Regency Buck 2

 Greetings

Here is the first variant of my new computer art..

until next time

Adieu

Regency Buck 1

 Greetings

Here is a new piece of computer art.

I have several versions of this one...

Until next time

Adieu

Shipwrecked 1

 Greetings

Here is a new painting that I have just completed.

This was based on a coloured pencil picture from my sketchbook (which I blogged about previously)

I think the painting came out a bit better than the drawing. His britches look wetter, I was able to get a bit of 'wet shirt clinging to flesh' effect and the face has more intensity.

Until next time

Adieu

Calligraphy 5

 Greetings

Here is another payer that I have added to my breviary.

This one extorts St Michael to cast down the devil and his minions ( The Bishop is an Ecclesiastical Knight of the order of St Michael).

As this was quite a long payer for my rather small book, I had to spread it over two pages.

Supplicesdeprecamur is currently the longest Latin word I have written out- and worked out how to actually say...

You will also note I split some words to fit more on the page. Where possible I've done this in a way that is an aid to their pronunciation.

Until next time

Adieu

Amersham

 Greetings

I have recently attended my last show for this re-enactment season.

I have done this show for many years. It is only one day and reasonably relaxing, although it is always on a Sunday, so was a little less convenient when I was working full time.

I made sure all my kit was loaded into the car by close of play on Saturday. I was giving my friend Sandy a lift, so set off bright and early once she arrived.

The journey went well and I even remembered to do the 'All round the houses' route once we reached Amersham, so we didn't drive through the middle of the old town ( as in previous years) , as they had requested.

There were only a few of us there. Mat had brought the arming tent, I had my awning and Gary had a small tent. We set these up and got the cars off site as soon as possible.

We had a guest/possible new member. Paul had decided to join us. He had resigned from the group whose member had nearly injured me at Hever. He had not been at Hever, but he had seen footage of the blow that hit me in the face.  He also told me that the footage showed the same person doing dangerous blows against another fighter.

When he realised that the group had no intention of doing anything about this, he decided he didn't want to be associated with them any more.

Gary and Deejay had come on direct from another event and, unfortunately, Deejay had a hand injury and,Paul , whilst an experienced fighter, wanted to have a chance to do a bit of sparring with us before fighting in tourney.

Consequently, the only fighters were me and Gary.( though Paul did volunteer to be one of the commanders in the Kiddies Battle- brave man. He got out alive...)

I volunteered to be the one armed in 'Arming the Knight' and then did three consecutive fights with Gary, pacing my self as much as I could ( I tend to overheat if I not careful)

We started off with arming sword and heater shield and then switched to just arming sword, As usual, Gary ( who is a few years younger than me and can fight on for longer ) looked more dominant.

I then took a water break and came back with hand-and-a-half sword. Now I am better at this than Gary is and , hence, got more blows in. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep going for very long and gave him an opening to put me down and end the fight.

I think that is the longest I've had to fight near-continuously for quite some time...

We had a reasonable crowd and they obviously enjoyed the fight .

Here is a picture of me waiting my turn in a previous tourney at Amersham, with my lord of Lancaster acting as marshal.

As we had brought less with us, it did not take long to pack down and I had a good journey back.

Until next time

Adieu

Calligraphy 4

 Greetings

Here is a new payer I have just finished.asking for the forgiveness of our enemies sins.

I have used a small amount of gold leaf in the capital.

I think this one looks rather nice.

Until next time

Adieu

Hever 2024

 Greetings

I attended the 'Hever in History' event over the August Bank Holiday.

As I knew we could not get access to the site until 2.30,I packed up all the kit into the car on the Friday morning and drove down after lunch. The traffic was reasonable, but there were seveal unexplained delays and one long roadworks and I got there around 4.00.

The only hic-up was that all  the numbers had worn off the key-pad at the gate and my guesses at the code did not seem to open the gate. Fortunately, someone tried to drive out and, in the space afforded by the very slow gate opening, I was able to drive in.

There were enough other Paladins already on site for me to get the inital help I needed to put up the tent and, being told that rain was expected, I got everything inside and battened down the hatches.

I also opted to ignore the site instructions telling me to park in the plastic camping (meaning a longish walk back and then again to collect the car at the end) and secreted it amongst those of the Vikings who parked just up hill from their camp.

That night was very wet and it then proceeded to rain heavily all day Saturday. We had all noted that the ground was very hard when putting up the tents and, unfortunately this led to the upper foot or so becoming saturated and the wet spreading out horizonally under the tent.

