All in a Garden Green

Home from Birka. Wonderful Event. I think (at least at the moment) that I've escaped any crud that may have been floating around.

Saw lots of folks, did not fence much at all (and thereby saved my sanity, though it seems the tourney went much better this year), marshaled a bit which was fun, held guard duty for the Royal Room, did a few quick run-throughs of the merchant area, and was pleased to be able to accompany Their Majesties and Hignesses of the East into court with the rest of Woolfe's Companies. Biggest hooray at court goes to ludicrose and Aneleda, newest Court Baron and Baroness. I did not take a single photo all weekend, but please enjoy the ones of Aneleda's gift scroll.

Baronage Gift for Aneleda

Left court early, couldn't hear a thing hanging out in the back with all the fencers anyway. Lovely dinner, interrupted only by Lucien, who I followed back to court, because he said "Thomas de Castellan needs to see you." Why? I asked... "I dunno..." So, back to court, pulled away from my soon-to-be-arriving dinner and chocolate martini... Because Thomas made an offhand comment of "where's Camille? I miss her!", so off went Lucien to find me... He owes me another chocolate martini for interrupting the first one.

Post-dinner, got drawn into one fencer vortex after another, and missed most of the ball. Wonderful, wonderful socialization with my friends though, it was worth missing the dancing. There are Plans Afoot. Muaha. Muahahaha. Ha. Got to the ball in time for Korobushka, some weird Pinwheel thing (what in the world did I just do??), and Gay Gordons. Fun.

Spent some time (though not enough) with Xavier, before he moves to Seattle in a week and a half. Ye gods I'm gonna miss him... :(

Nice visit with my parents and a trip to the Currier Museum of Art on the way home with Max and anna_mickel. Haven't been there in years, and not since the renovations. Very nice.

Oh yes, that's right, the sun. There's even a little, tiny bit of blue sky out there...

Granted, the week up here hasn't been NEARLY what my southern friends are experiencing (and I hope things dry out, or at least stop getting wetter, soon...), but three days of gray rainy blah is starting to wear. Very few customers at work (who the heck wants to garden in this weather?), and a grumpy boss... Bleh.

Sunday was beautiful! Saw a blowout (7-0, loss) of a SeaDogs game, but kurlon and I got to ride there and back without getting wet (though his BRAND NEW BIKE has developed an oil leak... hopefully getting taken care of today/tomorrow so he can ride it on Monday at the track day), and spend some time with mom & dad, which was nice. Pictures soon, once I have some time to breathe.

Monday at work was nice for most of the day, no boss to bother us, and a bit warm, and I was so. un. motivated. Thank goodness we were closing at 3, because that's when the pouring rain arrived. Still had to close up and get soaked, even with an umbrella, but got to go home and paint a while.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and so far today (save a few peeks through the clouds) have been cold, gray, and nearly constantly at least drizzly, if not rainy. Bleh. I had to turn the heat on in the car on my way home last night. I woke up Tuesday, so happy it was Thursday... oh, wait... darnit. Good, and bad. Good because that meant I still had 3 days to get the scroll done, bad because... Tuesday? That's it? Ugh.

But, Ding! Scroll is done! To have a few final tweaks done tonight, perhaps, and then be picked up by the wonderful janeelliot tomorrow afternoon, on her way to the event that I am not going to. Pictures post-event, after the award has been awarded.

Because this Saturday is the Fort Knox Demo! Yay! Will be heading north straight from work tomorrow, to spend the night in the shadow of the fort with Max & anna_mickel, to fence all day Saturday, and to return home Saturday night tiiiiired.

Track Day Monday. Sunday, tape up the bike, take the mirrors off, disconnect all the lights... Giovanni won't know what to do. We'll see if I can't figure out how to ride with mylisant, kr4sh, and kurlon. It will be a Grand Adventure.

Lancelot is being a Helpful Kitty today, making sure I stay in my chair and finish the scroll for next weekend at GNEW. Break time now. Dinner time. Starving artists aren't necessarily starving because they're poor, I think they just forget to eat sometimes...

More photos after the event. My first foray into "Squashed Bug" style, and it is going VERY well, I think. :) Iain and I were up till nearly 4 AM last night/this morning, him sewing, me painting, and I was astounded at how awake I still was at 3:30 AM, and how well the paint was working. Maybe that's the secret...

Secret is out for me, though: Whitework. Don't try to re-wet dry white paint to do whitework. Start with a fresh blob of white, there will be much, MUCH less swearing about it.

In other news, there is a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak that has found my birdfeeder out front (and the squirrel baffle works wonderfully. No more empty feeder after a day and a half!). He is so pretty. A staccato chip! chip! chip! lets me know he's out there, but I haven't been able to get a good photo... darn screen in the front door...

