J&D's Adventures In Ynys Fawr

It's cold, the air is fresh, the grass is green, people are friendly but everyone speaks with an Australian accent. Where in Lochac are we? Yup, it's Ynys Fawr.

The journey began on Friday night, with us leaving fairly late due to work commitments. But that was OK, Joan was landing at 9.30 and we would be in by 10, not too much of a problem for the magnificent Viscountess Kariena, hostess with the mostess (the footnote of our first meeting occurs at the bottom of this post.) Except that as we checked in, our helpful staff member mentioned the plane was running a little late. About an hour.

Not good news. We went through the exciting process of tracking down someone who might have Her Excellency's mobile number. Eventually Baron Arnfinn came to our rescue and we were able to SMS her (because we thought she would be driving at the time) the delayed flight details. She SMSed back that it would be fine because the new timing would fit in much better with their Majes. We had to break the news that we were not, in fact, Joan, but rather their dreadfully inconsiderate Majes. She was very gracious about all this.

In the end the plane was a little faster than we had been afraid of and so we only delayed everyone by about 45 minutes. You do need to know that Hobart airport is essentially a big shed, damn cold with nothing to do and this was the end of autumn. But sadly Kareina lives just that little bit too far away to have made going home in the middle a sensible option.

It was all hugs and hellos and I noticed that she was tablet weaving the edge to a lovely hood using the cunningest method I have ever seen. The hood was pinned to one large cushion, while the loose warp threads were secured with a giant safety pin and knot to a second large cushion. The first cushion was dropped off the edge of her lap and gravity provided the right tension (and constant!) while the second cushion provided a good working space. GENIUS!

After quick hellos to her lovely husband, whose name I can never remember because I am crap, we all scarpered off to bed due to it being late and the event starting reasonably early the next day.

Now most of you have not met Kareina so you need to know a few things. She is amazingly fit, she rides a trike down the side of Mt Wellington to get from her home to work every day. Then she rides it back up. So she is also amazingly brave, because Tassie drivers = not so good. She is American and lived in Alaska for a long time, so she has that generosity and capability that epitomises the best American qualities. She is also the Seneschal of the group and was running the event, so she's a complete sucker for punishment.

She had already left by the time we all dragged ourselves out of bed the next morning (for we are slugs) and Joan and the nice husband were well into breakfast. Joan very thoughtfully made J coffee, so he was human. We dressed, bundled into the car and went further up the mountain.

The hall itself was a sweet little community centre on big terraces cut into the hillside. It was next to a giant tavern and a small local shop with cafe. The locals had decorated it with banners abungo and the tables were set out in two long lines down the hall so that people could move around and chat, very civilised.

It was a wee bit chilly. The temperature was a little above snow, so the water in the air couldn't freeze, but fell in great glooping splashes that clearly wanted to – a cross between mist and sleet. There was not too much wind and the sun was warming, so, out of the wet, things were lovely as long as you did not sit still for too long.

There were two A&S competitions to take place through the day, one for gifts for the Queen's gift box and one for entertainment. The standard was amazingly high for both.

The event was still in its early phase of milling about and chatting when it became apparent that the King had disappeared. Search parties were organised. I decided to go on a brief walk along the back of several nice gardens with a few helpful ladies (because we are ladies, so we get to take the scenic path!) I had two probable options for where he was; sitting down with a cuppa, or tumbled off the edge of a path with a sprained ankle. Naturally I decided to look where he would be with the latter, because if he had a cuppa, he didn't need rescuing.

Arnfinn and Elyas were more logical and went to look for him where he probably was. They found him very quickly in the coffee shop. Bad King. He grabbed a couple of extra take-aways to keep everyone's beverage levels up.

Back in the feasting hall, the food began to arrive. Kareina is a very good cook and she had a volunteer to do the meats since she is a vegetarian. This meant that the menu was primarily vege with meat used as features, which I think is by far the best way to manage a feast and certainly the one that leaves people feeling least as though they need to hibernate. There were many good dishes with stocks and sauces and three types of flavoured cabbage.

In a small hall. With a gas fire to warm it. And no ventilation.

After about an hour, the warmth of Ynys Fawr was getting a little close. But Kareina, who really is a genius, had told us about some nearby walking trails. So we decided to take the Court bushwalking. Brilliant plan!

The path was called something like Silver Falls and it wound its way past the old water supply pipelines coming down the side of the mountain to a sweet little waterfall. We headed off up the hill. People kept letting me lead the way, which is simply foolish because I have these stumpy little legs and knees that fall apart sometimes and need to be gravity-fed back into place. Luckily Arnfinn and the cute girl from Rowany whose name I have forgotten (surprise!) decided that they would race off ahead, and so everyone else agreed that it was okay to saunter past the Queen rather than taking teeny tiny little steps so that they could stay behind.

We had a lovely amble, the flora went from being eucalypty to great BIG ferns. Really big. Not just bigger than me, bigger than Arnfinn. My damned knee did fall apart briefly, which caused a fuss. I think some people thought J was a bit callous because he kept going, but the only thing that works is to stand on one leg until the soft tissues all go back to where they're meant to be, so that's what I did. If we reign again, the reverse of the "I have no brain" note needs to say "And only my left elbow really works properly."

The falls were everything Kareina had promised. Here we all are standing beside them. The people standing on either side of me in the middle (I've got my murrey and blue big jacket on) were only that short because I was wearing pattens and they were squidging. Patronising rotters. Arnfinn naturally took pride of place up the front, because he is the prettiest (He's mostly obscuring Baroness Aine, who actually is the prettiest). Note the chap to his left wearing the woodland green. And with his long blond hair held up in a leather thong. And tooled leather greaves and vanbraces that you can't see. Yes, my friends, there are several elves in Ynys Fawr. J endeared himself to the Baron by pointing to this chap and saying "Sidekick!" at every available opportunity.

But still, it was one of those magical settings that is fabulous in dodgy tracky dacks and even more fun in a frock. The locals all smiled and waved as we walked past each other and the fresh air did everyone a world of good. Plus, most of the cabbage gas had freed itself from everyone before we got back to the hall.

One of the enduring mysteries of Ynys Fawr is why Elyas can't get laid. This is Elyas, he's sort of the local Miles de Colwell. (Sorry Miles.) He's not quite as much a man of the world as our Miles, but he's similarly a nice looking young chap that many women have expressed interest in and yet he comes away perennially empty-handed. At our Coronation, Arnfinn was a bit pissed and asked if we could come up with an award for women who will shag Elyas.

I think that's a bit harsh, but I do suspect that Elyas, like Miles, has a bit of the Captain Oblivious gene. I know all about this gene because J is its archetype. In our last reign he cheerfully recounted a tale to me about a conversation he had with Yves. Yves had been saying that being King was the biggest chick magnet ever. J expressed surprise, and said that women didn't tend to go after him. Yves pointed out that was because they were afraid that I would kill them horribly. I smiled, then paused, and pointed out to him that the only reason he'd noticed that I fancied him at that Ursie event was because I told him he was sleeping in my bed and that we would be having sex.

There are not enough women in the SCA who are happy to walk up to a good man and say "Right, come on. Let's see if you're worth the effort."

Although to be fair to Miles, I should amend that to 'There are not enough sane and attractive women in the SCA who ...'

Back to Elyas. Girls, if you're looking at the shot above and thinking, "Now THERE'S a man who looks good in a natural setting!" the B&B of Ynys Fawr would love to hear from you. Comes with a wide range of skills and attachments. We can arrange for steak knives.

We strolled back to the hall (because we still had Court to do) and once there, sorted out the multiplicity of awards, including the difficult scribey bits. I forgot to mention in the Aneala post that the blessed Mistress Branwen had done all the callig there, which is why their scrolls looked good. I did the callig for YF, which is why theirs were crap. But it was Queenly crap, dammit!

There were some good AoAs given to people who very much deserved them. We announced that Baron Somerled was the Lochac Rapier Champion and that Midwinter was going to Southron Gaard. We announced the A&S comps, the gift being a very very hard choice between Piers's hand-tooled etched knife and Kareina's tiny waxed tablets in a beautifully sewn wool cover with tablet-woven edges and cords. Piers won by half a point, because I am evil and will succumb to shiny things every time. And because it was the first knife he'd ever made and it was utterly beautiful, over-achiever! Kareina's tablets were also divine, but she suffered from the curse of competency where we all assume that she can sew tiny little covers to tiny little tablets with no effort whatsoever and so didn't mark her on the oh wow! scale.

Declan won the entertainment section over Hrolf. Declan has a clear tenor voice that he used brilliantly in his song so that everyone had this little throb of emotion despite the words being standard folky faff. Hrolf shared several of his poems, which were actually excellent, he just lost out to Declan's X factor. But that was all right, because we were determined to do something nice for Hrolf.

Hrolf refers to himself as an SCA dinosaur in Lochac, but he is actually more like Homo erectus; in an evolutionary line with the modern folk, just earlier. He has a huge research library on his shelves and in his head, and while he can be the Voice of Doom regarding change/young people today/newfangled yuppie tosh, he can also be the voice of reason. Even when I don't agree with him, I've always found it useful to read his arguments carefully because he will be representing the views of a reasonable number of people. And if you can convince him that your new idea is good, then it will almost always be an idea that has a coherent plan attached to it and is likely to win broad support.

Anyway, what does one give to a man who needs only a comfy chair and an audience for his tales of way back when?

An Admiralty! We made him Admiral of the South Seas and gave him a list of responsibilities including taxation that should see him come up with several cunning and possibly slightly tyrannical schemes. The look of glee that raced through his eyes was thrilling. I can't wait to see what he comes up with for November, although we did warn him that he wasn't allowed to press-gang.

We also made a slight law change to encourage K&Qs to give Grants of Arms to former B&Bs who have done an excellent job in addition to the standard Court Barony. We then gave a GoA to Gershom, who really deserved one.

The feast wrapped up just after dark, because it gets cold in these here parts and no amount of cabbage can keep things toasty. We rolled back to Kareina's for nattering with Arnfinn and co. J foolishly caught a lift with a chap named Dan. Dan is a lovely lovely man, but drives down steep winding mountainside roads one-handed while looking for his tape in the console. He also got lost. When they were more than 10 minutes late, having left right behind us, I thought to turn my mobile on and receive the "HELP!" messages. J now knows how I feel when he treats Sydney roads like the chicane at Monza.