My plastic ground sheet never quite aligns with the tent and I usually use lighter sheets and a rubberbacked mat to fill in the holes. These became soaked and spread the wet to the other mats and sheepskins.

I was left with an island of dry , which (luckily) include the bit with my bed on it.

Fortunately, I had opted to hang most of the weapons from the cartwheel and the armour was safe in its oak chest.

Needless to say, we did not fight on Saturday, but we still had a few members of the public to talk to, which shows they are even madder than we are.

Sunday dawned clear , if slightly cloudy, and was a good day with a quite reasonable battle, though I decided to sit out the final clash.

Here is a picture of my tent and awning taken on the Sunday. You can see my great helm being displayed with the new crest I carved for the first time.

Here is a picture of me as the Bishop ( this was taken by my fellow-Paladin, Ann-Marie, at the event in Samwich earlier this year and is use with permission)

 

The Monday was also dry and overcaste and the battle went well- right up until the idiot hit me in the face ( I have covered this in my previous blog ' Hever- by the sword')

We started the pack-down about 5.30 , but it was getting on for 8.00 before I was finished ( and that was with Sandy and Frederika generously helping me) .  I

I rang Teddy telling him I was about to leave and gave an estimate of an hour and half, based on the delays I'd had coming in. 

I had no delays at all and was home  in about an hour.

I'd say it was mixed event. Rubbish on Saturday; good on Sunday; spoiled by the near-blinding on Monday.

Ho Hum

Untill next time

Adieu

Calligraphy 3

 Greetings

Here is an 'Ave Maria' that I have recently added to my Breviary.

Until next time

Adieu

Discworld, Worldcon & Chaos 3

 Greetings

So, we have arrived at Glasgow, Chaos is set up and i have hung my pictures and sculpture plaques in the Art Show.

Chaos is situated in its cage , beyond the Art Show, at the rear of the Dealers Room.

We registered as volunteers and , thus, qualified for payment in groats. These could be exchanged for food from fast-food trucks, or goods from the Dealers.

We have found that, increasingly, the trend has been to put all information and program on-line. Now , I am dyslexic and find it difficult to navigate large amounts of text on-line and Teddy also finds it difficult.

We therefore asked for a printed programme, which was provided. It did not, however, include a dayly grid, showing which items were on at the same time. However, after providing some help to Ops, a friendly person printed one up for us. We could now plan which items we might like to go to.

In the event, however, we didn't get to go to much, as we were kept pretty busy in Chaos.

I did however find that, after a certain number of hours worked, I could get a priority entry to any programme item. I was, therefore able to get a good seat for the masquarade.

This is only the second occasion that I have been in the audience, as I have previously been more likely to be a participant. Teddy could not join me, however, as he was one of the workmanship judges.

It was a good masquarade with a high number of novice and rookie entrants, who all did very well.

I was particularly impressed by their presentation. There were no over-long entries. I may post more later on this.

When it came to the day before the end of the convention, I had a text from the chap from the Discworld convention, who had said he's arrange to take all the cloth, fixing and braid from Chaos for making new kit for his LARP group. He said he was now doing something else on the last day of the convention and wanted to make arrangements to pick up the things later.

I had always said I wouldn't drive the stuff hither and yon after the con and sent back that it was a shame it hadn't worked out. We prepared, reluctantly, to put it all in a skip. We hung cloth enticingly on the cage to see if people wanted to take things

Then, out of the blue, another convention member said she was also in a LARP group and would take whatever was left. We happily passed it over and left her ringing round the members of her group to get folk to help her cart it away. 

So, a better result in the end and Chaos is officially over. The car was much emptier and easier to pack on the way home.

Despite not getting to programme items, I enjoyed the convention. The only major downside was the shere numbers of people seemed to amplify my hypoglycaemia and negated my usual warning signs, which meant I went hypo several times

On the other hand, I sold this cartoon in the Art Show.

AND

I won the "John and Robbie's choice" Award for my painting "Sword of the Angel"

So, now I am an International Award Winning Artist, as well as an International Award Winning Costumer.

We stopped off at another travelodge on the way home- somewhere just north of Birmingham, I think.

The journey went well , we gor home and began the slow process of recovering.

Until Next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 16

 Greetings

Here is our last view of Judge Declan ( any further any it'd have to be in The Garden of Dubious Delights..)

Until next time

Adieu

Discworld, Worldcon & Chaos 2

 Greetings

Having had a good time at the Discworld convention in Birmingham, we packed up Chaos Costuming and pack it, our costumes and clothes and my pictures for the Artshow and set off on part one of our journey to Worldcon in Glasgow.

