the outside of the tub and I would tackle the hard bit in the centre.

The next morning we visited Joan and Crispin at their home and J was able to have a bit of training time with C. Good fun for them. We girls relaxed, with Joan's little girls showing me the fairy garden. Catherine and Sophie have a very good garden with several cubbies and spots to climb as well as a sandpit and some flowers. Catherine turned into the hydrangea fairy and scattered us with flowers and leaves. Excellent! Of course, the funniest moment of all was completely unintentional. Sophie is only three, and she spent the most time with us at Festival where her mum was running our Royal Household and we occasionally gave her a ride in the Royal Wheelbarrow. So she could barely contain her excitement when she leaned across the table and confided in a loud, high whisper, "The King is in my Bathroom!!"

The second good thing was another event, which I actually started to write about a few weeks ago and then was distracted. It was the Feast of the Four Winds in Colles Adorum. My briliant Apprentice Number One invented this event to go with an A&S competition she runs where people are encouraged to submit full outfits.

This year the event was run by Adam and his team, and they did a really good job with the hall and the food. Apparently the tournament was great, too, but we missed it, I think we were both at work through the day. John Dye was there with his very cool lady, and there was a stack of younger folk who all seemed to be having a good time. Zanobia won the A&S comp, with a very good outfit that was intelligently designed and made. Eadie came second, with a beautiful Hollandish, and Bleddynn third with a Roman that would have scored higher marks had he oly thought to provide doco. The most exciting thing was that all the entries incorporated handmade shoes! That young Artemisia is a very good influence!

It was another of those small SCA events that is just seamless. There was a lot of food and cold drink and room to dance or run around like a loon. We stole young Sarah, Adeline's daughter, and J, Maeve, Miles and I took it upon ourselves to wear her out. Which we succeeded in! The clever adult game of Run in a Circle still works on her. I give it a year, max, before she works that one out.

Anyway, for a good event and a great idea, Four Winds (which J will call Beanfest, but let's not encourage him) won two thumbs up from me.


The third good thing was the In Dulci concert we attended. In Dulci are a group of mostly Rowanite singers (a spot of Stowe, too!) who are very talented. They have taken their in-game a capellaness and made it work out of game, too. Although they are still pretty medieval/Baroque in their song choices. So far we've caught two of their gigs and we've got the album. When they release a T-shirt, we'll have the full merch set. Needless to say, they were very good and we enjoyed ourselves a great deal. Bethan did a champion job of conducting, for which she is being rewarded in this shot by flowers. Katherine and Annabel both sing like angels, not that I'm biased towards tuneful sopranos ...

The fourth good thing was Christmas. I decided to go all-out and make things. So I have a mostly made hat for Marie and a mostly made calendar for several others, but I briefly had a wholly made gingerbread house!

It was inspired by Malin's magnificent gingerbread house of two years ago, but I failed to learn one important lesson. Humdity is the natural enemy of the gingerbread. You would think that a Jasper Fforde fan like me would remember that.

The house itself was sweet. It had a flower garden made of jubes on two sides, and a path and rear deck made of blue and green M&Ms. On the side it had a musk stick entertaining area, where a gingerbread angel had fallen to its doom. Above it there was a shooting star of Bethlehem, or Halley's Comet, depending on your theism.

The path was lined with raspberry licorice, and there were pfeffernusse trees at the front and marshmallow snowmen out the back. On one side there was a large clinker-lined pool. In the pool, jelly penguins swam. It took me hours!!!! And a great deal of royal icing!!!! And I had to stop J from eating the Freckles that were meant to be the roof tiles.

After starting at about 10am, it was mostly ready to go by about 5.30. Dinner was at 7.30. Alas.




For one brief half-hour, things looked pretty good. Tyg and Krin got to see it in its happy phase, and I did think to snap a few shots off so that we could make Malin laugh. The green triffid is a gingerbread tree, BTW. And then, Sydney's cruel and unusual summer weather kicked in. While it may not have been the usual 40°C (100°F), the humidity was still soup like.

And so the roof line began to sag.

And sag some more.

And then crumble under its own weight. In desperation I popped a plastic container inside to try and hold up what remained of the structure. That worked, a little bit. By the time we got to Marie and Manfred's house of Hospitality for dinner, alack, things were looking grim.



As Blayney or Bleddyn would say, there was something of a structural failure taking place. We decided that it was a house in Tamworth, where freak hailstorms two days before Christmas had seem roofs collapse in major buildings. A delicious dinner was eaten, then we turned back to the house.

Which by now resembled nothing so much as Mawson's Hut. Collapsed. Destroyed. Defunct. Still tasty, though.










Everything was not lost. We had a splendiferous dinner with good company, including Manfred's parents, who cheerfully wore silly hats for the occasion, and Marie and Manfred themselves. Very good presents were exchanged, and much duck was guzzled. As with all good festive meals, we sat around for hours afterwards making the urrrr noise.















And to prove that it wasn't just me who was having a bad dessert day, Marie's mousse turned on us and became so chumpy, you could carve it. Tasted bloody good, though.















Christmas Day itself we spent quietly at home, then Spyd and Mendoza came to visit us on Boxing Day with AJ. Who ate dirt, because he is a proper kid. Then he demanded a nice drink to get rid of the dirt taste, because he is also a smart kid.

We still have Gordy's present to get to Spyd and Lily's to get to Mendoza; we weren't really as organised as we meant to be this year. Of course, since I still haven't finished the sodding calendar, it's all a schemozzle.


In terms of our personal loot, J and I gave each other lovely things that we like a lot. But he gave me a jigsaw puzzle! Which is why I haven't finished anything. These things are like crack! I got this far on the first day and then spent the next three getting about a third of the way through the black background. Luckily, Spyd mentioned that there were things called puzzle mats that let you roll your puzzle up and come back to it. So that saved me from losing my whole holiday to my OCD. It will still be there after Festival when I need something brainless to do.

We actually had money for the post-Christmas sales this year and I spent most of it on a new mattress so that we will sleep comfortably. Expect new levels of sanity and attractiveness from the two of us. I am counting down the days till it arrives on the 10th. (Eleven! ha ha ha ...) (Sorry. I really couldn't help myself on that one)


Finally the one bad thing, which I thought I'd illustrate with this amusing photo of my cat hiding under a travel pillow. Don't worry, she's fine. I've realised that we're generally bad with newbies in Rowany. I realised this when I met someone at an event recently who lives here but doesn't come to local events because she was slagged off by some Rowanites at her second event. She was in the toilets when she heard herself being described in specific and unflattering terms.

Funnily enough, I had recently spoken to another very cool woman (Hi Emma!) who had had a similar experience and who had decided to write us off as a pack of wankers. Thinking back, I had a number of oldtimers describe me as an unprincipled social climbing bitch when I joined. Which is, of course, ridiculous. I have plenty of principles and I would spend my energies climbing more useful societies if that was my real goal. At least they got the bitch part right.

