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!