Discworld was a three day conention. We stayed the Monday night and left on the Tuesday morning. Worldcon, however, did not start until the Wednesday

Teddy had arranged for a room at a Travelodge near Carlisle, which is roughly halfway between Birmingham and Glasgow. 

We had been recommended an independent Services en-route and stopped there for lunch, encountering our friends Steve and Julia in the process. We spent an little time there and then set off north again.

Soon the Sat Nav told us we were getting close to the Travelodge and -surely it had to be that services we have just driven past??? Then the Sat Nav directed us off at the next juction -and on again going south.

Teddy had failed to note that the Travelodge was only accessible on the southbound carriageway.

We stayed the night and had to drive south one junction before resuming our journey.

We crossed the boarder and passed through a lot of most excellent scenery

As lunchtime was again approaching we looked for services and found, to our surprise it was the same independent chain as the previously recommended one. There seem to be three of them in the UK.

Eventually, we reached Glasgow and headed to the SEC to unload Chaos and my paintings.WE obtained our special parking permit for the SEC carpark and got our con badges and set-up access wrist bands.

Here is a picture of SEC theatre we call The Armadillo

Once this had been  achieved, we went in search of our hotel and-couldn't find it. We stopped at an antique shop for directions and , in driving the other way, realised why we had' t found it the first time.

It's name was only prominently displayed at the top of it's tower.

We found a carpark , parked and went to check in. This is when we discovered that the check in desk was  the bar, which was also the dining room.

We dumped out stuff and went back to get the car- reluctantly paying £6 for having parked for about ten minutes- and drove back to the SEC, parked up and went to help with Chaos set up and hang my show in the Art  Show.

Here is my space in the Art Show. As you can see, I am now a master at getting as many pictures in as possible.

When all that was done, we staggered back to the hotel to collapse.

I will post more anon.

until next time

Adieu

.

Hever-by the sword...

 Greetings

I have recently been at Hever castle for a three day re-enactment. I will blog about the event in general later.

Now, however, I am now going to give an account of the Monday battle.

This is partially for myself and partially to warn any other medieval re-enactment fighters who might read this. This is what can happen on the field- and , whilst I am carefully not mentioning any names, it might lead to someone being able to avoid the instigator.

I had decided that I would not wear my brigandine, as it was very hot and this meant I could fight easier with hand and a half sword. I left off my surcoat and made it very clear at the muster that I was lightly armoured in the body.

The battle started well and I had two good scraps. One was against a young lad with hand and a half, who I easily bested. His reaction was everything one could wish for. He praised my sword work and wanted to know how I did it. I think he was with the Medieval Combat Society. I told him I would be happy to show him some moves- but not that day , as I had to pack up my tent.

The second fight was against an older man with a polaxe.  Apart from him not feeling one of my hit to his helm ( that was ok -I just gave him another one, slightly harder) this fight also went well- included a controlled thrust  that caused no injury, mark or bruising, despite being against opposed only by an arming jack. I think this chap was with 1415.

The trouble came when I found myself fighting -let's call him K- from another group of Fifteenth Century Knights

It soon became clear he was not coping well against the hand and a half- but was not acknowledging any hits.

The situation was a s follows. We were both stationary and I was putting in a blow to his helm( right down the middle, as is right and proper).

Without warning, or moving his feet, he suddenly ( using his right hand) raised his sword between us and the tip hit me at the corner of my left eye.

I shouted "You nearly hit me in the eye!" and his response was " I was just doing a block."

Not , you will note, " Are you alright?" or " Sorry." or " Oh, Shit!" or anything similar

The marshal arrived promptly and I told him what had happened. I was helped back to my side of the field and I learned later that K had been sent to sit down on his side- but I saw him take part on the final fight.

When we were forming at the end to take bows etc, the head of his group , let's call him J ( who used to fight as a Scots Lord and I had though was a reasonable chap) came to find me and tried to promote the "it was just a block" story.

I took this on board-I was still a bit in shock- but did point out that, if it was a block , why wasn't K stepping back to make it?  That action would not have been able to block my sword from where he was standing- at all.

Dave ( playing K's commander- De Spencer) and Gary ( playing my commander- Lord Neville) met with K and - think the phrase is "Tore him a new one". Dave had been nearby and witnessed the blow. He as also able to dismiss the claims of  another member of  K's group, who said he's seen the incident and hadn't been anywhere near it.

K did not accept he had done anything wrong. Nor did he make any attempt to apologise, or find out if I was alright.