I ran off briefly with K's hubby to see if I had money in the bank and to buy some junk food. Since I had lots of money, I bought lots of junk food, which appalled healthy K but made her husband very happy. I had to insist that she wasn't allowed to give his Lindt away. We bought mango for K, for we are nice.

Arnfinn was very amusing, but Aine had disappeared. After a while he rang to see what was happening, since she was meant to be having one drink with Elyas and crew and then heading down to see us. Elyas had sodded off as soon as they walked into the pub, leaving Aine and another girl to deal with the locals (think Jeff Foxworthy video) alone. There was a brief hope that it was because he had found a girl, then Aine arrived and burst that bubble with the reality that he was a big wuss.

The next day there was a fighter prac at Hrolf's where J was able to Spout Wisdom. I think some people learned some useful things, goodness knows I find it easy to learn from him and I am a terrible student. I patterned a few of the girls and need to remember to send them more instructions, as well as send Maddy my black linen frock for her to keep. She will look so cute in it!

Snorri turned up with a 'horse' for me to ride, it was a white wooden unicorn called Snowdrop. Utterly silly and completely fabulous. He pushed me down the street on it and I pushed him up the street on it. I am hoping that someone has photos somewhere. She was a fine and majestic beast, although clearly not a very fussy unicorn.

When it was time for us to head off to the airport, Hrolf volunteered to drive us in and we had a fun time chatting with him about the history of the group and directions they are exploring. He and Maddy seem to have some resurgence of the keen, which is good, because you need to be able to see your history. He also took us to the best-value and best-tasting fish and chips that I have had in years. Down on the docks, the one you need to walk up a gangplank to get into, brilliant!

It was the last event we shared with Joan, and we were so grateful to her for all the wrangling and soothing that she accomplished. We have never had such an easy reign, and she was a large part of that. Now I have time to make her a hat or two! So I should finish J's gambeson and Katje's Pennsic wear and get onto that ...


Footnote: Kareina and I first met in the West at Duke Stephen of Beckenham's New Year's Party, 2002. That was the party that Fabes spent an hour playing the slapping game with another Westie Knight. It was also where I met the magnificent West Viscountess Lucrezia (whose contact details I promptly lost, dammit). I knew that I would like her when, after staring at Fabes playing the slapping game for a few minutes, I accidentally vocalised "And they say there's no homoerotic subtext …" and she was the only person to laugh. A lot.

I met Kareina a bit later that night after I had just been in a bunch of women talking about what they had gotten out of their first and second marriages (apparently a car for the first, house for the second, holiday home for the third is standard). They all treated me like a teenager because I wasn't wearing make-up. They were all about 28, I was about to turn 35. Uther of all people explained the make-up thing to me ("You don't wear lipstick, you talk about politics all the time. Either you're a lesbian or you're a college student." If I didn't disagree with Uther on most issues, I think there's a witty person in there that I'd get on very well with.)

I ran away from the Wedding Club and looked desperately for a normal person. There in the corner was a slight woman sewing a lovely linen shirt. We chatted about stitches for 10 minutes or so. I was reassured that for every crazy American, there is a good one out there, too. I can't tell you how good it was to find her in Lochac, particularly because the chap she was with that night was not 'right', whereas her husband clearly belongs with her.

Top Gear

Shorter, but just as funny as the car football. The boys go to a carwash in a soft-top car. And for all you lazy sods who haven't been bohered to follow the link two posts down, it's where the lads see how well a Mini can ski-jump. Priceless.

Top Gear Series 6

I'll be amazed if I canmake the tech work on this one, but if it does, here's the section of last week's Top Gear that had J falling to his knees with laughter.

Top Top Gear

SBS are showing the recent series of Top Gear on Monday nights, bless their cotton socks. You do not need to like cars to like Top Gear, hell, I can't even drive. All you need is a healthy appreciation for British ingenuity and stupidity. Not sure if this sounds like your cup of tea? Then check out this gem from YouTube. I had little tears of happiness and national pride ...

But parts of it are charming

Carrying on from the other day, I have spent more time surfing the web aimlessly in the past week than ... well, ever, because the last time I had this much time on my hands it was 1995 and what passed for the web was small and rather dull and filled with PhD synopses, geek jokes and porn.

One can only read so many PhDs. Porn somehow never made it into my world, and geek jokes sail straight over my head. While there are a bunch of programs that I can drive like Fangio; I have No Idea how any of it works. It's the reverse of old-fashioned cars, where I understand the theory of a starter motor quite well and can change a tyre, but can't drive.

The web has always been a tool for me, in the same way that a good dictionary is, but never a
place to hang out casually. So I must apologise profusely to she-knows-who for being startled by her H/D piece, because not only was it well-written (in and of itself. Compared to the other fanfic I've met in the last two days, she's bloody Dylan Thomas), but she does nice things with her speculative pairings that the characters would enjoy, rather than the nasty stuff that's out there. Oh so many simmering Alan Rickman fixations in the world, who'd have thought it?

About 20 years ago (maybe a bit more) I read a short story that may well have been by Anne Maccaffrey (I seem to recall it being in a more fantasy-oriented collection than the other speculative fiction writers I delved into). It was about a girl who was at 'psychic school' and one of their assignments was to go through reams of computer tape from the systems that ran every home in their world and listen to it all before archiving.

Her fellow students were all bored solid and mocked many of the people who had committed various things to tape 40 years before. At the climax of the story, she stood before her classmates and bawled them out over their attitude. Having the tapes remind them of their loved one's birthdays was purely sensible, she argued. That woman who had her tape tell her to eat better and exercise more, well, it must have worked, because three months later she cancelled the instruction. The woman who kept her husband's voice on the tape in the years after he died, the man who had his wife tape the recipes for his favourite meals so that he could cook them when she went away ... all these things weren't foolish, they were human. What was on the tapes was about reaching out and connecting, and sometimes humans had to use a computer to do that.

Her diatribe was overheard by her professor and she was awarded full marks. And whoever the writer was, she was right. Aside from all the porn and all the international newspapers and museums, there's this huge part of the web that is people saying "I'm alive, it's important, is anyone listening?" And that's not sad, that's human. Terry Pratchett, who is probably my favourite satirist (sorry Pope and Rochester) has a piece in one of his books where he talks about how much language is "I'm alive, you're alive". People connecting so that they know they're not alone. God, I've come over all Howard's End …

The point of all this, is that it's startling and humbling to see the rawness that people reveal on the web. And hard. One lj I read this afternoon is by a friend of mine who I really like but am not hugely close to simply because we've never had the time to forge a close relationship and live too far apart for it to happen casually. She's an amazing woman; physically striking and appealling, with a big brain and a wide open view of the world. And yet she feels crushed by things at the moment, because she's lonely and there are stupid men in the world.

I posted a comment that was meant to be reassuring, and I'm working slowly on an email to her, but, of course, what she needs is to have more people there. Because if I was there, I'd take her out on a big walk through her city. We'd go rowing and try and catch ducks. We'd perve on the hot senior boys at the best school and run away feeling like Germaine Greer. We'd sit in bars and bemoan the fact that hot schoolboys turn into potatoey men. In person, I'm useful. Online, I'm not.

And yet. Reading through the posts of other friends of hers who had written back to her, you could see that they love her. Fingers crossed, she could see that they loved her. And it's a good thing to be able to turn to the world and say "I need to know I'm loved" and to have a response.

It's especially good when it's a reasonable response. One of the other blogs I looked at was an old friend from uni who is writing these days. He's not a bad writer, but he's stilted and you can see that a lot of his work is about machinating characters towards a point where he can get in his Big Dramatic Scene. While I completely accept that sometimes you just need to do this, you should never be able to see where it's done. He put some stories up and asked for criticism. Most of his friends wrote "Yeah, great!" One, who I think I probably know, wrote "Well, these bits are problematic." She was completely right, too. But his other friends turned on her for being critical and unsupportive and went back to telling him that he was a genius. He's not. And if he listened to her, he would be a better writer.

So my first friend needs to believe things about her that are true; that she's amazing and that she's someone who other people are grateful to have in their lives. My second friend (well, ex-friend, really, I haven't seen him in 12 years) needs to sort the truth from the tosh. And I'll never know if he can. Unless the next story he posts is markedly improved …

The other thing that I've noticed about blogs and ljs is that people use them to live parts of their lives that they keep quiet in the real world. So one of the knitting girls has a whole section of S&M, whereas I have met her and in the real world she is more twin-set and pearls. Now this part I completely get, because that's what we all do in the SCA. Perfectly reasonable post-modern cyberchicks like Autumnheart become twirling figures of Romantic fantasy. A world-weary cynic like Mr C becomes a character of epic proportions, with his own Mount Doom. A sweet, gentle guy like Sir Phil becomes -- actually, he stays a sweet, gentle guy. Southron Gaard's kk is an arse-kickingly focussed wordsmith in the real world, and a witty troubadour filled with glee in the SCA.

Even Miss D and the Duchess aren't the same. And not just because I try not to tell people to go fuck themselves while wearing a frock. The Duchess cares more about people. She remembers that it's important to say hello and goodbye to everyone, while D is just focussed on getting to the airport. I think she has more of the nice bits of me.

Early on in my time in the SCA, someone described it as a place where we can all be better versions of ourselves. Now I'm not wholly sure that this definition stands up to scrutiny. Some people are much worse. But it is a place where we can try out ideas about ourselves and see how they fit. For example, it's the only place in my life these days where I get to hang out with a lot of kids and be mad Aunty D. I enjoy that a lot. I have a feeling that the SCA has been for me what lj and blogs are for others.

This is what I looked like when I joined, in fact, this is me at my first Festival. I had a hoot. The King of the West pursued me (hey, he was going home in a week; guaranteed amusement with no entanglements!), various Chiv bought all my drinks, but at the same time they all explained to me their version of how things worked. There were classes on things that I realised I could actually do. People who I had been told were scary were in fact interesting and about my age (28).