Sagittarius for Alexandre St. Pierre

(click the apple for more pictures)

Pretty proud of this one. New technique for me, paired with wonderful words by Max, done in beautiful calligraphy by anna_mickel, for my apprentice brother and friend alexsaintpierre. Well deserved indeed.

More on the rest of Birka later. The second half of the day was wonderful.

So. Finally got to sit down and sort through nearly 400 photos from last week. Two weeks ago. Agh. Week of vacation and it feels like I never left. Finally caught up on sleep, though...

GNEW was truly lovely, even if Saturday was not a lot of fun. Tuesday and Wednesday were both frantic and relaxing, getting last-minute things done, but getting to the site in time to set up the tent and have dinner before Mosquito Hour hit. Wednesday Mickel and I went to the store, and I helped Max finish laying out the roads when we got back. Thursday was A&S tent setup and a bit of frantic scramble, and the arrival of more of the Haus. Friday was archery setup till about noon. Then I decided to dive in the pool before gate shift. This was a Good Idea.

Usual gate shift is 2-6PM on Friday. This year I was joined by Ninian, Q, and Bryn (who is now OK, it appears, with being called "Gramma Bryn". ;) hee.). We had a fantastic time. Saw lots of people! Dance class with Mickel at 6, in prep for the ball at 8. Xavier showed up sometime in between everything, and we ran off to camp to get his tunic, which fit perfectly. YAY! I Did Good. (Many thanks to pet_spider, being a perfect-sized model the weekend before when I'd finished it...) The dance was lovely, as usual. Got to play music, got to dance, got to try and get Xavier to dance with Anne Marie, with some measure of success... they're so cute. ;) Enjoyed a nice fire post-dance. Bad thing of the evening - my favorite basket broke. :( Handle pulled right out. Dunno if I can fix it or not. Sigh.

Saturday dawned bright and not terribly clear, but fencing gear went on, and off I trekked to the field. Also set up the barn for the A&S display. Tried to get organized and do fencing at the same time, which did not work at all. At about 9:30, the skies opened, and the rain came. And kept coming. Fencing was called till noon. I sat at A&S for a bit, visited in IDD a bit, discussed the merits of fencing in cleats with Dannicus and Angall, wandered back to fencing during a light lull... Fencing was called officially around noon, and the warpoint was decided by a Wager of Law. Quite amusing. And well done. At that point, I was done. Cranky, wet, soggy. Ended up going offsite, which I never do during an event, but it was necessary. Xavier and I went shopping for wool for the next garment project, with mixed success. Found wool, was lovely, but not enough. Plans are still percolating. Sigh. At least we obtained both dry firewood and Coca-cola. Essentials.

The rain did stop shortly after returning, dry enough so that some fencing happened. I did not. A&S needed to be tallied and cleaned up. Many thanks to Ninian here, helping total things.

Court was nice. I was tired, plunked myself down in what I think was a good photo spot, and did what we do during court. Most enjoyable. Lots of people got lovely awards. The gold glittered in the half-sunlight, and no scrolls were harmed in the little spots of rain that fell and struck panic into at least one scribe's heart... All better now.

Was late to feast. Important things happening in IDD. Cider with Tigger is not to be rushed, but was, a little bit. We will make up for it some other time, when we have time. Feast was lovely, as always. Saturday evening also was the addition of a new apprentice sibling, Lady Honig. A wonderful ceremony. The three of us will cause such trouble... ;) Post-ceremony was the first Woolfe's Companies gathering at Wanderstamm, then we all wandered out for socialness in other camps. Stopped by to see Tim & Einarr try to light themselves on fire (so cool...), stopped by Endewearde, and then it was just Vincent and myself, a bit of a flashback to Pennsic, wandering to Carolingia... it was later that usual, sorry we missed gryphonsinistre, but had some tasty snacks and good conversation with Valerian et al. Wandered to IDD, "just for a bit", I said. Ended up staying for an hour or so longer than "a bit", talking and laughing with folks. All in all, a good evening.

Sunday closing ceremonies - we win! By one point. Took A&S and shopping quite handily. Yay! Fencing was a draw, Archery was a slaughter... don't remember the rest... Packout happened in a most timely manner, everybody putting away Dry Canvas before Certain Impending Doom dumped gallons of water on the camp.

I learned a lot this year. What I can and cannot do at the same time. How to better use and plan for my deputy and people who are willing to help me out so they don't go as crazy as I did. Took notes. Need to consolidate them, but took lots of notes.