I had a chat with Maeve and Miles and they described similar problems when they joined. In fact, it was only that Gui and Bethan and a few others were there when Maeve and I came along, and I already had Mouse and Coco to trust, that we made enough contacts to keep us in. Miles fell in with many of the same lot, and Gawyne and Alfar, too.

So the four of us (Miles, Maeve, J and I) resolved to spend more time helping newbies in future. And to introduce them to loads of people so they can make up their own minds who they play with rather than feeling tied to one group from the beginning. It's not the world's greatest plan, but at least it has the advantage of being easy to remember. If anyone has a more concrete method for making new folk feel included that copes with being managed by four overly busy and slightly distracted people – do tell!

And now for resolutions:
Get authorised
Kill Knights (either due to being authorised or with the Mighty Midget Army, or both ...)
Make new Elizabethan frock
Wear old one again
Make smocks for Canty Faire
Finish bloody calendar before end of January
Grab Lovely Apprentices for frock-making days
Shields for Mighty Midget Army
Don't overcommit
Enjoy more events
Finally write up Hollandish notes before Adele (rightly) kills me

That's enough for one year's blogging. Happy New Year to you all and thank you for your patience.

For S and J

Recently I have been prodded by two of my nearest to provide them with gift suggestions for the Birthday that will fall in five and a half weeks. This post is for them. It is not designed to make the rest of you think you need to buy me flash gifts. While I love flash gifts, I can save up and buy them for myself if it comes to that. Although, if you're one of the many people who have received expensive wedding, baby and birthday gifts from me over the years, a small trinket would be nice since I'm never getting married and none of you buggers ever have anything under $100 on your registries.

There will be a do on the weekend of Jan 27-28. Details will be sent out shortly as soon as I can book a caterer. And if I don't invite you to said birthday do, it's not for lack of love. It's for lack of catering budget and the fact that we have the world's tiniest house. And I really need a new mattress before the sleep deprivation sends me over the edge, so the catering budget is staying small.

Anyway, S and J and the few other people who feel the urge, here's a long, comprehensive list. Do not go crazy. Things I particularly love are starred with an asterisk. I would also be very pleased to receive an email from Oxfam telling me that someone in Uganda has a toilet or a goat donated in my name. Relax, S and Baggy, the goats are for milking.

Right, so, onto said list.
*J, I would like a nice piece of jewellery; something that I will wear often. You should sit down with S and LAJ (M) and listen to their advice to you. It can have your name on it. It should not have just my name as I know my name. Although it was very sweet of you to think of your cunning plan. John W Thompson is the engraver whose work I really love. I can wear silver or gold. If you decide on a ring, a good cunning plan to get the right size is to take an impression from one of the two rings I wear all the time. The one with the stone fits my ring finger, the other one fits my thumb. They live on the bathroom shelf overnight.

I will not go mental if you don't give me jewellery, but if you plan to, you should organise this very soon as it will take much more than a week.

*In other news … I collect Royal Doulton Countess china in the green, yellow and black pattern. It's the original pattern of that name, from the early 20th century. Not the new pattern (which I am appalled to discover the existence of!)
It looks like this. I only like the green, which is unfortunate because you see more of the pink and the black, but they're horrid. I would like anything in this pattern, really, but would particularly like a teapot and a sugar bowl. The former should cost no more than $150 and the latter no more than $30, but it's a matter of finding the little buggers. I have bought most of mine off eBay, which is punishing on the postage. The Sydney Antiques Centre has some from time to time in their china-focussed stores, but they tend towards the usurious. This would all be so easy were we in London ...

I would love any of the following books:
Decca: the letters of Jessica Mitford by Peter Y Sussman
Before the Mast; life and death aboard the Mary Rose, ed Julie Gardiner (available from Mainly Medieval, 02 9519 2131)
Once More with Footnotes, by Terry Pratchett, but not from Amazon as they are gouging mercilessly
Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630, by Karen Hearn
Elizabeth's spy master: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England, by Robert Hutchinson
Linger Awhile, Russell Hoban
*Debs at War, Anne de Courcy
Agincourt, by Juliet Barker
Isabella: She-wolf of France, Queen of England, by Alison Weir

*Or a subscription to one of my favourite mags, the Literary Review. If you've never picked up a copy, do, it's brilliant. Oh, and J, Gardens Illustrated?

CDs
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, because I can divorce the music from the history
Mozart's The Magic Flute
*Any Vaughan Williams, my albums are all just that, and I have no turntable these days.
*The Proclaimers Sunshine on Leith, because I need a quick flashback.

'Medieval' things
Light white linen, lengths of over 4m
Silk sewing thread, white, black and deep red
Purse frame from Mainly Medieval, 02 9519 2131
Candlesticks, salt or needlecase from same
Elbow cops

House things
A medium-sized food processor
Space bags, the proprietary brand, not the cheaper knock-off. S was right, they are magnificently useful.
Magazine storage holders (any type, I'm no longer fussy. Carboard from Officeworks is fine. Just not fluoro.)
A cleaner
100 per cent cotton double sheet set in plain colour (white, green or dark red are all safe)
Wooden bath mat

Writing things
Antique writing box, like this one, or this one, but only if you have actually won the lottery.
Thick cream or off-white paper with a slightly rough texture, torn edges are fine, preferably cotton or linen
A nice crystal, silver or brass inkwell would be welcome
* More Moleskine notebooks, I prefer the unlined notebooks, but also don't mind the unlined reporter's pads. The thin paper is better, since I never end up sketching in the sketchbooks anyway.
More Staedler triplus fineliners in the four-pack with the flip-top case. I go through these and Moleskines at an alarming rate.

Lifestyle things
A horseriding lesson, because I need to brush up
Singing lesson, same reason
Packed sandwiches (no pig, cheese or sour cream!), some waterbottles and company for the Spit to Manly walk
A Trangia camping stove and insulated bottle for meths
Gardener for an afternoon (just a labourer would be fine)

This will probably be amended after Christmas, as I have no idea what J is getting me, and will add on the things from the Christmas list here. Good company and laughter would do just as well. While I may not have finished the Great Novel TM yet, I have my health (which is apparently excellent according to my last checkup), a wonderful J and utterly fabulous friends. And I won't read the comments on this thread in case anyone feels the need to point out what an acquisitive horror I turned out ot be after all.

Duchy ceremonies

Heyup, sorry for the delays in posting, but things have been hectic to the point of sleep deprived lunacy around here. Just between us: never try and reorganise your whole house in the weeks before your Duchy ceremony and at the busiest time of the year in magland.

On the up side, we got the mag done early, for we are godlike!

The downside is at the end of this post because I don't like to start with a grump (it's a doozy.)

Back to the ceremony. I had wanted to do this at Yule because I have never had any big moments in my home barony, so I flew down the K&Q and hoped for the best. Alas, several important (to me (and to others, but I was having a selfish moment)) people couldn't be there, but the majority of people that really mattered to me were. It was especially good to see the Colles gang (Hi Evie! Hi Zanobia!), and Phil came up from Polit specially, which was very sweet.