I kept meeting people who I would never have talked to anywhere else, and wanting to keep talking to them. (And yes, the KoW ended up being a good and valued friend.) I didn't really sleep the whole weekend (note the Monday bags under the eyes.) But how much of that was because the SCA is a good place for people, and how much of that was because I was a fit and slight girl with long hair and round breasts?

I did have something of a chance to test that out over the next few months, because I'd been back from Festival for 10 days when I rode home from a gig in town and was wiped out by a taxi hitting me full side-on.

So this is what I looked like four weeks later. This is the comparatively nice shot after the swelling and bruising started to fade, because the other photos are just hidjous.

And the SCA was there for me again. People who had only known me for a few months brought me groceries. Mouse loaned me shirts that I could fit my cast into, and drove me about. She also engineered the Great May Coronet Face Scare incident, but the less said about that, the better. Muirghein and Elfinn fussed over me like mother ducks and a swathe of Ursies were fabulous and helped me with day-to-day things like housework. The SCA was a huge part of the network of people I cared for who helped me through those months.

And despite having concussion and forgetting most of 1994 and the first half of 1995, I remember all those kindnesses. I remember all the people who went out of their way to say "You're alive, and we're happy about that."

And what I've realised, is that you don't need a near-death accident to want to know that your friends and acquaintances are happy that you're alive. And that even if it's inept, gestures do help and do make a difference. So I'd better go and write that email now.

The Internet is a Scary Place

Some years ago Fruitbat said to me: "Start a Blog! It'll be great! I'll read it!" I took this as a sign that he was desperate for more lunchtime work distraction. Blogs, I thought, were for the under-employed.

Since finally succumbing to peer group blogging a week and a bit ago, I have found myself reading the blogs and ljs of my friends and acquaintances and following their links. I now see why no-one gets any work done anymore.

In a short period of time I was able to find out that K really is happy about the sleeves and buttonholes (16!), that Mr C and Sir Phil were able to enjoy a weekend's ride with the added bonus of watching a friend barf McDonald's, that Persi and Oliver are the two cutest and most advanced babies ever, that Art hates ellipses (but I LOVE THEM!!!), that Rohesia had broken one of her vertebrae but would be fine with rest, that Myna has more crazy brilliant frock plans than anyone I know, and that one of my friends, who I love and admire, writes Harry Potter fan fic with a Potter/Malfoy slash bent.

Yup. You heard me.

It's not as though there's anything odd about this girl. She's hugely clever, gorgeous, talented and witty. In fact, some of her writing was really quite good (of COURSE I read it, I'm an EDITOR, I read EVERYTHING), but, still, HARRY POTTER SLASH???!!!

Is nothing sacred?

Baron BB did nothing for my brain when I mentioned this and he said "King Draco?" He is a bad man and now I have to bleach my poor little brain. I think that it might be the universe punishing me for some of the SCA homo-erotic subtext that I have pointed out to others in the past. (But seriously: let's all take our shirts off, oil up, engage in manly wrestling and speak of the love that binds men together and they expect no-one to start handing out the lubricant?)

K rightly pointed out that there are entire genres of Sci Fi that are nothing more than Fan Fic (Dr Who, Star Wars, Trek, etc) and that slash has always been a big part of this. I think hers is a perfectly reasonable argument, but I remain startled. It's like the moment early this year when a dear friend confided that she was very disturbed about herself: "I saw the Narnia movie, and the lead actor was so hot! And I had to look at myself sternly and say 'Mate, he's 15.'"

Autumnheart's LJ was a much less scary place and filled with a great story about her family skiing trip that has made me hugely jealous. I might take myself ice-skating tomorrow if the rain doesn't abate. She also had a whole afternoon's procrastination in the form of quizzes. I was not surprised to learn that I would be the rabbit in Monty Python's Holy Grail, most comfortable on the starship Moya, a smidgen ahead of Serenity, although I was a little startled to learn that I was most likely to be Big Bird should I ever turn into a Muppet. Since it was only Sesame St Muppets, I suppose that's better than Bert. My favourite was the Jane Austen quiz, here, mostly because it said that I would definitely be Elizabeth Bennet and I still love her.

I am too afraid to mention the Harry Potter quiz results. Goodness knows who our poor characters are shagging in the blogosphere.

Cold War

Unfortunately there will be no pix for this post, because I dropped my camera during the packing for Cold War and it broke. The worst thing about there being no pix is the lack of shots of Finn and Persi; they were so cute!!! I don't know why my friends have all the sweetest and best-behaved babies in the world, but they do. This is also a very lame recollection because I spent most of the event dozy and near the heater. I'm a tired old woman, so sue me.

Back to the War. We missed the Friday night, so people already had hangovers by the time we arrived on Saturday. I could not raise J from the dead on Saturday morning, so we were much later than we meant to be. I rang Hrothers and Gui on our way there and warned them that we were running to J time. Gui asked if we would like them to delay the fighthing till we got there, which was very sweet but would have been outrageous. We said biff hard, biff strong, see you when we get there.

As it turned out the road out was a breeze and it took less than 90 minutes, plus a stop for snacks. When we arrived we were greeted by a bunch of kids at the gate, one of them said "Who's that?" and the littlest one said "It's the Queen!" J burst out laughing and decided that they must have been at the Children's Fort Battle. And yes, they did prove to have been a part of the midget army.

Berengar had been a complete star and given up a room to ourselves. We offered Blayney the spare bed because he was up without Art and with a case of bronchitis and we thought that staying a tent was just bloody stupid. Apparently I have never quite lost the instincts that I honed in my War Zone years because when he came into sleep later that night, I immediately sat up in a threatening manner, then, without waking, realised that it was him and he was meant to be there, rolled over and went back to sleep. If he hadn't told me, I'd never have known. Although that may shed a little light on why sundry people have made a point of waking me up to let me know they're going to the loo in years past.

I have to confess that I saw exactly NONE of the war. It was damn cold. We did walk down at one point, but it was during a hold. Instead I spent the whole time in the Craft Room or else playing boffer with the kids. Most of the kids were from the Dragonfly Household; I can't recall its proper name, but they had a great cooking tent and lovely dragonfly banners and shields, especially for the kids. BJ was there, too, and MoG's son. They are both very good with the younger kids and BJ has some excellent plans on boffer warfare that I will need him to put into action for next Festival.

The littlest kid was named Daniel and he was a tiger. I see now why Grace and Dickon were complaining that it's hard to hit the little ones, because you just don't want to. Being a big mean adult laying waste to a six year old is just too mean for words. Of course, being a six year old, it's FUN to lay waste to adults, so he slapped me a beauty across the hip. The older children were keen to learn some techniques, so I shared the one or two useful bits of info that I knew, then wrangled BJ into sharing more.

BJ is secretly a Boffer God. His brain is a seething mass of cunning plans for war and victory. Vandel has given this young man a disturbing canvas on which to paint his genius large, and I think that we should all support that. He was fun to fight with, too, although he started off saying "I can't hit you, you're the Queen." Then "You're only little." I suspect the latter was a goad so that I would open up my guard to a sneaky blow. It did not work, for I have spent nearly 40 years being tricksy and he has much to learn. I left the young folks playing steady biff and went back to the craft room, because I am old and lazy.

The craft room had some scheduled classes but they all sort of blurred into one while we faffed around and did things that we were interested in. Helene was teaching people how to make hose, which is a very good thing as we all need more hose. Katje was teaching pewter casting and I did some string. Finn chatted with people about musicky stuff and there was general usefulness all round.

I have a theory about SCA A&S. There are the people who do things, the people who want to learn how to do things, and the people who don't actually do most things but tell everyone what they would do if they were doing it. The last category are a bit annoying, and I think that I was probably a bit less than gracious with a few who stopped and stood right behind some of the people who were making a good effort to learn new skills and peered over their shoulders.

I could argue that "I might just get you to step back a bit there, she's just learning this one and it can be a bit oppressive having people looking over your shoulder while you're learning." is actually a compassionate way of phrasing things. But I was assured by several bystanders that the unspoken "You idiot." was fairly clear. There's a reason I will never receive a Lochac Order of Grace.

Oh well. We ended the day with a stack more people knowing how to lucet and finger-loop. We all failed Tyg's felting plans, because it was just too cold and we were too wussy. Sorry Tyg. Felting is a summer sport!

Tyg did, however, go from never having done one type of finger looping to doing a perfect three feet of it, so she won the I am a Craft Goddess stakes. Which is quite normal for Tyg.

Mathilde was up for the day and that was a cunning plan because we had BJ's AoA to confer. Or Lord Robert Stoner as he insisted on being called. AEdward and Corin went a little too far with the stoner jokes, so I made a point of shouting them down so that I could talk briefly about the huge amount of work that he did that justified his AoA. It wasn't one that came about through recommendations from his parents, either, but from the demands of many midgets, plus Vandel, Konga & Co and quite a number of Polit adults who stopped us at Festival and said "You know what's really getting to be overdue ...?"

Anyway, he's another great kid and I am very happy knowing that his parents are as proud of him as they should be, and he of them.

The feast on Saturday was huge. Torg and Wulfsige do their More Meat Feast every year. No prizes for guessing what the centrepiece of the food is. They also had scads and scads of brilliantly prepared vegies, so everyone was well catered for except the people who were on strict diets. They were stymied by the olive oil and butter, but it's good for you! Kept out the cold a treat at any rate. It's one of the least glam but best eating feasts on the annual Rowany calender and I do think it's worth going to Cold War just for it.

A quick aside at this point. When you reign, you get into events for free. Which is good because you spend a bloody fortune on flights. This means that two free cold wars out of three makes up for the $50-odd I spent on entry fees for us last year when J arrived, had an argument with a fighter, and decided to go all within the space of an hour. Could he not have had the argument before I gave Berengar cash?

Now that I think about it, J had his knickers in a knot the Cold War before that, too, and Berengar helped me look for him for about an hour. All this goes to show that Berengar is a good chap who I am glad to count among my friends and that J has some hormonal flux every year at the beginning of June.

This year, J decided to have an argument with someone who was not me nor one of our friends, so that was a distinct improvement! He was also completely in the right, so that was good too.