Photos from the event are here.
Nicholas' GrandMaster Bowman Scroll is here. Quite happy with the vinework and whitework, but I need to work on Portraiture. Next project, maybe.

'Cause it's a cute li'l scroll, and I'm excited that Ben from Endewearde won, I share with you all! The Third Annual Northern Region Rapier Champion's Scroll, now with slightly different wording than the last two!!

Birka was fun. Wonderful fun. Was wonderful to have kurlon there, even if I didn't see him very much. :) I think we wore out poor Alianor, she's been asleep on our couch for about the last three hours...

We actually left close to on time, got a pretty good spot in the garage, and signed in without problems. Got gear after checkin, hauled it to the Armory, gave and received hugs from Guthfrith (yay! all the way from Nova Scotia!), changed, and went back out to the car. I had about 15 minutes of work left to get Astrid's dress to where I wanted it, and managed to finish, with enough time to run through a couple fencing authorizations.

Tourney was fun. Did OK. Knees hate me today. owie...

Dropped off the dress to Astrid. Astrid (and everybody else) loves the dress. I love the dress. She looks fabulous in the dress. We done good, the planning and the sewing all worked just the way they should have. Eeee! I still need it back, to finish those last two pieces...

Managed to get into my gown and get the hennin to stay on my head in time to set up the thrones for court. Hennin and gown look fabulous. Isobel and I were twins. Hee. I don't think I'm shifting time periods permanently, but it's a bit tempting... Socialized a bit before meeting back upstairs to muster for court.

Court wasn't too long. Got to sit for parts of it, since there were enough guards to take shifts. Alianor was quite happy to receive her Master Bowman badge. Was very nice. :) We gave her a little scroll too, at the ball, 'cuz she's special and we love her so much. :)

Presentation of the monies from the T-shirt sales was silly. Max said the proper things, laughter ensued, and the Princess promised not to murder him (eventually...). Heh.

Had dinner with Xavier, Guthfrith, and Isobel, since the rest of the Haus abandoned court at the intermission... Was lovely. Is good to eat with close friends and family, but also good to eat with and spend time with friends that I don't see very often. :)

Dancing was lovely. Missed Korobushka, but we made our way through Female Sailor, due mostly to the excellent teachings of anna_mickel. Did not dance with Creepy Dude at all. A full dance card and wonderful dancing partners are Good Things.

Would have liked to have gotten more sleep, I think, but there'll be time for that eventually... Photos will be posted once I've had time to go through them. Two weekends free, now, then Tourney of Love, K&Q Rapier, and a looong drive to Montreal... and sometime between all that, we're moving! Yay!

Fun fun fun day yesterday in Giggleswick... Spring's Inspirations/Northern Region Rapier Academy & Champion's Tourney at the Baptist church in Eliot on a beautiful Summer day was the place to be. I dunno if temps hit 80, but it was certainly warm.

( ramblerambleramblerecap )

The culmination of the day was the Apprenticing ceremony for alexsaintpierre and myself, and we are now officially apprenticed to Carolyne... I have a beautiful belt, he has a beautiful baldric, and we have one of the coolest Laurels for a mommy that anybody could ask for. Thank you to everybody that stayed to watch the ceremony. I hope I do my new family proud. :)

And now that the scroll has been presented, I can unlock this album, of ludicrose's Queen's Order of Courtesy scroll. I think he likes it... :) I definitely enjoyed doing it.

...because it's rain, and not snow! Better wet than white, at least for the moment.

Slept OK last night, even with the fear that the phone would ring at 3 AM (it didn't), and for the second day in a row, woke up at 10:30 feeling rested. The ringing phone woke me this morning, but it was "unknown name unknown number", so I didn't bother to answer. No message, not gonna call back (not that I could, anyway). Whoever invented Caller ID has my eternal blessing.

And I am happy, because I remembered that Mr. Pillsbury came to our house a few nights ago, and baked me oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Oatmeal is a breakfast food, right? :) Though we are getting onto lunch now.

Today is project day. Decided, I think, that I'm going to drag myself out of bed earlyish on Thursday, and do the turkey on Thanksgiving day. It'll need that extra day to thaw, anyway, unless I wanted to stick it in the bathtub (I think it's too big to fit in the sink...). I will finish the sewing that has been piling up for months, after, of course, straightening up the sewing room *again*. It seems like I have to do that a lot... I need to get rid of some stuff, maybe...

Edit: 100 Minutes War is over, so the scroll gallery can be made public. OTC Scroll for Erich Hundemann, not as much detail as some previous, because the end product was just so much nicer than the process... I LOVE THE DOGGIE!!! And so did he, I hear. Makes me happy.