Thank goodness for Maeve! She spent the whole afternoon helping me out with the enormous list of things that needed to be done. She is an angel.

I, however, am foolish, because I agreed to be the Queen's native shopping guide. I should just have drawn the wonderful Deense some good maps and trusted in Anna's native genius to use them, rather than use hours I didn't have. Oh well.

It was, however, very enjoyable having brunch with Asa, Deense, Maeve and Anna. They are all women that I would like to spend more time with. We had some bad news while in the cafe about a friend that three of us care about and Anna hasn't met, which put a bit of a spanner in the day.

Fast-forward several hours of frantic preparation and the very slow return of J from the tournament and we hit the event with about half-an-hour before court, which might sound like a lot of time if there weren't dozens of things to get done in that half hour.

Quick sidebar here, the hall was fabulous. It had been beautifully decorated and the banners and greenery were such that even before we were able to taste any of the delicious food, we knew it was a really good event. Here's the lovely Stanzi looking very startled that someone is taking a picture of her (she looked great), with J, Mendoza (also looking spiffy in his new mandress), Sir Torg and Duke Cornelius behind her.

Right, so, we'd made it into the vestibule. There were four banners to assemble and my two beautiful apprentices were amazingly useful in getting them together and then, with Maeve, making sure that J was dressed. Aelfled is always a bastion of calm, and Art was amazing, especially with her head wound! (The Rowany pavilion centre pole had fallen on her earlier that day.)

Thanks, too, to Miles the ever-handy for help with both parts of that sequence. Meanwhile Marie and the lovely DV were wrestling with my sleeves. I had made a fundamental error by choosing to wear the chemise that Baroness Helene had made for me. It has boofy sleeves, which were in fact too boofy for my frock and led to some great weirdness. My fault. I just wanted to trot it out for something good given the amount of work that went into it. Thanks, DV! And thanks, Tyg, for not laughing at me!

Mayela and Tyg were calm and angelic, and added immeasurably to the beauty of the procession, and to the sanity. Even with Tyg proclaiming that she had run out of same. Blaeney was manly and carried a sword. It's what he does.

Mendoza was set to herald, which was perfect, because he is brill and also very important to us, so that was a very easy way of working him into the ceremony.

Cornelius and Morwynna, Duke and Duchess Lochac, were very helpful and calm and carried the wreaths that we used instead of coronets (too much faff to get them done, and besides, I spent all my spare money on air tickets for the K&Q!). It was very good to have them there, quite aside from setting a nice tradition of contiguity.

J went first, and his ceremony was very well handled. Although I do not know what I was thinking when I left the word heretofore in. Steffan Glaube and I like that word, maybe Anton and Marie. The rest of the kingdom have it on their Lists of Words for Wankers. And rightly so. My bad.

Once again I was very happy that Draco and Asa had won May Crown. They are so charming and relaxed in court, at the same time as maintaining great dignity and serenity. It was lovely to watch them recognising J's new estate, and also to see Duke C's role in the ceremony. My favourite thing in-game has always been people living up to their titles, and all three conspired to make it a fine moment for J.

As you can see, the wreath was a bit verdant, but I will hasten to point out that it contained many strawberry leaves, as did mine. Thanks, again, Maeve!

Baron Hrothgar later cheerfully pointed out that J would make a great green man. J pointed out that he was far from green these days. Bordering on silver.

After the Duke's ceremony comes the Duchess's, which meant that we needed to get in line and go.

Luckily there were a few hurrahs in between.


Morwynna, Maeve and Marie took their spots around me, with the banner sisters bringing up the rear. I know that I had the courtesy banner, but I forget which other one came in with me, Largesse? Probably, leaving J courage and prowess. I kept thinking, again, how wonderful Tyg, Art and Allesandra had been with their help on these. And especially Marie and Manfred who not only helped with the tech and physical bits, but gave up house space.

As you will have noticed from the photo, my whole role around Morwynna is to make her look taller and slimmer. But she makes me look long-haired ...

So we processed in with Marie carrying a pen and ink, and Maeve a rose. The rose is the symbol of the Queens and ex-Queens, while the Kings get a sword. Seems a little unequal, so I added the pen and ink, because as we all know, good press beats conventional weaponry any day. Well, at least until the Democrats take both houses ...

Note Marie's sexy hat. It's not actually hers. Her one is still half-made because I wanted to have a tidy and organised house. Alas. Still, everyone looked very good, although I can't see Maeve in that frock without the mental image of her unhooking a few clasps and stepping out of the farthingale, forepart and petticoats to tuck up the red skirts into her bike shorts and step into a sailboat. Remarkable engineering.

What's that? back to the narrative? Sure. The K&Q said nice things about me, they took the wreath from Duchess Lochac and gave their accolade, and then gave me a pen and ink and told me to write. I can't believe they let me put that in the ceremony; like I need encouragement.

Duchess Lochac welcomed me to the club; I gave her the first rose and mentioned what an inspiring model she had always been to me, which goes back to my early days in the SCA, then handed the second rose to the Queen in token of her joining us in a month. All very nice.


We then swore an oath to the King, Queen and Kingdom, which is a little different to the standard fealty. It reads:
Here do we swear, by mouth and hand,
fealty and service to the Crown and Kingdom of Lochac.
As we have ruled this Realm in faith,
so shall we keep that faith henceforth,
that we may, by our example,
foster chivalry, courtesy, and honour throughout the land;
until the Crown depart Their throne,
or death take us,
or the world end.

Which I liked because it gave us a clear job description. I should have mentioned that the whole cermony was a merging of West and Caid ceremonies, because we wanted to recognise both of Lochac's parent Kingdoms. Benedict from Ildhafn suggested this idea many months ago, because he is a darling. Another big thank you there.

During the fealty, J dropped his sword. Which means that it is now tradition! Duchess Lochac and I hatched a plan that I will bring a sword to Draco and Asa'a ceremony, as back-up in case nothing has clanged to the ground by the end.

One thing that was forgotten was my dubbing! The most important bit! I didn't feel at all real. Asa blamed Draco, Draco blamed Morwynna. Morwynna called for a sword and did the job herself, which was stylish, classy, sensible and funny and has gone down on my shortlist of top SCA moments.

(Draco let me punch him gently in the ribs in complaint without having me banished or executed, he's a lovely king! He also promised to vote for me on the Chiv the minute I'm ready, so one day I finally will get a dubbing from a Crown. If I train a lot. Eh, it can be done!)

Finally, here are two of the banners, which you can see better if you click on them. We gave Art courage because she was so brave about the head wound; Tyg had Largesse, because it's pretty and so is she. Aelfled had courtesy, because that's her one! and Mayela had prowess, because she's good at practically everything.

But I really must make the lettering at the top heavier ... in all my spare time ...