J came up to the craft room and said, "Um, I shouted at someone. But they were in the wrong and they were an utter twonk." I checked that he hadn't just done a global nana loss and then told him that it was all right. Because while, in a perfect world, J would never lose his temper, if he's going to it should at least be at nasty little men who have no sense of manners.

The young people stayed up late that night and partied. We are not young, so we went to bed early. Alfar was there with his terrible virus that he gave to everybody (and they were all so happy about this). He was wearing his wolfskin cloak; I swear that it loooks like malamute. Or the Abominable Snowman. If he had been feeling better he could have had fun scaring the children.

Two of the children, Rachel and Sarah, showed me some of their acrobatic tricks, which were very impressive. The best part involved a shoulder stand and a leap, and they and cousin Dali told me very earnestly not to freak out, they'd practiced it a lot. Too cute.

The Sunday continued much the same. Miss Krin was working on her Gaudete frock, having finished her Sunday frock on Saturday. It is possible that the Gaudete frock will one day be finished, but that will involve her having more than 10 minutes in which she is not doing things to help others. Too bloody selfless by half.

Most of the lads looked a bit the worse for wear, except for Sean who manages to look better when he has a mild hangover than he does completely sober (of course, he looks appalling with a serious hangover, so that's OK). Judy looked brilliant, as she always does, and I was annoyed with myself for not snaffling some time to catch up with her. I think I get stuck in Queen Mother mode and run around waving, opening hospitals and looking for the gin. Actually, if I had found the gin, that would have been a perfect excuse to catch up with Judy ...

Sunday Court was fun. We had given Willem de Grey a Rowan on Saturday and that night we gave Berengar a Golden Tear which he actually seemed surprised by. Can't imagine why, he's a legend at usefulness. We also sent some awards up to Radburne and asked B to convey our words. In the end he wussed out and had Hrothgar do the eloquency. That was a shame because we were in Aneala that weekend and got a great laugh telling people that in Radburne, even as we dined, the role of the Queen was being played by Sir B.

We were also able to give out a great swag of our cyphers. It was good to be able to put them into people's hands and let them know how much they had meant to us through the course of the reign. everyone had contributed something different, from Lilith's sweet helpfulness to Marie and Joan's Bloody Indispensibleness. Hunydd declared she had done nothing, but she was forgetting that she said all the evil things that Mrs Queen couldn't say, thus saving me from having Ulf do his frowny thing.

Sunday's feast was also excellent, with loads of yummy food courtesy of Mouse and Tops, all out on the table nice and early, which is just what you want when it is cold and near the solstice. We left just after dinner that night, before the bardic comp got underway. I have forgotten who won, although I remember it being someone surprising, perhaps Fitzy? But we did get back in time for the Grand Prix and Ferrari did well, so all was right with the world. And the grumpy cat was very glad to see us, because that cold was still going strong.

Interesting fact

When you start writing a post in Blogger, and then you save it as a draft and write another one quickly and then go back and finish the first one, it publishes them both in the order that they were begun.

So scroll down to underneath the silly goth bit to read the fascinating and image-filled story of our adventures in Aneala!

Another brief diversion

Sir Phil popped by and left a post on my blog, but I don't have an LJ account to say anything back on his (which J showed me how to find). So Phil, if you're reading, YAY for fitness. It is good for you and makes many other problems disappear in a warm inner glow of endorphins and pain.

And, just for you, I took the Goth test, which is surprisingly accurate for those who knew me 20 years ago. These days I score as a Grumpy Old Woman, but there was no category for that. Deense, I have seven buttonholes done.

You scored as Romantic Goth. You are a romantic goth, better known as a traditional goth. You are probably quickly identified as a goth by outsiders. Black lace, bats, and moonlit cemetaries are just a few of your favorite things. Click on my name to take my other tests if you liked this one. Romantic Goth 88% Ethereal Goth 79% Old-school Goth 75% Anything-Goes Goth 58% Death Rocker 58% Perky Goff 54% Industrial/Rivet-Head 54% Fantasy Goth 50% Cyber-goth 46% Understanding Outsider 46% Confused Outsider 21% What subcategory of Goth best fits you? created with QuizFarm.com

This is the Aneala post, at last ...

Right. After several attempts and much faffing around with images, here we go.

Aneala is one of our favourite Baronies in the Kingdom. To be honest, we have several faves, and all for good reasons, so it's easier to say that the Kingdom usually splits into Groups we would happily move to, Groups we like to visit, and Groups that have decided to go mad and piss us off.

Aneala is in the first of these categories, for many reasons. I may well be a bit biased, because the first two times I went there I came away Princess, but the people are gorgeous, the food is yummy, the events are splendid and the city itself is very liveable.Of course, I have never been there in summer, because I would melt like the delicate little petal that I am.

In the months before our visit we had gone through the Baronial polling process. The process itself is another story, and will probably be another post at some point. But the Anealan vote had been particularly difficult because it was very close and each set of candidates had their really brilliant qualities and their significant issues. In the end, we went with the slight majority and selected the newer couple who had expressed a coherent plan for future directions and who had a better background in organisation and administration. This was hard for us, because we actually knew and liked the other couple better, but the Barony as a whole had fewer issues with the couple that we chose, and more belief in their ability to do the job they had set out for themselves.

We did receive some Serious Issue warnings, but it turned out that the matter was actually a rumour that had already gone through the grievance process properly and been found to be baseless and started because someone felt they weren't getting enough attention. I don't know what it is about Aneala and young women who act as though they're in a scene from Passions, but it's happened a few times now. The older women seem to deal with it all very sensibly each time, bless them and their limitless patience. I still need to do some information sharing on that one since J didn't follow it up. Lazy J.

The Saturday started with a shoot at one of the local parks. J borrowed a bow and had a jolly good time. I was quite tired, which is what I think led to me coming down with bird flu later. It was fun to watch, and on the side the lads were playing a game of kubb. There is a new canton/household being built in the southernmost parts of the area and there were some lovely people there from that group. Like an idiot, I left my camera in its bag all morning. I may have remembered to snap a few shots of the targets, but the memory card I had in that day corrupted and so we will never know.

J did surprisingly well in the shoot, I think he came second or third in one part pf the day. Given that he was shooting against Nathan Blacktower, Catherine D'Arc and some of the other damn talented Anealan archers, that's pretty good!

The second part of the shoot was brilliant, they had made little animal shapes out of ply and covered them in fur. Archers stood before an arc containing a rat, a stoat, a fox, a bunny, a hare and several other small furries and let fly. Hysterical and challenging! Genius!

I really needed a nap that afternoon, but J decided to have one instead and left me to prepare Court. Kings are Evil. [Although quick sidebar to say that King Draco is Lovely. Had a brief chat with him this afternoon where we decided that in addition to the general chat the Crown has with contenders in the Crown Tournament, a section should be added where they say "Now, how's your dickhead tolerance? Because it's probably going to need to go up a bit ..." So very true. He is a wise Monarch.] So by the time we got to the event that evening, I was knackered.

The wonderful B&B of Aneala, Morwenna and Creagg, were taking care of us and they had given me some delightful ladies in waiting. Leofleada was just gorgeous, and we were very happy that she had been recommended for a Rowan by people, because that is exactly the sort of award she should have, and she is exactly the sort of person who exemplifies the virtues of a Rowan.

There was an A&S display which was the only thing that I though to take photos of. I hate to say it but I have completely forgotten one of the entries. I am sure there were three ... I think I took shots of it on my damaged memory card. They don't call em memory cards for nuthin.

Anyway, the other two were some lovely beadwork by one of the newer ladies, who was very gracious and very sweet, and a 14th century set of men's garb from Catherine.

I really love Catherine's costuming, she has a good eye for what looks good and right. Nathan looked fabbo in this outfit and she had tailored it to show off the fact that he is still slender and shapely after years in the SCA, which cannot be said for all of us. It looked good on and moved really well, but I liked the neat and practical finishing most of all. Plus the dainty little buttons!

She also made a matching pouch which was embroidered and then detailed with tablet-woven braid. She does good tablet weaving, I heard that her father is also into it, half her luck! Anyway, I wanted to have more of a chat with her about things but ran out of time. This is the annoying part of reigning, no time to talk with the people that you like about things you're both interested in. I decided that you can be a good Queen or a good Laurel but not both at once, or at least, not as good as you'd like to be. Fingers crossed we can go back over in September and have a bit of time to talk.


The event was run by Catalina del Gata. She is another one of those amazing Anealans who seems to be good at everything. She does very beautiful embroidery, and was kind enough to gift me a small piece of reticella that looked as though it had taken days. I will scan it in soon and post a picture.

She had the event very well in hand. There was theatre from the drama mob (mostly Joachim and Jane, a very funny and terribly punny pirate play), lots of singing, which Carlie seemed to be a big and tuneful part of, and then some other bits including a presentation of gifts from the Barony in which little Jamie (Carlie and Creagg's son) was meant to say "Aaaaarrrrrgh!" but was overcome with stage fright. It was appallingly cute.

The food was great, and I think I ate more than I meant to. Danielle, or Nicole in-game, was my other lady in waiting and it was very good to spend some time with her. Although she did give me bird flu. But she is growing up to be such a beautiful and sensible young woman that I am prepared to overlook the assassination attempt just this once.

This is an out-of-sequence shot of Catalina's headwear, which I think someone made for her. Must find out who, it was very nicely done. Smart people, bah!

We were able to give out some good awards in court, including an AoA for Carlie and a Lily for Catherine. The Greymane family did very well; Ben received a shining helm, Ysabella got a Lily and Kane received a Promethean Flame. Rhianwen missed out and instead had to be out much-put-upon herald. The woman is a saint. On the topic of sainthood, Kane had petitioned that we make Mistress Evelyn one. I sadly admitted that the BoD would kill us were we to flout its religious strictures so, but we gave her a gift of of a beautiful crucifix, which I think had been made by Cluain's Serafina.

