Knockhoilt

 Greetings

The Paladins were recently hired to attend a village event in the very small commuity of Knockholt.

This is south of Croydon and just north of the M25.

It was a little interesting getting there, even with a sat nav, especially as they had neglected to let us know that the main road through the village was blocked by roadworks at one end.

I tried finding a way round and after much swearing at my sat nav, found myself back at the same junction that I'd had to turn off at in the first place.

This did, however, let me see the diversion sign, that was placed so it could only be seen approaching from that direction, so I did, eventually get to the site.

We set up the camp. Here are some pictures.

We then got into kit.

The event started with a parade around the village. As the weather forecaste showed it would be dry. I had opted to parade a the bishop, in cope and mitre. It was very hot, so I decided not to wear my day robe, or my tunical. 

I was, however, wearing my poltock and hose and my medieval boots under my vestments. The group had been told we could wear modern shoes if we wished, but it was too late to change by the time this filtered down to me.

We had to walk up to near the church to take our place in the procession.

The whole thing was led by a marching band, who, it soon became clear, had not had a lot of practice marching and playing at the same time. This resulted in a lot of slow marching and frequent stops to avoid running into the groups ahead of us and,on top of that, my left boot began to give me a blister.

Eventually we got through it and I gratefully swapped to my spare ankle boots.

After a quick lunch we had a short tournay. I left off my standard and breastplate due to the heat.

This was the first official fight for young Russell and Adam( who I haved been training) as they had recently turned 16. They both did very well with me killing Adam (twice) and Russel winning the melee.

They were bth fighting in armour and seemed to have no problem with that.

We had very few visitors, but entertained those that showed an interest.

It was a low key event, but went very well.

The journey home was also interesting, particularly the moment when I turned a corner on a narrow lane and found myself nose to nose with one of the largest tractors I have ever seen. 

Luckily he was able tto back a bit to a place where, with a lot of breathing in on bith sides, we could edge past each other.

Then, once I'd also had to pull over sharply for an ambulance on the wrong side of the road a little further on, I manged to get home at a very reasonable hour.

Until next time

Adieu