The rest of the night was weird. I kept trying to spend it with people who had been important to me during the reign, but kept being snaffled instead. Some snafflings were fine, such as when young Robert took me to talk to his mum. Others went on for ages and were with people who normally don't talk to me. Yay for the rockstar approach to the SCA. Oh, hang on, that's sarcasm. Sorry, I try not to slip below irony.

Meanwhile, the people that I care about were treated to drive-by visits and quick chats. At least I brought champers and strawberries ... It was all very frustrating, and I can see why Cornelius and Morwynna bunked off immediately after their ceremonies.

At least I was able to see Helen for the first time in years and meet her lovely chap, Nick. He's ace, and I don't just say this because we seem to have lived parallel lives ...

Right, back to the downside.

On the downside, the house is still a teeny bit of a shambles and we didn't get to the event at the time other people would have liked us to.

To which I say: you pay for the King and Queen to visit your home Barony out of your own pocket and then feel free to come and whinge to me. 7.45, people. We knew there was a second court at 8.15 scheduled, and it's not like everyone had even finished first remove.

It rather annoyed me [pissed me off immensely] that a select band of people harped on about this. I'm not talking about our actual friends who said "Are you guys OK? We were worried." because that's fine. I'm talking about the people who, instead of saying "Yay, congratulations, bet you're excited!", started with "Where the hell were you?" and then nagged mercilessly.

Well, we were dealing with things going wrong and then people calling every five minutes to add a bit more stress. I reiterate: 7.45. This is only scary late to six year olds.

There was one person only who had a right to be annoyed at the timing, Cornelius, Duke Lochac. He had a bike meet on the next day. We had left it entirely up to him if he wanted to come to the event. He chose to (which was a very welcome choice). We also sent messages that we would understand completely if he wanted to leave, he chose not to (again, something that we appreciated). We apologised to him afterwards for delaying him an hour, he said that it was all fine. I have immense respect for Cornelius's ability to make his own decisions and be forthright in communicating them. If the one person who was inconvenienced had the grace to be offering congratulations and support, you might think that would be the model to follow.

As it was, I spent much of the last week following the other Cornelius model, where he rolls his eyes and then looks a little unfocussed as he mentally slaps gits. I feel I have a lot to learn.

What did I learn from it all? That I am very grateful for my friends, that some peers rock, that ceremonies should have meaning and aren't just for the punters, and that some people will take a happy, shiny moment and be an utter cock about it.

What I'm trying to learn is how not to let the last group upset me. But as J wisely said: "The people who have any understanding of all this are Cornelius and Morwynna, Draco and Asa, and our closest friends and household. They were all happy and supportive. No one else really matters."

Which is not at all true, and quite wholly true at the same time.

Off to Hobby Horse Crusade in the morning, must get some sleep so that the kids can climb all over me with impunity.

The curse of satire ...

Is that sometimes you don't quite hit your mark. After two very smart men have both said that they found the last post rather unrealistic, I'm clarifying that the previous post included satire. The good peer is not something anyone can actually be all the time, or even most of the time. We do have days when we are out on those limbs and being amazing in our eptitude, but they're very occasional.

The good peer bits are there to represent an end-point, and while some of it is a good goal for normal behaviour, such as the ability to take criticism and the gift of giving it gently and supportively, most of it would make you into a git.

Mynabird, who is as smart as she is lovely, wrote a great post on her great costuming LJ that picked up on the reason for the satire, which is that there genuinely are people out there who expect peers to have no life outside the SCA. They get cranky when knights go home at a reasonable hour because they have to get up for work in the morning. They are outraged when laurels they barely know say they can't spend the next three hours patterning a frock for them and talking them through the construction. They are appalled that a pelican won't run their event for them. They are especially outraged that the same knights they have just been slagging off don't want to be mobile pells for them to practice on (and I increasingly have sympathy for why some heavies are slapped out of the way seconds after lay on is called in tournies and wars, also why some knights direct their light infantry to shoot particular people, even if they're on their side.)

So, I failed in part of my mission, but at least no-one's read it and said "Yes! for the love of bunnies! Why aren't there more selfless peers like that?" Because then I'd have been forced to reveal that while I try and restrict myself to bad, I am quite capable of evil.

Good Peer, Bad Peer, Evil Peer

Because I am an old baggage, it often escapes my notice that there is peer mystique in the SCA. And then I will talk to someone lovely and young and be reminded that a. I really am an old baggage, and b. some people still find peers intimidating and confusing.

For example, a lovely young lass recently asked me why some laurels won’t help with costuming and patterning, to which I replied that it was probably because they were EVIL! Or brewing laurels, in which case it was for the best and they were actually being good. Then I mused a little longer and said: “perhaps they’re just tired and would rather be out down the pub or at home with a good book. Which is bad, but not evil.”

She looked at me intently, then asked: “But how can I tell?” At which point a light bulb went off over my head and several special effects could be heard. So I bring to you, Miss D’s guide to Peers: the good, the bad, and the evil.

You should know now that it’s practically impossible to be a really perfectly good peer. Genuinely good peerdom is something to aspire to and to hit when you can. Most of us are bad peers to one degree or another, but charmingly so. And there is good reason for us to be bad, we have real lives, we get tired, we’re naturally grumpy-trousered people (actually, that could be just me). What we try not to be is evil. Evil peers make the rest of us look bad. Here’s how you can spot the difference.

Scenario One: Please help me with my frock!
The good costume laurel will sit down with you for hours patterning a new frock and talking through the construction. She’ll loan you several books that show you what you’re aiming for, and answer questions over the phone, even pop round your place to make sure that you haven’t gone astray two nights before the event you want to wear the frock at.

The bad costume laurel will help you with the fitting of your bodice and draw a pencil sketch of how the sleeves and skirt should go. She will give you a list of books or websites that you should check out to see how it’s done, if she’s feeling very kind she might even loan you a book. She basically assumes you have enough intelligence to get it done, although if everything cocks up mightily, she’ll probably feel bad and help you fix it.

The evil costume laurel will offer to make it for you. For cash. And then not do as good a job as you could have paid a local dressmaker for, but charge the same and bully you more about it.
(NB It is quite kosher to ask costume laurels to make you garb for cash and for them to do so. The non-kosher bit comes about when they give you no choice in the matter.)

Scenario two: I want to learn how to fight!
The good knight will spend many months helping you learn the basics of offence and defence. He will help you make and acquire armour, fit your underpinnings until everything is comfortable and teach you the basics of body mechanics. Over the next few years he will check up on your progress and give you further pointers. He will take you aside during big tournaments and point out simple ways for you to improve immediately, or else give you tips on your opponents. He will champion you when you do well, even if you’re losing, and take you aside for a chat if you start acting like a twonk on the field.

The bad knight will help you out, but only after you’ve agreed to join his household. He will teach you and help to accoutre you, but in return you will be his buttmonkey and spend Festival running around after him. God forbid you should come up against him in the finals of a big tournament as he will show no hesitation in reminding you how much you owe him. He will, however, vigorously push your case on Knight’s Council.