The court ended with Rowans for Creagg and Morwenna. They had to put up with a lot of crap in their time as B&B and they have handled it all brilliantly. There were personal bits from people in the Kingdom who didn't cope with the fact that their household was a bit differently structured to others (they make it work with equal love and equal power, and it is a very good relationship for everyone concerned.) There were the historic bits from the R days. R is such a mythic figure, and I mean that quite literally. He's like one of the gods in the Mahabharatta (sp?) who is angelic one day and demonic the next. I wish he was angelic all the time, good R is brilliant. Sadly he's also brilliant at being bad R. Well, at least he's a consistent over-achiever ... Then they have the little bits of daily silliness that most Baronies seem to have some version of. In Aneala it's the idea that a 15-minute drive is a long drive. J tried explaining to some people that it can take us 15 minutes to get out of our street if the traffic is bad (on those days I tend to walk past the gridlocked cars exaggerating my limp.)

Back to the point, C&M dealt with everything with big bucketloads of grace and cheerfulness and they built and encouraged along the way. This takes good sense and some fair degree of balls, because at various times they have had to listen caringly and then say "No" to most of the peers in the group. And those are big scary peers. I really like them all, but I like being on the same side as they are even more.

On the Sunday, a tournament was held by Abertridwr, the Canton of the south part of Perth. I was starting to come down with flu and well and truly down with exhaustion, but I still had a very good time. It was a small field, so they decided to fight round-robin, best of three. The list field was gorgeous, and people had made a very good effort with their own tents and accoutrements. The total effect was very eye-catching and pleasing. I was very happy because I had a comfy chair with blanky, so I could slip in some short nanna napping as the day went on. I took lots of shots of the fighting, these were some of the good ones. Miles and Haelfdene had a fun few bouts, though I cannot remember who won. I didn;t know who to cheer for out of the two of them, since Miles was a guardsman and H was a former Champion of mine, so I generically supported. They're both good fighters and lovely people, so that was fine.

This is a shot of Jane Grenville, who will be the next Baroness of Aneala. She's very nice, and apparently has gone out with/flatted with/went to uni with a whole stack of people who have come up to me over the last months and said "Hey! I know her!"

Now that I think about it, I have met her before, too. But this was the first time that I sorted out the name with the face. Two tonnes of metal to the head does bad things for memories. That's my excuse and I am standing by it.

I was very surprised to see how many people came out to support the fighters and watch the Tourney. Up here it's usually just stickjocks and girlies with food and sewing. In Aneala it was an event in itself. Lots of unattached people, a well-thought-out set-up for food and a good site that had amenities close to hand.

There was even an associated household of metal weapons chaps who are doing cross-over SCA, I think they may have been called the Dark Company, but since bird flu has clouded all of my memories of this weekend, I could be on crack there. Bunch of good looking men with sweet-faced wives and cute kids. They do some cross-over stuff in a group called WAMA using wooden swords with a close-cell foam edge called 'fluffies'. The effort that it took me not to make any porn jokes when the nice man was explaining that all to me was very great indeed. I blame Duke Fabian for the fact that I know what a fluffer is, since I am a good and pure lass. Although that sentence could probably do with some explanation if I want to substantiate the final clause -- he was making jokes with Cornelius in front of me and they are bad, smutty men who are bad and smutty.

[And at this point Deense is saying, "D, the only reason that you never watched porn is that you spent too much time having sex." And I am saying, "Maybe. It's good exercise and fitness is very important to me." Back to Aneala!]

J had a good time fighting in the tourney. He seemed to vacillate between taking it seriously and just having fun. I know that he tried to be serious with Nathan because he really likes N as a fighter and knows that he needs more exposure to more top-end fighters than the few who live locally. Although the few who live locally are pretty good.

N and J have a lot of similarity in their styles, and I think that N would benefit from spending a few months in Rowany if he wanted to devote his life to stickjockery, but since N actually has a life, he can just keep going well at his own pace.

I love the kinetic nature of this shot, although I have no idea what happened next. I seem to recall N taking at least one bout from J, maybe two. I know they had a lot of fun at any rate. Note the beautifully painted shield, that was an afternoon of sewing time I won't see again. I was going to store it in the shed for when I win Crown, but J has scratched it up too much, so I'll just make myself a nice one when that day comes. I did start on my sword co-ordination exercises this evening, and have dug out the barbells for strength training. And I have a nice seething pool of aggression being built up.


This shot is the beautiful Catherine, who is waiting for her old greyhound to lurch at her. J and I like N and her a lot. The three of them are utter rev-heads, though, so it's just as well we live on opposite sides of the country or I would never see them except when they came piling in after a day's rallying in need of great piles of hot food. I'd have to take up knitting.

They very kindly burned a season of rally onto DVD for J and he has been LOVING it. We also loaned it to Marie, another rally nut, for post-op cheering, so it's a gift that keeps on giving. I have some buttons for C that I should remember to post, too. Doubtless A&K will nag me about that, too.

The tournament was all good fun. Sir Kane Greymane won in the end, although it was a close-run thing. But as Roy and HG would say, sport was the winner on the day. There were some stand-out performances from the two chaps with the glaives (I think that Joachim was one of them but have forgotten the other, damn brain!) and Kane was having a jolly good time. Rhianwen was giggling at him at one point because he was bouncing around like a schoolboy. He killed J, so he was a mighty schoolboy.

These are the glaive guys. I think that Joachim was the one with no arm armour. This shot makes it look as though the weapons have fused, which I found quite funny.

At the end of the day we had to rush J and Miles to the airport, so I changed in the car, which startled young Miles a little, but that's what big frocks are for -- acting as personal change tents. The lads had a shower at Creagg's work and we got them to the airport with time to spare.



This is a nice shot of J and Miles. Miles spent the day doing the old J trick of losing his legs at every opportunity so that he wouldn't have to defend as much. He won a fair bit, though.

Back at Bec (Morwenna), Carlie and Creagg's we met up with Ysabella and had to hide the fact that she had a Lily, since she didn't know. It was all very silly. C&N were there and we watched dodgy videos, then stayed up for the Brazil v Australia game in the World Cup. Bec and Lachlan stayed up and watched the whole thing with me, although I think I cursed the Australians by supporting them as they lost. Next World Cup, I am only going to cheer for the teams I don't like.

"Mercy me, those fighters are all very sweaty and appealling ..." I've completely forgotten this woman's name. She was very nice and friendly. I think I fell asleep at her. I am so classy.

I think that next time we reign I will make up a flier that says "The queen has the worst memory in the kingdom thanks to a taxi driver hitting her in the head with his taxi. She also hasn't had a good night's sleep since 1983. She does like you, she just can't remember who you are."

God forbid I ever end up with Alzheimers. Although for the first few years, no-one would know the difference.

This is Rosie, Bec and Creagg's girl. She is very cute, but unfortunately she and Jamie look very much alike, and so I think they both dislike me on the basis that I am patently unable to tell a girl from a boy. By the end of the weekend I worked out that straight hair = Rosie, curly hair = Jamie.

I tried to win them back over with a few choruses of Dora songs and an aeroplane ride. I may have gotten away with it. It's important to stay on the good side of SCA kids, because in 25 years they will be running everything and we need to make sure that they think of us as wise and trustworthy. Plan ahead, I always say.

I like this shot of the B&B + babe a lot. Bec has a very gentle face that conveys her generous nature, although it hides a will of iron when she needs it. She's good at knowing when it's needed, too.

Creagg looks very piratical, which is his thing. It's a shame D'Gaunt and Genevieve didn't show up because they would have had fun with the nautical nature of the whole weekend. I hope they are at Baronial changeover.

Bec and Carlie and I spent Monday shopping, which was fun. We found a great antique and curio store in central Perth that had very good bits at reasonable prices (though they also had excellent bits at huge prices). They showed me their fave fabric stores, which had some good bits of fabric, and even better trimmings, No wool and very little linen, though. We need a good SCA fabric shop in this country!


A couple of last shots of Andre. He was a wonderful captain for my guard; strong, courteous and thoughtful, all the qualities I most admire. I enjoyed watching him fight Haelfdene, because, again, it was a good fight where both men were appreciative of the other's skill.

Andre sets himself very good goals and goes about achieving them sensibly, which is another quality that I admire. I wish that more fighters were more like him, and I'm lucky that I know a decent batch that are.

Of course, one of those is Miles, so let's wrap it up here on a shot of Lochac's Most Eligible Bachelor going head-to-head with one of Aneala's finest. It was a great weekend with a fine bunch of people. If you've never made the trek across the Nullabor, I heartily recommend it. They have planes these days, so it's only four hours!

Snakes on a Plane II

Go to this site to see why I refuse to bring children into this world.

And to think I used to be outraged with my hippy family for my lack of pop culture nous ...

Snakes on a Plane

One thing that you need to know about Bea and Emrys is that their house is a haven of all things televisual. They have a giant screen that comes down over one wall of their living room and then a projector system with surround sound that plays TV or DVDs onto it.

Let me take a moment to describe how much it hurts to watch perfidious Italy win the World Cup on such epic scale. Quite a bit, actually.

Right, so Yseult and I mostly spent our televisual hours watching Sharpe DVDs, because Sean Bean + tight pants = winning combination in any language.

See? And anyone spotting a vague similarity to J in his pre-ducal pudginess days would not be wholly mistaken. I likes me fellas with high cheekbones and distant looks. And slightly crooked noses (although I'm yet to date one who's broken his nose more often than I have. If J ever runs off with a Kylie lookalike, I'll have to turn to rugby players if I want to tick that box. Ewwww.)

Anyway ... the other thing that Yseult and I chatted about was an upcoming film called Snakes on a Plane. Apparently everyone on the Internet has heard of this film, except me. I've been busy.

The basic premise is simple. Snakes, plus Samuel L Jackson, on a plane. In fact, what more could you want? But the cult legends that have grown up around it are hysterical. So today I wasted a good 10 minutes chasing down a few links. This blog entry from last year started the whole thing rolling. Now it's a huge Internet monster, which Wikipedia has a good entry on here. I've just noticed that I still capitalise Internet, my internal style guide is still set ot the last millennium.

Apparently they reshot whole sequences to live up to fan expectations, making it gorier and more adult and adding the immortal line from SLJ: "I'm tired of these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin plane!"

Sometimes Hollywood is so lame, it's great. I do not think that the producers could have been more self referential without specialist medical equipment. Naturally, I will miss it at the cinema and catch it on DVD three years after everyone else stops finding it funny. But that's OK. I still appreciate it from over here.

