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).
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
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.
Until next time
Adieu
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
Greetings
Here is an 'Ave Maria' that I have recently added to my Breviary.
Until next time
Adieu
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.
Greetings
Here is our last view of Judge Declan ( any further any it'd have to be in The Garden of Dubious Delights..)
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
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