(This is also not the fist time he has caused injuries on the field and he is notorious for failing to accept the he had been hit. He has previously deliberately smashed the edge of his buckler down on my sword hand during a fight. On another occasion, he complained that he was wearing no body armour when I put in a good (pulled) hit with a polearm. I responded that I also was not wearing body armour and asked if it had been too hard. He replied "No." and still did not accept the hit.)

In discussions after the event at Hever, J claimed to have come over when the marshal did- but, of course he hadn't. He also claimed that it must have been my mail avental that hit by my eye and not a sword at all.

Now, I've worn a bassinet with an avental for years and , somehow, I've never had an eye injury from it before.

Also, whilst the mail may have made a slight scrape next to my eye, it had to be pushed there by the blow and it didn't cause the injury at the corner of my eyelid which was still swollen and tender two days after the incident and is still visible and slightly tender three days after. 

There is also a small dent in the orbit ( bone).

Here's a selfie ( my first selfie ever) that  I j took three days after the incident.

Here's a close-up. This is just how close he came to hitting my eye.

K is  now saying it was all my fault and I walked onto his sword. That would be interesting to arrange ,as we were both stationary at that moment.

So, it is clear that the C15 group are not going to take any action against their member , despite him causing an injury on the field.  Indeed they all seem to be spreading all sorts of fictions in K's defence.

I , however, am no longer prepared to fight K and will walk away from him on the field. Dave has also said he will no longer fight him.

I have also re-assessed my opinion of J, who seems to think he can play fast and loose with the truth, regardless of evidence and witnesses.

As the group do not seem to understand the meaning of the word "Honour" , I shall , henceforth, replace it for them with the French word "Honi".

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 15

 Greetings

Here is more of Judge Declan...

Until next time

Adieu

Calligraphy 2

 Greetings

Here is another page I have recently added to the Breviary I use whilst re-enacting as a medieval bishop.

The page is only 13.5 cm by 8cm.

This page translates as  "Only God my truly judge me as only He knows my soul".

Until next time

Adieu

Discworld, Worldcon- and Chaos 1

 Greetings

We have recently come back from a couple of weeks away.

For about twenty years Teddy, Barbara, John and me have been running an item at Eastercons, Discworld  cons and ( when they have been on mainland UK) worldcons.

This was a sort of workshop-y thing called Chaos Costume.

People donated fabrics, trim and accessories from their stashes and we brought it to the con and invited folk to make costume from scratch. Folk also donated old sewing machines and we  lightly invested in glue guns, safety pins and fixings.

This was generally great fun at the con. Teddy, Barbara and I gave advice and help and , in the old days, a couple of extra entries were in the Eastercon Masquerade.

When we started going to Discworld cons, there were sometime several new entries...

..But, unfortunatley, over time, the percentage of chaos entries at Eastercons began to outnumber what I would consider the 'True ' entries and , also, commitees started to take it for granted that chaos would be there to 'take up the slack'

Also there was a lot of work involved in storing the crates of fabric, servicing the machines, lugging them up and down stairs, into and out of cars- not to mention hours of folding lengths of cloth to fit them into the crates.

The principal operatives, Teddy and Barbera, therefore decide to retire this year and ( giving people LOTS of notice-in case anyone was willing to take the lot off our hands and keep it for the future) announced that Chaos would go to the Discworld Con this year and then to Worldcon in Glasgow- but that was it .

There would be no more Chaos and- if necessary- any surplus cloth etc would go into a skip after Glasgow. I also made it very clear that I would not drive any of it hither and yon after Glasgow.

I should mention here that there were only a few days between the end of the Discworld can and the beginning of Worldcon and that Discworld was at Birmingham( so well on the way to Glasgow).

Teddy does not drive, so I had to do all the driving. I therefore insisted on a night's stop between Birmingham and Glasgow, which we booked at a Travelodge near Carlisle.

Our relations with the Discworld con committee could not have been better. We were provided with memberships and given a free invite to the banquet ( normaly a pricey ticket ). We spent most of our time in Chaos, though I did manage to see the masquerade.

All in all, I enjoyed the con more that I had the previous time I attended (well before covid). I enjoyed the masquerade, but my inner costumer/ masquerade participant kept noting overlong entries.

I greatly enjoyed the pre-banquet drinks and the banquet was excellent. The food was very nice and excellently presented. They were even able to provide food in every course that Teddy would actually eat ( He is not easy to cater for).

We had little glass swans as gift and every setting had a little packet of turtle shaped gummy sweets-every setting but one- They made sure Teddy got gummy bears.