Briefly back to Italy, I still hate most of them, but I must say that Buffon is one hell of a goalkeeper.

I will not be in River Haven, there just isn't enough cash for tickets plus bills. Hopefully some nice cheques from Aneala and Stormhold will turn up soon. And Pac Pubs still owe me a bit of cash. I sent off the recommendation books, which I actually had time to finish updating from our reign (eight hours it took! Crazy!) plus some extra goodies for D&A and scrolls and cyphers that are outstanding for the northerners. Fingers crossed Aus Post gets it there on time. The good news is that I can go to Katje's! And the Rocks' Coffee Festival on Sunday for J.

I missed a call from Charley at HB while I was away. She was out today, so I'll try her again tomorrow. I hope she's still looking for a lovely deputy editor, because I like the title and the team, and would have fun there for a few years. Fingers crossed.

Must go and sort Aneala photos so I can do that post ...

More Midwinter, and then a bit more Melbourne

Blogger really doesn't like me moving photos around ...

Right, now that I have finished my plant collectors story, some more details from Midwinter and Melbourne. Then I can embark on the great Aneala post!

One of the best things about Midwinter was meeting Serafina properly. She is really excellent value and has a wicked sense of humour. Plus she could be Bliss's stunt double, which is pretty amusing. She left her child at home for the weekend because she knew she would be wrangling Royalty and that's as much trouble as any one woman should volunteer for. It's a bit of a shame because I would like to have met him. I think it's a him ... too many children, not enough neurones ...

I did get to meet Seth and Colomba, who were extremely fun. Grace and Maria were dragging them about on Saturday morning as part of their 'picnic'. I beieve that the royal chocolate rations formed an essential part of that picnic, so I shouldn't complain, especially after seeing the giant size of my bum in Del's photos. I know that some of that really IS the frock, but still ...

Baron Fulk's son was another of those fabbo NZ kids who does things. I'm happy to see that the Aus kids are much more like this now, too. I think it all comes from good parenting. I wish I could remember Fulk's son's name, he received a well-desreved AoA, one which the Baroness and Heralds both said "oh yes" to, and that's always a good sign. There were two lovely boys with wooden swords who kindly let me have a swing of one of the sticks. We need an NZ kids vs Knights boffer bash at Canty Faire ... Maria was adorable, as always. Especially when she told everyone that she knew me because I had come to her house and we had gone to the park together. I like being Courtesy Aunt D. It's fun to tell the kids that you know their mums and dads are very proud of them and then explain things like Newtonian Physics and give aeroplane rides. Plus help with homework!

Cecilia was there, with Nicki, but without Inigo and Lea as Lea was sick as a dog. I need to send them both a card and will hopefully remember to this week. I am not sure what is wrong with my brain but flu first made it ache, then be sleepy and has now made it rather vague. I used up all my intelligence on my House & Garden story, but if I leave notes for myself in here, Art and Deense will nag me at some point because they are as lovely as they are beautiful.

Baroness Cecilia is so very cool, and outrageously talented. She and Inigo put together a brill puppet play for Canterbury Faire that she made all the puppets for, except for the wolf, which I made, left behind in Sydney, and have failed to get to her ever since. Thanks to B&B Southron Gaard there was a stunt wolf, but it was very silly. She had an entry in the A&S competition that impressed me a great deal. I even took photos, shame I'm rubbish with a camera.

It's a fencing doublet, with soft buff leather over purple silk. She's drawn the design onto the leather, then is stitching the applique through three layers (linen behind) then cutting out the excess leather. It not only looks great (and will look amazing on, she's tall and Xena-like but with better hair and no crazy war yodel) but has been beautifully stitched. She was all embarrassed when I told her how good I thought it was and started to tell me about all her mistakes, but she's the only person who will ever really see them. The rest of us were just swept away by all of the stitchy goodness.


This is a better shot of what the doublet looks like overall. There's quite a bit more stitching already done, but not cut out, so it's further progressed than it looks. Talented people; can't stand them. Sadly for my jealousy, it was the weekend for talent. Rowan had her beautiful leather doublet entered into the comp, too. Helene wrote that she'd always wanted to get into Nico's doublet on the judging form. Go our Baroness! Myna put in a brilliant entry to the Tailor's Guild that I skimmed, was suitably impressed by, and completely forgot to write anything down about. See previous comments on flu-induced stupidity. I have spent nearly a month with my brain feeling as though it doesn't have enough oxygen.

There was also an excellent series of entries for the WCoB competition. I took a shot of this one because I admired it, but then failed to get any details on the artist. Rowan will know. We did manage to give Rowan her much-belated wedding gift. Luckily, she and Jeremy loved it. Phew!

Rowan was the peer for all seasons in the Coronation Ceremony. She acted as Draco and Asa's spokeswoman, then stunted for the B&B of Polit, and was also the faux Provost. She is a woman of many hats, and the one that she was wearing was deeply sexy with furry bits and all.

Katherine Xavier did the food at the feast and it was fantastic! There was also an excellent menu with ingredients listed. I know that I obsess on this point, but that sort of thing makes all the difference for people with allergies. There was also a very good range of alternative dishes for the vegos and allergy-ridden, and no one in the kitchen seemed to be having a nervous breakdown. Three gold stars.

It was one of the best-run events I've been to in a very long time. Baxton and Constance were the stewards for Midwinter and they were apparently very worried that they didn't have enough experience. Ulf was a little worried about them in the beginning, too, because they asked for his advice, but they asked for everyone's advice and they seem to have taken all the best bits on board. More gold stars for them.

As it turned out, the hall was great, Sventa and Merewynn had organised for this amazing series of heraldic banners that they did most of the painting of with help from Serafina and Isabel and a few others. They created an astonishingly period atmosphere in what was essentially a big warm shed. The one thing I realised that they needed was rugs for the thrones. I think that I might see if I can save up and gift them some canvas, if I ever get some good paying gigs again ...

There is a new college and the kids, who are so good looking and sweet I could have cried, are all screamingly talented. They sing, they dance, they tell jokes ... if young people had been this cool when I was that age, I'd have spent less time with seedy thirtysomething musicians.

Amberherthe (sp?) were there in force. I have developed a deep affection for Mistress Christian which she's just going to have to share because you can't shake me without resorting to deed poll. I think we have the same sense of humour, which is a bit frightening. Sir Tycho had a Boobah doll, which was much more frightening. They're the most hideous things and put me in mind of diseased genitalia. I hasten to point out that I am not the only person who has this reaction. I like Tycho a lot, he has that very sensible gentleness that many big and strong men have. Vitale was there, too, in fine form. I have a terrible suspicion that he is the type of man that you like as an old married woman and distrust as a young attractive woman. I like him, so I suppose I must be middle-aged. The girls were all dressed up in their shiniest frocks and between them and the Ladies' Sequin Appreciation Society up the back, it was an evening of big shiny frocks on top of good food and good company.

For once, I did not get any shots of the Baskin-Kerr kids. Grace was a delight, as always. She's one of those hanging-around kids who is actually interesting and fun, not just needy. Although she does seem to need carrying an awful lot, but I think this is just because she will soon be too old for carrying and is trying to get in as much piggybacking as possible before the dreaded day arrives. She informed me in deeply aggreived tones that Dickon was turning into the worst teenager ever. He was actually a champion of tot-lugging and child control over the course of the weekend, but I can see that the leadership skills that he's cultivating as part of becoming an adult could be a right pain in your older brother, plus have the possibility of going off into sulk land. He and J could hang out there ...

Pippin, as usual, was the invisible boy. He seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once. I have a theory that he has learned to teleport so that he can arrive whenever the food looks good or just before he's about to get into trouble. Didn't have as much time to talk to him as usual, which was a shame as he has a good sense of humour.

Grace threw up on Sunday morning managing to miss everything except for the edge of her shoe and the corners of my new coat. My thick wool = invulnerable theory was proven when a quick wash saw everything return to normal. A glass or water and a good spit-out of the mank saw Grace returned to normal, too, and Bartholomew cleaned up the vomit, for which katherine was eternally grateful. I had a fun time explaining to Grace the idea of sympathetic vomitting (which is why I did not clean up the vomit) and she explained to me the evils of barley.

Bartholomew and katherine were both in good form, and seemed to be genuinely happy about their cyphers, which was very touching for us. BB was speechless about the LoG. At last!!

The trip back to Auckland was fine, except very late, so Helene and I were stranded at the airport until rescued by Yseult the Magnificent. Blayney and Helene were still a bit loopy from Saturday night, so there was much animal spotting. Del was in good form and he and J only started to have one argument when they were both right but arguing completely different things. It's just as well they're both so stubborn because if they realised how much they do see eye-to-eye on, they would take over the world and it would all be gruesome. We saw a field of black-faced sheep with white fleece (der!) and cute little black lambsies. They all still had their tails, and it looked remarkably like a field of black cats suckling woolly sheeps. Very odd.

This is where Blogger told me that I could not tell it what to do with my order of pictures, so we cut to Helene looking askance as Zombie kitty lurches onto her new frock. She is sewing every spot on by hand. She is quite mad, but with a good dollop of genius in there, too.

Bloody hell, I am still sneezing. I swear, if I come down with a cold before I am over this flu, I'll go completely bonkers. At least I don't have the stomach bug that everyone else seems to be falling prey to.

A couple more photos. This one is of a volcano sculpture in Auckland, opposite the Britomart.

It has symbols carved into the rock and a gas flame spurts out the top every so often. It's beautiful aand kitsch at the same time. The accompanying plaque explained the whole mana concept that Ulf goes on about. It's one of those words that I have known the meaning, but not the context, of for a long time, so reading that plaque was like the moment that I realised 'face that launched a thousand ships' was an Iliad metaphor, not the story of a tired dockworker or broken-nosed old queen. I was a very literal child ...

The additional Melbourne comment was that everyone looked fantastic. Miss Dawn and Yvonne Yvette were both beautiful in their blazingly warm-toned frocks. Bliss looked gorgeous in her new gown and Mistress M just glowed. Pregnancy must agree with her, because she looked 10 years younger than the age on her licence and was just beautiful, all glossy and radiant. Apparently foeti give a few good days before they suck all the life out of you ... I've been listening to Spyd's story of her mineral levels too much ...

