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.