We even discovered that-in a sort of reversal of Disc-fact- four teddies can hold up a turtle...

Here are a few pictures I took at the pre-banquet drinks, include the most excellent Mr Steven Briggs and a Gonagle (out of uniform) showing off a fine set of Mousepipes.

I will post more later.

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 14

 Greetings

Now Judge Declan starts losing bits of uniform...

Until next time

Adieu

Guards Steampunk 9

 Greetings

Here is the  full gently Steampunked Irish Guards officer's uniform.

The trousers are Royal Artillery , the cap is Dress blues with field rank braid on the peak. The cap badge is Coldstream Guards (with the details of the Garter Star hand painted by me).

I am planning to take this with me to Worldcon in Glasgow and to wear as Hall costume and shall probably add some of my Steampunked medals to the ensemble .

Once again, I think this project has come out rather well.

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 13

 Greetings

Here's Judge Declan again...

Until next time

Adieu

Calligraphy 1

 Greetings

I re-enact as a  Fourteenth Century fighting bishop. 

As part of this, I re-enact a short version of the Sarum Rite Mass.

I do not have a good memory- certainly not good enough to remember fifteen-to twenty  minutes worth of Latin- so I bought a nice hand bound ( in leather) book with blank pages to write up the service in.

The pages are about 13.5 cm by 8cm.

However- me being me- once I written up the Mass in a reasonable medieval hand, I felt compelled to illuminate it.

 Then I had to write down a grace( for when the Paladins were doing a display of noble table manners)

 and then I thought I'd better do the wedding service as ( to date) I've officiated at three medieval weddings... 

You see how it goes.

By the time I got to the wedding service, I was using oak-gall ink, illuminating with gold leaf and was often writing with a quill ( I use a porcupine quill).

It recently struck me that I've never blogged about this.

So , I decided I would start. I've now written and illuminated nearly sixty pages.

Don't panic- I'm only going to post some of my favourites...

Here is a Pater Noster ( Lord's Prayer) that I have recently completed.

I opted to use a larger font and spread it over four pages

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 12

 Greetings

Here is another version of this computer art

Until next time 

Adieu

Guards Steampunk 8

 Greetings

I had completed the bow section for the officer's sash.

I now had to make two tail pieces.

The single piece I had cut for this was already covered in black wool.

I decided to add the decoration first and then cut it in half.

The additional four metres of gold lace I had ordered had now arrived, so I added the three lines.

You will note that I opted not to close the outer lines at the ends (as on the antique original section of the sash). I decided  it was easier to finish the ends with pieces of the same wider lace (piped with red wool cut to shorten the tunic sleeves)I had used in the centre of the bow section. This would also make it easier to add bullion fringing.

Next, I added the Russia braid.

Then I cut and piped the two end pieces of wider gold lace and  sewed a doubled section of bullion fringing.

I then cut the single tail length in two and added the bullion fringing and piped lace to the ends.

I had only then to attach the tails to the back of the bow.

None of the examples I had found showed how the bow was attached to the adjustable leather strap of the sash.

My first idea was for the strap to pass through the centre loop closer of the bow, but this would mean setting the tails too far apart.

I therefore opted to cut out the centre back of the bow closer loop and  sew its two cut ends to the back of the bow. This required using strong thread.

I then used the same thread to sew the tops of the two tails into loops  and then double sewed the top curve of the loop to the back of the bow, I needed both a good thimble and a pair of pliers to do this.

The finished piece looks like this.

and the back looks like this.

I got fully dressed in the full rig and had Teddy take some photos, which I will post later.

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 11

 Greetings

More tribulations for our young Albion City Judge...

Until next time

Adieu

Guards Steampunk 7

 Greetings

I had finished sewing the lines of gold lace and Russia braid on to the bow section.

Now I tidied up the lace and braid ends and sewed the section into a bow loop.

Next, I had to make a piece to close the centre of the bow. As the examples I had found used a narrower piece for this, I decided to use a different width of gold lace for the decoration.

I also decided to make use of the pieces of red wool I had left from shortening the sleeves of the tunic.

I did not have to decorate the concealed rear part of the closer loop, so I cut a shorter piece of the gold lace and attached the red wool as piping.

I then cut some canvas to length and some black wool to cover it,

hand sewed the wool to the canvas

before hand sewing the piped gold lace to the piece.

I then sewed piece into a loop and slid it on to complete the bow section.

I will post more on this project later.

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 10

 Greetings

Judge Declan's encounter with Judge Leather is heating up...

Until next time

Adieu