Finally, one more shot of Draco and Asa at Midwinter.
I like the way he is looking at her in this shot, all warm and proud. They're disgustingly cute, and Asa had J in stitches when she asked when we were going to get married.

Must check out bank account in morning and see if there's enough for a flight to Brisbane yet. Getting very close and not looking very good ...

Secret no more!

I had an email from the lovely Tamsyn today (Hi!) to say that she had found this blog while doing a search for Stormhold Baronial Invest pix. So I suppose that my cunning plan to be speaking as though talking to household and other friendly royals (Hi Ellie!) is now unleashed upon an unsuspecting universe. Oh well. It's exactly what I'd tell anyone if they asked me to my face, but with more pix and fewer hand gestures.

Anyway, Tamsyn was appalled to learn that the Casa Celi Evil story had legs. Apparently it came out of a drunken evening of rubbish speaking and was not what she meant at all. I think that this is a perfectly reasonable defence because in my time I have both spoken and heard spoken a great deal of rubbish while drunk. Some of this rubbish has come from the mouths of Celi people and we have all accepted that Mistress M does not really want to quit her job for Broadway and Mistress G didn't really want to run off with a 22-year-old hottie during that brief period in the 1990s when she wasn't with the man who would become her husband. Especially since it was never established what said hottie's name was, although his hotness was without question. Mistress E does not really wish that she could shoot laser beams from her eyes. Usually.

This is why I rarely drink these days, because now that I have no need of ever picking up another shag again, I know that I would end up being the sort of drunken person who says "But you know what really irritates me about you?" and forgets to say "Of course, none of that really matters because you have all of these other fabulous qualities that I think are great."

Will go and call Miss G and reassure her that everyone really does like her after all. A shame in a way, because I think that Tamsyn would have had a great time sorting out this misunderstanding in person and it would have all been wine, eclairs and singalongs. T, if you're out there, you're good value and do a fine frock. You can think I'm evil anytime you like!

Favourite reign photos ever

J is in an almighty huff about something on the Chiv list. It must be something good because he keeps telling me that I'd be outraged and that it's just as well I'm not on the List anymore because I would be getting Medieval on sundry Arse. There's very little Lochac Chiv arse that I would be happy having anything to do with from a personal perspective, but sure ...

I think that he means I would be Gently Explaining the Error of someone's Argument, which I tend to do in multi-thousand-word emails with footnotes and quotations from previous minutes. One thing I did learn from the ALP is that she who has the most detailed and accurate minutes wins. I really wish that some of the lads could work this out; it saves so much argument when you just flip back the pages of your notebook and say "Actually, what was really said was ..." Obviously I need to get my own fat arse into gear and see if there is a fighting god lurking under the lard. Wouldn't J be the smuggest teacher in the universe?

Anyway, I am curious, and am sure that it will all come out eventually. It's usually one of a handful of people who piss him off this much, so it will be down to educated guesses shortly. He's asked me the definition of slander twice, so I'm sure that it will be fun down the track. I do wish the Chiv thought more before they typed ... one thing that some of them seem not to ever understand is that they don't know everything. For example, they will be raving on that X says Y when everyone who attended the most recent meeting heard X say "I used to believe Y, but now I'm convinced that Z is the case." But it's an article of faith that X believes Y until they see X in person and have the gospel of Z handed on with the secret handshake.

The Laurels don't make this mistake. In fact, as an Order we come at it from the opposite perspective and always assume there's more information hiding out there and we just need to ask a stack of pointed questions in order to get it. That's why Laurel minutes take three days to transcribe ...

Sir Asbjorn does a hilarious Bad Peer routine where he clutches a hand to his forehead and shrieks, "It's all about MEEEEEEEE!" I think Chiv every time ... Of course, the good ones are bloody brilliant, and even some of the boofy ones are brilliant. Most of the Lochac Order are on my list of favourite peers. In fact, there's an increasingly small number who hold onto their inner moose, but for them, by crikey it's a stranglehold.

Anyway, more photos. This is my favourite photo from our first Canterbury Faire in 2004.

It looks for all the world as though something appalling has just been said by the B&B of Southron Gaard and that J is about to leap from his chair and bop someone. Martucio is primed for action and lovely Peregrine has his hand on his sword. I am being the Restraining Hand of Reasonableness.

There was NOTHING in the court that would have provoked such a moment. The B&B were delightful. Everyone was sweetness and light. I have NO idea why we all look as though an international incident has just occurred, and I find it rather hilarious. I also find it hilarious that I am being the reasonable one in this shot when the whole Kingdom knows that if ever such a situation did arise I'd be grabbing the Sword of State and making loose with the smackage


This one is what happens when some fool does let me loose with a sword, and a mass of fiendish midgets. There is a very long post to attach to this photo which I will do very shortly, or at least some time in the mext month, but suffice to say that if you ever have a Queen who is a bit run down and tired of paperwork, give her 40 children, a boffer sword, and a friendly Order of the Chivalry.

I was so grateful to Sir Asbjorn and Sir Alaric for letting me hit them in the head, especially because Alaric made me work for it and then complimented my rising snap and offhand. He's a dear. Inigo was evil and gave the lads 'water cannon' -- sports bottles to douse us with. Hurrah for thick wool, I say! Sir Berengar was tremendously unhelpful when he was possessed by a fit of giggles as I tried to cut both his arms off. It is not my fault that I look like a demonic munchikin. If you've stumbled here by accident and don't know me, the figure up the back in green with a blue shield doing the happy dance of victory is the one.

I don't think that any other aspect of reigning has ever afforded me such pure enjoyment ... and I don't think that I was quite as happy as the kids were ...

Stormhold Invest

To our left, the fine Stormhold Singers, with Master Daffydd, Mistress Elayne, Dame Miriam and her lovely chap Paul. Let them sing us into the tale of the Stormhold Investiture, June AS 41.

I have to confess that I was ambivalent about the Stormhold Baronial Investiture. In our last reign as K&Q and in our P&P reign, the Melbourne groups were the source of most of the problems we encountered. There are reasons for this, some of which I will blather on about in a minute. I made one big mistake in telling J about the terribly witty wags in Krae Glas who heckled me in Court last time I went down there as Queen. They were fairly painful as well as being frustrating, because people only get their AoA once (usually) and the last thing you want is Peers and Co doing the Old Men Muppets routine from the balcony. My favourite part of that night was when one of the kids, who would have been all of three, said "Be quiet, Daddy! It's rude." Mr P is a great kid. So J wants a few of the locals to be slapped with fish and finds it almost impossible to be patient with them. Oh it was all so promising ... and then I had bird flu ...

Anyway, some background. The Melbourne SCA -- it's incomprehensible. I have never met a series of people who have so much going for them who spend so much time focussing on the negative. When the leaders of the groups put their grown-up heads on, they do these amazing things. Some of the best dance, research, fighting, planning and medieval 'stuff' in Lochac comes out of those three groups. But when they leave their grown-up heads off ... well, I'd like three-year-old Mr P to be in charge because he was more reliable and less self-focussed (he's even better now he's five.)

They had a B&B that a section of the barony did not like. Parts of the nearby shires really disliked them. Now this B&B were a little wacky, but no more so than many. They did a lot of things really well. They promoted pageantry, they strongly supported the fighters, they had Big Plans. There was some personal bullshit from both of them in that they had acrimonious ex-relationships within the local area, and had been spectacular in burning bridges connected to those, but this could all have been dealt with.

The peers who did not like them (and you know, it's OK to not like, or even to hate, people in game, you just have to be able to work with them) made this face every time they spoke of or to them. It's the face that you make when you bite into what you think is a butterscotch only to find that it's a sour lemon wine gum. It wasn't good.

So the B&B cut themselves off from big sections of the group and became reactionary, which irritated the lemon people even more (and I can sympathise, but still ...), and both sides started to alienate the new people who really didn't give a rat's and just wanted to do some SCA. Everyone forgot how to communicate, small problems became Grand Sagas, genuine problems weren't adressed because My People Hate Your People, battle lines were drawn, tanties were tanted and before you knew it, the B&B had quit in a huff, the lemon peers all had their soured noses out of joint and the few quiet peers who had just been beavering away doing stuff were left saying, "What the?"

Obviously there are another 100,000 words to this story, but the big point, the important point, is that fewer people acted well than think they did, and that no-one acted quite as badly as some of the stories have made out.

And then there were the repercussions ... ai ai ai! Let's just back away slowly. The only person that I ended up wanting to congratulate was one of the MacAndreas lads who had the balls to apologise to Margie for a balls-up in Marshallate business and subsequently dropping her further into the mank.

While all this was going on there were two groups of people who tried to keep everyone calm and when they failed to work miracles, they stepped off to the side and just did stuff. The first was people who just wanted to go to practice or to hang out, so you had most of Cairn Faill, Rioghan and Muley and many of the younger set just doing things. The second was the small section of leaders in the group who had remained fairly above it all and who were tasked by Stephen and Mathilde to rebuild as much as they could. Miriam was given the Vicarage and Lorenzo either took up or stayed on as Seneschal. I remember that Karel was pretty good about the whole thing, too, but he has had other issues steal him away of late, which is a great shame because he is lovely. Several other peers and leaders including Eleanor, Konga and Alaine (who may have expressed that he thought certain people were pillocks, but did so even-handedly and continued to work with them because he is an adult), Nadje, Bliss and Miss Dawn provided Good Examples, too.

Fast forward 14 months. Things had Settled Down. Cornelius and Morwynna had selected Rodrigo and Sara to be the new B&B. These two are very gentle people who are good at a wide range of things from frocking and music to cooking and ambience. R can waffle even more than J, but he is so charming that it's all fine. Lorenzo had done a good job of Seneschalling enough to keep things happening without doing so much that it looked like Politics. The three Melbourne groups are all beset by people who think they are good at politics when they are actually good at drama. By keeping things low-key, there was nothing to create problems from.