The evil knight will teach you how to win. He will teach you to hit harder than anyone else and take harder than anyone else. He will deny that this is monstering and instead talk about dominating. He will insist that all of heavy fighting is about the sport and divorce it from the chivalric context entirely. Any win is a good win to this knight, any loss a failure. He will probably sleep with your girlfriend at some point.

Scenario three: I want to run an event!
The good pelican will listen to your plans and point out areas where you may need a bit more work. They will step in to help you out if anything goes pear-shaped, but before that happens they will have given you a good long list of warnings to look for, so things probably won’t. They will introduce you to others who can help, and remind you of the essentials such as having a clean-up crew, and the need to be nice to said clean-up crew.

The bad pelican will encourage you to go ahead with the event but will then disappear for much of the planning period. As soon as you hit your first major screw-up, though, they will reappear and help you fix it. They will then laugh at you a lot. But that’s okay, because their proteges will help you out for the rest of the process and you’ll come out of it without a complete nervous breakdown.

The evil pelican will ignore your cries for help and then spend the evening loudly proclaiming that it is a crap event. When taken to task over this, they will sniffily reply that it’s what happened to them and it’s the only way to learn. Evil pelicans have few friends.

Scenario four: I’m new!
The good peer will sit down with you and talk you through what you need to know to enjoy the event. They’ll introduce you to people if you’re there alone or without a big group, they’ll help your group to integrate smoothly if you’ve come en masse. During court, they will sit near you and explain what’s going on and show you the correct etiquette. At some point during the evening they will probably introduce you to some of the pointy hats, or else some of the more interesting people who will be of use to you in joining the SCA.

The bad peer will be catching up with people that they haven’t seen in ages, and you’ll probably have to butt in and ask a few questions. They will be helpful and cheerful and introduce you to some of the young people and the hospitaller. In truth, they will be fobbing you off, but it will be done with charm and they will check up on you a few times during the evening and remember to smile at you afterwards. If there is a table full of peers who are all drunk, give up, they probably won’t notice you. In a best-case scenario they will sing rude songs in your direction. Don’t target peers who are breastfeeding, crying, having a nap or in the middle of obviously important conversations. Newcomers practically never do this, but other people do and it’s just astonishing. Of course, if it’s to say something vital, such as “The hall is on fire, who do I tell?”, interrupt away.

The evil peer will look at you as though you are from another planet, say, “Yes, and I’m important,” then look away. It may reassure you to know that people who do this are almost without exception poorly endowed.

Scenario five: I’m looking for information on a topic!
The good peer will let you look through their library, then help you write up a list for further research. They will take you to the good local libraries, or at least give you instructions on how to use them. They will give you a list of key names to search on and warn you off dodgy books that sound good but are actually rubbish. They will supplement all of this with their own knowledge and experience, and introduce you to others who are interested in similar topics and will be happy to help you.

The bad peer will give you a list of names, regions or else a period to narrow things down to. They may well introduce you to a good peer because they’ll feel bad if you screw this one up. They will probably toss you a book that will get you started in the right direction without requiring too much time and effort.

The evil peer will have the perfect book for you. But they will never tell you about it. They will never tell anyone about it, they will just hide it away and present the research in the book as their own.

Scenario six: I’ve fucked up!
The good peer may well have noticed this before you mention it to them. If you come to this peer looking for help, you will find wise guidance, compassion and understanding. They will help you to fix your fuck-up and redeem your reputation, even if it’s something serious. If you are trying to get away with being an utter arse, the good peer won’t let you. They will talk to you in private and advise you to change your ways. If you persist, they will advise the other people who come to them to complain (this will happen) that they, too, should talk to you. Ultimately they may use the laws to stop you, but they will have gone to you first in a bid to have you redeem yourself.

The bad peer will look on with a furrowed brow while you do something appalling. They will have a quiet talk with some of your mates and ask if you have cracked under pressure or just gone completely mad. They will suggest to you that you may not be on top of your game. If you go to them seeking help they will make you a cup of tea and give you some good advice. If you are wearing the Crown, they will roll their eyes and say: “I’m in fealty to the Crown, not the loon who’s wearing it.”

The evil peer will shrug and call you a try-hard. Since they are more evil than you, your actions will barely register.

Scenario seven: You’ve fucked up! (no, really.)
The good peer will look horrified and then admit that they have indeed made a mistake. They will apologise publicly and they will set about repairing what they can. They will make personal apologies to individuals they have hurt and will be humble about the whole thing. It may get to the point where some of those individuals ask them to stop apologising, enough already!

The bad peer will be upset, they will say that they are sorry for what they did and if they hurt anyone they apologise unreservedly. They will then never mention it again. If the topic comes up in future years, they will leave the room or else get terribly offended.

The evil peer will say “How dare you impugn my honour by suggesting that I did wrong! I’m a peer!” They will then blacken your name to anyone who will listen and spread bitter stories about your evil attempts to make them look bad. If only the stories were consistent … Over the coming years people will talk to each other and realise that they were all told different things and most will work out that the evil peer is, or was, evil.

Scenario eight: Will you be my friend?
The good peer will say: “Sure, come round at seven and we’ll pattern you a bodice/cook something/practice wraps.”

The bad peer will say: “I already have too many friends to keep track of. But I’ll be nice to you and help you out if you need it.”

The evil peer will say: “Piss off, peasant.”

Scenario nine: Where’s the best of the SCA?
The good peer will be wearing something right – shiny armour, appropriate garb (of whatever class/time/region), shoes, hats and accessories. They will talk with newbies and with oldtimers in a courteous and interested fashion. They will introduce people who would benefit from knowing each other. They will work to stop events from going wrong, they will also nudge people in the correct directions. They will be honest (except where that would be too cruel) and they will be brave. They will open up their homes to teach and they will be generous with their resources. They will not for a moment suggest that they are what is best about the SCA, but you will come to this conclusion by yourself after a short time.

The bad peer will manage about 50% of the above. They will acknowledge that they just don’t have the time or energy to manage the rest, but they will at least be charming and amusing about it. They will have moments when people look at them and say “That’s what you’re aiming for!”

The evil peer will assume that they are the best thing in the SCA. They will probably tell you this. Luckily, people are usually only fooled very briefly.


End note The above examples are all constructs, drawn from the behaviour of collections of individuals. They are not meant to be based on individuals, so don’t look too hard for real-life analogues. Although Gabrielle, Rowan, Steffan Glaube, katherine, Evil Baron Alaine, Stanzi, Angie, Hrothers, Helene, Cornelius, Phil and Leofwynn were all inspirations for some of the good peer bits. Some of them also doubled for a few of the bad peer bits, sometimes in the one category. This being good thing is not so easy, I tell you!

Stupid quiz results

Argh! I let myself be sucked in by Sir Phil's ruthless cheeriness and love of LJ memes! And then I went off and checked out his mates and discovered that Duke C is actually my evil twin Skippy. It's a scary world.

