Canty Faire 1

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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