Miriam the Vicar is a genuinely gracious woman. She is kind and considerate, and restrains her arghs! to private audiences. She is also optimistic and encouraging, and so was exactly the person they needed at the time. When people 'politicked' at her, she would use her patented Look of 'Hmm, seems to be rubbish, oh look, I'm needed over there.' When people were doing something interesting, she would encourage them with genuine interest, which has made her very well-liked among the younger set that I was able to chat with.

So, the time came to head down and invest the new B&B. It was a week after our traipse to lovely Aneala where everything was brilliant except that one of my favourite young women gave me an appalling dose of flu. The trickiest court of the entire reign, in a group that J wants to slap a large part of, and I spend four days beforehand unable to talk and go down with a raging fever and hacking cough. Need I mention that I looked just fabulous?

The hall was a very attractive church, but the wind outside was gruesome. A very bright local had set up a coffee shop and had hot beverages a-plenty. There were many people in flash frocks and a flock of cute kids.

Court began a bit late because we had all forgotten to tell Lorenzo that he was essential to it, and he was off picking up Leta who had been delayed by fog. Come to think of it, we were delayed by fog in Sydney, too, and so I had spent the morning standing in a queue developing a raging fever. It's all a bit of a blur ...

We began by calling up Miriam, who was wearing a spectacularly toasty houpelande:

She looked brilliant and was very gratified to hear all the nice things everyone had to say about her. Not half so much as we were all grateful to her for all the nice things she'd done for the group, of course. We made her a Court Baroness and gave her a Grant of Arms. I seem to be saying "Who's a pretty Baroness, then?" in this shot, but I'm sure it was more sensible than that. Note the way my nose gets redder as the sneezing and coughing become more violent during the course of the day.

Many of the visiting B&Bs had brought gifts for the outgoing Vicar as well as the incoming B&B. Here Innilgard (looking JUST spiffy!) are handing over a very loot-filled bundle of goodies.

Innilgard are a very generous group whose B&B do good courtly presence. Blod is a usefully dramatic person rather than someone who just uses drama for attention. Although I did have to laugh when she told me about her secret blog so that she could snark about people who read her regular blog. Snark loud and proud, I say! Although be sure to mention the good bits as quickly as you mention the bad. Unless it's been a really bad day and you just need to vent now, be reasonable later.

As I mentioned, there were stacks of cute children. I have no idea who these ones are, although I think one of the little girls is Elspeth and Cormac's, but they were very sweet and giggly all day.













Soon it was on to the big part of the Court, and Sara and Rodrigo came forward to be invested as B&B. They made a little oopsie in terms of the sides (usually it's King to Baron, Queen to Baroness), but I don't think it mattered. They did a lovely job of their oaths and the procession, and they were purposely invested in plain garb, since they were part of the populace.

At their request we had them fetched from the masses by the Seneschal so that it was clear they were a part of Stormhold called forth to rule the group. I think this was good theatre on their part. We rewrote the ceremony, too, so that it spoke very clearly of the role of the B&B as representatives of the K&Q. I think that some peers who would never dream of being rude to the K&Q had forgotten this in the last Baronial term. Although since some other peers seem to feel that heckling is OK, grrr! (In fairness, it seemed that the heckling, like many of the local problems over the years, was more poor judgement than spite.)

They looked very dignified and there was rousing applause at their investiture, which seemed to bode well. I hope so, it's not easy holding J back from the fish option.

Rodrigo and Sara had trumpeters to play for them at crucial moments, who were mostly good but a little under-rehearsed. They made up for it in style whenever things went a bit off-tempo. You will note that Sara is tall and Rodrigo is carrying a silly hat. These are constants of their personae. Their kids all played useful roles at various times, too. Tamaly (no idea of the actual spelling, I'm afraid) was a star all weekend as usual, while Ebenezeer was quieter but very thoughtful. If I hadn't seen that lad turn into a boffer-wielding demon at Festival, I'd say he was too introspective, but he has an appropriately fiendish side, too.

There was a break, and then the second part of court occured, beginning with R&S appearing in their new robes to fit their new estate. Miss Dawn did S's sideless surcote and it was brill! More bunny than you could poke a pie at.

Note R's many tassels. He used them to good effect all evening. He gave a lovely speech in which he talked about his wishes to have the group unite and go forward and focus on their many great qualities. This wasn't just rhetoric, they do have many great qualities. All that passion that can be used for dumb things works even better when used for good. Some of my fave Melbourne SCA bits have been Margie's theatre, Auntie Nic's amazing kiddie wrangling, The Fearsome Stormhold Archers ... it goes on. Suffice to say that when they use their powers for good, they're amazing.

Lots more court went on after this. A couple of highlights:














Young Mr P came up wearing his First Queen's Militia baldric (nice one, Hanbal!) and was made a member of ther Mouse Guard in recognition of his services to the Crown and his sheer usefulness. He looked very startled the whole time, but I was told later that he was very happy about it all. Mr P's dad rubs J the wrong way, and I can see that because he has a talent for the grandiloquent, but he has a great kid, so he must be doing something right.

Master Thorfinn finally received his Pelican scroll, 20 years after he was made a Pelican and about nine years after the scroll was completed. And people wonder why I'm getting involved in Scribal sorting ... It was a very nice moment and J made Thorfinn stand while people applauded his anniversary. Great scroll, too. I think it might have been by Richard ... someone very good at any rate.

We also gave out some much-deserved AoAs, including one to Isobel my stunt lady-in-waiting, but sadly the shots of those were rubbish. I'll see if K has anything good on her camera. Isobel and Tamsyn the herald were extremely kind and thoughtful to us, and I liked them a great deal. I subsequently found out that Tamsyn was the person who thought that Casa Celi was evil, but I think that she's only met their reputation and would quite like the actual people. Although Ms Waters and Spyd now both know who she is and what she looks like, so perhaps she should go on thinking that they're evil in order to never be alone in the same room as them. Because it would end in either tears or red wine and singalongs, and neither option is pretty.
[Edited to Add: New news on this development! See above posting: Secret no more!]

We had the wonderful KT and Freiderik helping us, with more stunt LIW-ing from Katje. They were amazing. At one point during the court I started to shiver like a rabbit. Next thing I knew my coat had been slipped over my shoulders, KT's cloak bundled over my lap, she forced her pre-warmed gloves onto my hands and Katje secretly smuggled tissues in and out of the Royal Presence (brave, brave soul!! and so kind!) I have only a glimpse of KT in the shot above, wearing a truncated hennin behind Blod and her furry hat. Freid is much more obvious because he was the tallest person in the room. Anyway, I clearly owe them all major favours and will be starting with Katje's buttonholes any day now.

Margie was there, and looking much more relaxed than I have seen her in a long time. She has had an utterly crap year and I wish that the universe would be a bit kinder to her. Vandel seems to be cheering her up more, and this is a good thing. I would love to see her be able to focus on the things that make her happy and proud, because she has a lot of them.

She and Nadje were the stars of the series of performances that went on through the night, all with moral tales. Sadly I was half-dead by that point, so it's all a blur. I remember laughing a lot, though.

The actual feast was a bit strange. I remember it as being quite good, in fact I felt very revived by the food and went from being in imminent danger of collapse to able to get through the night relatively well. It was certainly more than enough for me to feel full and happy.

Other people had a different experience. The spit-roasted chicken was raw; now this was just a blunder, when will people learn the important rule of spit roasting? Better serve it cold and fully cooked than hot and inedible! Stick 'em on early! The fish, though, was excellent and everyone who tried it liked it very much. Katje had a very bad time with the food, her vegetarian friends (who had given the steward warning of their vegetarianism) found that many of the vegie bits had been cooked in chicken stock. Her friend who eats white but not red meat was stymied by the chicken being stuffed with bacon (although in the end it didn't matter, since raw). And K herself was unable to find out what did and didn't have almonds in it, so didn't eat for fear of allergic reaction.

It seemed that, one disaster aside, almost all the other problems were the result of communication problems. If there had been an itemised menu, all of those allergy/restriction people could have gone to it. As it was, there was no-one who they could ask because the servers had no idea. I think that this happened because the poor old cook was run off her feet and the steward had changed at short notice. The person who ended up stewarding was not someone who is used to feasts and so it would not have occurred to him that this was important.

I do wish that K had said something on the night, because we could have sent a runner to the kitchen to ask all the pertinent questions and then had a herald announce things through the evening. Plus I had pig-free food on High Table. However, I was too manky to notice, K was too polite to want to bother anyone, and the servers were too young to realise that they could make a difference there. It was, in a funny way, a very Stormhold thing. At the end of the evening people went home with wildly divergent experiences of the event depending on where they were sitting. We went home before the last remove came out (that was simply late) but were still very well fed.

This is a very nice shot of Clarice, Sui and Katje. Clarice is one of those divine women who makes things better around her. In fact, I am sure that she would have solved the Great Food Crisis if she hadn't been distracted by the Great Portia and Sui Saga. Sui is a lovely young chap who is dead keen on lots of stuff. He has been very good for Portia in keeping her more in touch with reality and her own smartness and usefulness, rather than just keeping her on a pedestal as a trophy, but he does need to remember that we all need a bit of niceness, too. One overly brusque moment that evening saw it all end in tears. They don't call it tired and emotional for nothing. Katje is our resident bubbly Canadian and she is very lovely. She is off to Pennsic soon, and I need to wrangle her sleeves what need buttonholes from her very soon!

The evening ended in a blizzard of tissues back at Miriam's, and apparently I sounded so appalling that night that she left me in bed while they all went out for breakfast at Mis Dawn's the next day. This was a shame because I like that crowd very much, but on the whole it was probably a good idea due to me being plague-ridden.

At the Sunday Tourney, J was on community TV, Freiderik was a Fighting God and Hrothgar won the tournament. Go Rowany! It was a very good tournament filled with imaginative ways of fighting thanks to Hanbal and co. I have no idea who ended up as the Baronial Champion, though ... blur, again ...

In all, I left the weekend quite optimistic for R&S. They are both very cool and will do a good job. It just remains to be seen how many people leave their grown-up hats on around them. Perhaps we actually need to create a mythical crisis nearby so that the people who believe they Must Be Involved will all have something to do? The problem with that is threefold: a/ it's very cynical, b/ it's very Waugh in Scoop and c/ it's buying into, rather than solving, the problem.

Would be funny, though.