You scored as IV - The Emperor. The Emperor represents power. There is nothing subtle about this Tarot card. The Empress has power through love.The Emperor has power through power. He is in control, he is forceful and ambitious. Nothing will stop him. He is a natural leader, having either been born to the role or having disposed of all those who stood in his way. If well aspected in a Tarot spread this card can indicate success. It represents obstacles overcome, goals reached and ambition fulfilled. If badly aspected it can indicate either weakness or an abuse of power. II - The High Priestess 94% IV - The Emperor 94% III - The Empress 94% XI: Justice 88% XVI: The Tower 88% I - Magician 81% VIII - Strength 75% XIII: Death 75% XIX: The Sun 75% X - Wheel of Fortune 63% 0 - The Fool 56% VI: The Lovers 31% XV: The Devil 0% Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You? created with QuizFarm.com

In other, much more sensible news, I finally worked out how to throw a wrap (I suppose it really only took 20 minutes, but I'm used to getting things in under five!) and we have a cunning plan to make the second not-quite fitting helmet into a fitting neatly helmet. Anyone want to buy a virtually unused sallet for about $300? It's nice and shiny!

But the best news of all is that the Hamster has his driver's licence back. Right, off to finish the sensible post with actual SCA reading matter in it.

November Crown, AS XXXXI

Greetings from the seventh to eleventh least-inspiring woman in Lochac!

Well, that was the Crown that was. For us it was a fairly rushed affair, but entertaining nonetheless. Our adventures started early in the morning where J had a brief moment of "Screw it, I'm too tired to catch the plane, let's just stay home." Given that I had had two hours sleep, I wasn't going to dispute his call if he made it, but no, it was up and at 'em and into the taxi. We made it to the airport in plently of time and then proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait a bit more. At last we were allowed onto the aeroplane, which taxied out a little, then got back to the waiting.

Baroness Helene was also on our flight, and she was able to get some much-needed sleep during all the waiting. She had described her state that morning as "Still drunk." and we understand it was bad people who made her drink all the alcohol. I was cheerfully calculating times and distances, and made a point to J that we would be a bit tight for time when we got to Launceston. He, of course, ignored this.

The flight was uneventful, Launceston airport is beautiful (amazing rhododendrons!) and Helene met up with Hunnydd and Rusty for her ride. Being a low-key airport, one collects baggage from the baggage trucks that drive it into the bay beside the gates. J had by this time done one of his famed disappearing tricks, stating that he would be off to get the car, then not reappearing. So I collected my suitcase, his armour bag and his shield bag. Then I had to try and make it through the crowd while wheeling two large bags and carrying a shield bag, handbag and hatbox. I was a little terse at the people who decided to stage their reunion in the doorway, but I did not knock anyone to the ground and roll over them, so it was all right.

Helene, Hunnydd and Rusty drove off. I waited for J. I rang his mobile – switched off. I waited some more. I said some rude words. About quarter of an hour later, he appeared having been to the loo, grabbed the car, got a drink, checked his hair and a few other missions in between. We now had exactly 90 minutes before the Coronation Court was due to begin, and needed to sign into the lists, get armoured and be presented to Their Majesties by then, as well as drive the journey that Arnfinr had estimated at 90 minutes.

Apparently that was at Tasmanian driving speeds, which involve going somewhere near the speed limit eventually. J drives at the exact speed limit constantly unless impeded by other cars or traffic lights. So we were already making up time when we came into Launceston and had an L-plater attempt to drive into the side of us. We, being from Sydney, made large WTF?! gestures at the poor young man, and we didn't mind him cringing and pretending he still couldn't see us so much as we minded his dad in the teacher's seat pretending that we were not there. Apologise for stupidity, you gimboid, or how will your son learn?

Anyway, we carried on and were soon on the 'highway'. Tasmanian roads are very small and narrow and have infrequent passing opportunities. J was going spare whenever he saw another car ahead, and a poor caravan received a great deal of abuse that he did not deserve, but since it was muttered quietly some distance behind him, no harm was done.

After a fun winding drive for J (trip of terror for me), we made it out to the event in 72 minutes and had just enough time to sign in and armour up. I threw on a frock and had one plait done when we needed to present to Their Majesties, so I left J armouring and went off to represent us. They had a good laugh, and that is what matters.

The list was quite good. There were 18 fighters and it was rather top-heavy. There were some old-school fighters there, Styvryn and Reynardine most notably, then a fair whack of Chiv: Jarl Alfar and Duke J, Sir Hugh, Sir Agro and Sir Asbjorn. Then there were the known unbelts, Blayney, Bran, Somerled, Miles, Steffan, Miles and the MacAndreis brothers, plus Wulfgar, Drake and several others who could swing a stick reasonably.

Art had spread her Roman Virus (as Snorri later opined, surely that should be pronounced wirus) and had Katje and Eadie with her, all three looking lovely.

It was just as well that Art was looking particularly lovely, because before the biff began, Their Majesties called up Baron Master Blayney and asked him to join the order of Chivalry. At last he said yes! YAY! So they sent him off to vigil and he will be buffetted at Festival.

Back to the biff. J and I were there to make a day of it, but only win if the rest of the field made a complete hash of it. Steffan Glaube, who I completely respect for determination, challenged J in the first round and was sadly defeated. J joked with him that it was one of the rare times that J had had his brain working in the first round, but he did feel for Steffan. On the upside, Steffan's fighting is noticeably improving, even if he didn't get the win (can't remember who he faced the next round, but they were similarly tough and he was out in two. A shame.)

Miles was also out in two, but as he had challenged Hugh and then drawn Alfar, there was no disgrace in those losses. He did his consort proud and was a very worthy recipient of the Shining Helm later that day.

Blayney, Asbjorn, Alfar and Hugh all started out well and were on their way. We had picked them as our top four and were pretty much on the money. However, there were some other standout fighters through the course of the day. At the begining, Styvryn was in lovely flowing form and clocked J in the sconce with the same blow that he used against him in a Coronet many, many years ago. J couldn't stop laughing that he had fallen for it, and gave full points to the Viscount for cunning and ability.

In the third round, J came up against Alfar, and a hush descended as the two lads played a lengthy game of My Pose is Mightier than Your Pose. After an enormous amount of blocking and feinting, Alfar got one through and J was out. I asked him later why he had not taken Alfar's arm, which was just hanging out to the side through much of the bout. (I've been paying attention in my lessons) J replied that at first he had thought it would not be Chivalric, and then he had thought, Well, I could, but I don't really want to win and he does, and then he thought, Maybe I should because it's not chivalric to not do your utmost against your opponent, and then he got so caught up in the internal debate that he was killed.

J is very good looking, but can tend to over-think things.

But the death was the least of his worries as earlier in the bout he'd copped an almighty thwack in the foot. This was just one of those cock-ups that happens now and then. Alfar was fairly sure that it must have been deflected off a shield, but we thought it went straight in and the video evidence agrees. So a full-pace Alfar blow to the foot – J was a squealy monkey and shouted "Ow!" a lot. Once we'd determined there was nothing broken, it was a bit funny. Beautiful bruise, though. No tapdancing for that J.

Around the fourth round, our favourites started coming up against each other. Hugh defeated Blayney and Styryn defeated Bran. In the next round, Alfar defeated Blayney, putting him out for the day, and Asbjorn put out Styvryn. Hugh put Reynardine out in this round, too. Reynardine had fought very well through the course of the day and it was a pleasure to watch his glee in the tournament. Watching him and Styvryn was a good reminder of fashions in fighting, too, as several of the younger lads had no idea how to address their styles of fighting.

We were all very sorry to see Blayney go, but these things will happen. And who else walked away from the event with a vigil to plan?

This led to the final rounds. We were down to three fighters, Asbjorn drew the bye and Hugh defeated Alfar. This was a very good bout, by the way, as Alfar is very hard to kill in a tournament and has a massive defence.

So at that point, Alfar and Hugh had both dropped one life (Hugh to Bran earlier in the day in what was another rocking fight) and Asbjorn had dropped none. But the List decided to send Alfar straight through to the final and make Hugh and Asbjorn fight it out for the second spot. I may well be missing something here, but that makes no sense to me. Either Asbjorn should have gone straight through as the only undefeated fighter and Hugh and Alfar fought it out for the second spot (which would have been odd as it would have been a reply of the bout before) or Hugh should have gone straight through as the victor of the first semi and then Alfar and Asbjorn fought it out for the second spot.

If anyone can give me a logical explanation for what happened, please do because I am quite confused. I freely admit knowing next-to-nothing about the arcane art of listkeeping and there is probably a sensible reason, I just can't see it.

Whatever the reason, the Asbjorn v Hugh bout was a great fight. While I admit to being biased in favour of a Kiwi King, Hugh was fighting brilliantly on the day and it could have gone either way. I did ask Therasa afterwards if they were both a little mad or if they just have the best behaved baby ever, she assured me that Angelina is a dream baby and that while perhaps a little mad, they weren't bonkers. (I met Angelina later, she really is adorable.) As things turned out, a splendid blow to the Hugh's body saw Asbjorn victorious and Hugh graciously applauded his defeat.

When Asbjorn won, it was a very good victory over a worthy opponent. The crowd were thrilled that our favourite Swedish/Kiwi knight was going into the finals and a frisson of excitement went through the crowd.

Except in our corner of the field where it was a frisson of "Who has a mobile with international covereage that has reception here?"

In my stylish way I had said to Asbjorn "It probably hasn't escaped your notice that you're in the final..."

He replied stoically, "I'm treating every fight like the one before it."

"Good," I encouraged. "You will need an entourage, would you like me to organise it for you?"

"Yes please!" he replied. Then his brain caught up with reality. "I need to ring my lady and make her worried, too!"

Blessed Blayney provided a phone with signal (it was a bit of a black spot) and the lovely Baroness katherine kerr, who had already agreed to Herald for Sir Asbjorn (and who had already spent most of the day helping the over-worked local Lists), broke the news to Marienna. Whose reply was extremely typical. Once convinced that it was not a joke, she proceeded to be rather stressed in Wellington while Asbjorn stressed graciously in Tasmania.

In the absence of his lady, Sir Asbjorn did me the great honour of asking me to stand for her on the field, so only two blog posts after wishing I could be Marienna's stunt double, my dream was realised! I now wish for $130 million so that I can make pharmaceuticals at reasonable prices.

Duke J carried the good knight's shield, Master Blayney carried his helm, and Art provided some
extra beauty. Baron Bartholomew was originally meant to be there, too, but I lost track of him in all the to-ing and fro-ing. We got the band together and then trekked out onto the list field for the small court that precedes every Crown Tourney final. Because I was only Mistress Marienna's stunt double, I stayed a step behind Sir Asbjorn and was also useful in the sun shading department, there being no ozone layer in Tasmania. But I think that I may have been more nervous for her than I usually am for myself.

The pre-final court was very much as it always is. The consort and stunt double were given over to the Queen for safe keeping, the King enjoined the fighters to do their best and not make him have to slap anybody. One of the things that I like about Draco is that I feel confident he would slap if called for, bless. Then Lochac's most and least experienced Crown finalists got ready for the two or three bouts that would see the next Crown declared.


Sir Asbjorn was aided in his readiness by a Duke, two Pelicans and Lochac's cutest apprentice. He missed having Marienna there in person very much, but was determined not to let his nerves get the better of him. He got ready crisply and cleanly and took the field assertively. Alfar was, as always, focussed on the fight and moved with economy and purpose. Asbjorn added a moment of comedy to the salutes by mentioning that he owed Alfar for a nose; you may spot the plaster on Asbjorn's in the photos from where Jarl Alfar had thwacked him earlier in the day.

And then it was on. Now I have been watching fighting for a long time, though doing it for only a little, but I have a bag of theories about how some people fight. And I admit that the language I have for them is idiosyncratic. A lot of what Alfar does is victory bullshit. I don't mean that in any derogatory sense, it's the same as the way that a lot of my writing is bullshit designed to make you think that we're hanging around and chatting. What it means is that a great deal of his movements and actions are not connected to an immediate aim or even shot; they're all about imposing his will on the fight and convincing his opponent that Alfar is so utterly in control that the opponent hasn't got a chance. Then they either start making dumb mistakes or they overthink things.

J had already made the mistake of overthinking in the third round, and it came up again in the final. In the first bout, Asbjorn had a number of shots that he just could not power through to Alfar enough, before Alfar brought a good one in. Because I am such an elegant stunt double, I was standing next to the Queen muttering "Take his arm! Don't fall for the bullshit. Move! Argh!" In the second final bout there was a sequence of blows that clearly left Asbjorn somewhat confused. He dropped his sword and shield a little, but did not step back out of range. Clang! It was all over, and Alfar and Gudrun were heirs to the throne.

While I was very disappointed for Asbjorn and Marienna, I like Alfar and Gudrun, too, so at least we know that there will be another reign of goodness in the offing. And Gudrun will be wearing one of her pleaty floaty smocks at Coronation, so we fashion police have reason to celebrate.

Court followed, with Sir Hugh receiving another well-deserved wreath of chivalry and Viscount Reynardine the wreath of valour. I'd have taken photos, except I am a terrible photographer (all the good ones here were taken by Athol with my camera) and I also forgot. Eh. Asbjorn made a lovely speech thanking Marienna for being his inspiration and exhorted all the fighters there to take the field whenever they could to give honour to their opponents and to their consorts. It was a lovely moment, and we all felt the absence of Marienna nearly as much as Asbjorn did.

And while Their Royal Highnesses were celebrating, everyone else kicked back and relaxed somewhat. Here's J relaxing with a big bag of ice on his foot (Thanks to Baroness Isobel of Polit!)

Hunnydd kept him company because she is lovely. She also mocked him a bit, but that's normal. And it was nowhere near as silly as later in the night when there was far too much silly talk for me to keep track of, but it seemed that J and Rusty were meant to be running off with each other at one point. Or perhaps me and Hunnydd? I lost track and I was sober. Sleep deprived, though.

It was at about this point that I decided to take photos to prove that certain people were at the event. Sadly, because I am a rubbish photographer, I can only prove that for a certain fraction of people who actually were there..

Baron Allesandro was there. Like the redoubtable Baron Bartholomew, he spent most of the day marshalling to make sure that the defeated fighters could get in as much pick-up fighting as possible, bless him. He and Isobel are so very lovely, and also funny. He decided that he needed to take a photo of me to prove that I was at the event and hadn't just sent my camera off with someone else in a bid to seem like a good correspondent. So here's his shot of me:

With two of the locals, whose names I actually do know, but can't remember. Arnfinr will hopefully fill us in any day now and I can come back and edit this bit to look less vague. I feel particularly stupid forgetting the woman's name as I spent hours with her the last time we were in Tassie. Eh, I've forgotten whole years, so it's not like one more name is going to worry anyone.

Hunnydd and Maeve were there, of course. Hunnydd and Rusty stopped by the tournament as part of their World tour of Tasmania, in which they were having a great deal of fun. I am very jealous that they went to the chocolate factory, because in all my visits I have never once made it there. Rusty seemed to be enjoying himself, even with J crapping on at him at length and Hunny and I somehow ending up at girl-on-girl action. Actually, it may not be that weird that he was amused by that part ...


Castle Saburac were there! In big numbers, too. Hi Is! Hugh and Therasa brought Angelina with them (naturally) and she was a very pretty little squirmer. She is reasonably tall but slight, which I think has a causal connection with Therasa's quite low-stress birth (as described: "Not the easiest thing I've ever done, but on the whole, pretty good.") She's a very aware baby, too, I give her three years before she's wielding a boffer.


Art the beautiful apprentice was there. She was feeling very chuffed that the girls wore Roman to support her and Blayney, and Bleddynn and Athol were there to help, too, which was very sweet. They are lovely chaps.

Art's wig had been redone into fiendish corkscrew curls, hours with the curling rags, I'm told. While it seems like a lot of effort, it does make much more sense to do it once and then stick it on your head when you need it rather than trying to dress your own hair for each event. Blayney described this as the cleavage frock and was very supportive in Art's wearing of it.

Young Eadie made her own jewellery for the event, after making garb and shoes under Art's instruction. Art was very proud of her stunt double, and I was very proud of Art for being so inspirational. That wirus is catching!

Their Excellencies were also there, natch, but fairly buggered by this stage. It was a big event and had a lot of elements to it. On the whole, Elyas did a good job, although there were some elements that needed tweaking. The B&B had done a fair bit of that tweaking and needed nothing more than a good lie-in by this stage. They very kindly let us stay at their place, which I must say is fabulous! Great garden and a fabbo view, luckily there are no neighbours downhill because J decided he had to flash the valley, declaring that he was certain Arnfinr did that sort of thing all the time. I was very glad to find that the cats we fed did belong to them, as did the many chickens and ducks, the peacock and the goat. They clearly need a pony, though.

The stars of the day were, of course, our glorious King and Queen, who ran a very good tournament and kept things moving sensibly all day. They also made sure we had a cracking Laurel meeting the next morning that was very sensible and unemotive, bless them. They kindly posed for my Draco and Asa Unplugged shot, but then HeMaj pointed out that it only proved they were there, not that I was allowed into their august presence.

So I held the camera up over my shoulder and took this shot, and while milions of people have dark hair and pale skin, there are very few who have braids that messy. At least there were two braids fully plaited by this stage. I was horrified to learn that Duchesses are supposed to be dignified, courtly and groomed. Luckily for the kingdom, Morwynna has that lot sorted and Asa will join her in the looking good stakes. I ride a horse very well, that's a Duchessly trait, too!

We buggered off to shower at the B&B's and time slipped away (probably because we stopped at the Latrobe RSL for drinks and snacks, surprisingly good, BTW.) So by the time we made it back it was 9pm and dinner was half over. The girls had saved us some tasty lamb, though, and some very good butter beans. The hall looked great with its huge candle chandeliers. A band had been hired to provide music and they were spectacular. It really added to the atmosphere and led to all sorts of pleasantness, including Colette de Harcourt dancing, which is always good. Hunnydd looked great in her bee frock and I say that with completely innocent intentions!

I tried a few low-light shots, but was thwarted by the fact that I am a rubbish photographer and have spent the last two-and-three-quarter years not reading the instructions for my camera. Here's Eadie and Athol, at any rate. They were having a good time, especially once Blayney broke out the good Tequila.

Sadly I have no shots of Katje as she was off making an Imperial Conquest of the kitchen. Fear not, Taswegians, she is Canadian, so at least she understands the Queen and Enid Blyton. I understand there were some Issues with vegetables, but since I saw a handful of broadbeans and had already scoffed a good steak sandwich at the RSL, I could never work out exactly what the issues were. (Deense, I love you, but you are not a good explainer when pissed, as the whole story came out as "ARGH! Vegetables! I can't believe it! How hard? Vegetables!" And it was a few minutes before I could sort out that you were talking about a kitchen disaster and not people performing lewd acts with carrots and courgettes.)

Sir Asbjorn had drunk more than anyone else, because he is Swedish, and yet was far less plastered than most of the others, because he is Swedish. The sweet thing about Sir Asbjorn is that he is exactly himself when plastered, only more so. He swanned up to Art, Eadie and me and said "It's not fair, I moved to the other end of the table to find beautiful ladies, and now you're all up here."

Art replied, "I was up here before, and you moved!" To which Asbjorn cheekily said, "Well, I was in search of more women!" And, having flirted outrageously, proceeded to tell us at great length all about his wife and how much he loves her. Aw ...

As you can see from the shot, Art and Eadie were very beautiful and I scrub up OK for an old girl. I had my good hat on! We managed to hold out till around midnight, offered Blayney a lift back to his B&B, only to be rebuffed in favour of more alcohol, and then managed to get slightly lost on the way back to Arnfinr's. Luckily he was going past us when we took the wrong turn-off and some quick mobile phoning saw the situation fixed. Which is why you should always leave your phone on, J!

We then spent hours gasbagging about the day, the barony and the universe, but without cocoa. So we'll have to return one day and do the D&M thing properly. On the whole we had a grand old time, and discovered the next morning that you can actually do the run from the event to the airport in 63 minutes if you try. Which was a bit of a relief, as things turned out, since that plane left on time.

Oh, and as for the title of this missive, yes, I know that 41 is now usually represented as LXI, but Miss D is from the 16th century, where XXXXI is fine. And being a good Australian, I find four Xes very funny.