Weekend recap
Apr. 27th, 2009 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeySpent all day Friday (and most of today) putting together 130 binders for a seminar our company is hosting, then bugged out of San Leandro at 4 PM. Traffic was surprisingly un-awful for a Friday going east on 80, though there were delays westbound due to construction. I stopped in Vallejo at Hancock Fabrics, because I hadn't brought any handwork with me. Found some tomato red heavy linen (40% off of 9.99/yard) and bought what was on the bolt, thinking I could turn it into a cartridge pleated petticoat. I've gone out with the Company enough years in a row I can rationalize making a new jacket and petticoat in linen now.
Arrived in camp to find Dale had already set up and left. There were three new people I didn't know and they had garbed up for Friday night at a mostly deserted fair grounds 'cause that's what they do at their other weekend re-enactments. Introductions were made, Scotty and Randy gave me a hand raising my tent, I unloaded and threw on shift, petticoat and cloak for the evening to be polite, even as I ate my supermarket salad out of a plastic container.
Slept badly Friday night, got up early enough to snag a shower, then set out muffins, apples and hardboiled eggs. Briana had also made banana bread, Scotty was cooking up some meat and Randy had a strong pot of black coffee going. The rest of the Companie began to trickle in, unload and move vehicles out to parking, well in time to move the leather cannon out to the field to fire a salute for the raising of the flag and opening of the games.
Captain Shinn had brought a drum this year - I offered to attempt to drum for the tactical drill and the parade as no one else volunteered. (I can tell you I fiddled with the damn shoulder rigging the entire weekend trying to find something that worked for me because nobody else seemed to know.)
Scotty and Briana love to cook under camp conditions, so they kept us well fed with various stews, sauteed leeks, lentil soup. Grant's wife sent along what have to be the best scones I have ever eaten. My pie was well received.
Worked on my petticoat in camp and would periodically say, "Yes, it's going to be a skirt," or get up to talk about the muskets racked next to where I was sitting with visitors. There was this one little blonde kid about 7 years old or so who came by with slightly older sister in matching clan tee shirts. I saw him staring wide eyed at the guns and asked if they had any questions. "Are these like the guns George Washington used?" I gave him a simple run-down on flintlocks and matchlocks and told him to go next door and talk to the 77th Montgomerie "redcoats" next door and ask them about their Brown Bess. He passed by later in the day and came over and said to me, "How are you this afternoon, madam?" Africkindorable!
Briana and I were walking back from the rest rooms when we heard, "Look, mom! Pilgrims!"
Did a little busking on Saturday - handed out a couple of cards to people, dodged pipe bands and explained what a hurdy gurdy is a lot.
Saturday night it was Scotty, Briana, Peter, Alicia, Grant and myself in camp: good food, pie, lantern light, some good German beer the name of which I can't remember, a raspberry lambic that was heavenly - and a great deal of silliness. The Royal Canadian Highlanders across the way were running a DVD of Gunga Din, but we were having a fine old time around our table. Anyone who thinks "hardcore" historical re-enactors are a bunch of stiffs should have witnessed the dissertation on homoerotic subtext in the film The Neverending Story. Or perhaps the suggestion that our unit change our name to the Free Artillery Company of the Knights Who Say Ni.
More of same Sunday. As the battery in my amp had died and I couldn't find the spare, I explored the rest of the fair a bit between our regular schedule of demos, parading and so forth. The children's caber tossing concession was kind of scary, but OK, the guy running it did "help" a bit. Met and fell in love with an extremely charming Clydesdale who was eating up all the petting and neck scratches he could get from passers by. Also met a lovely old border collie of 14 who dropped his tennis ball. Also met and devoured a root beer float.
Sunday's firing demo included the traditional shtick with Legio X Fretensis, the Hadrian's Wall Roman unit: they deployed behind scutae downrange of our cannon, waving swords and screaming, "Roma! Roma!"until we killed them. I need to get their permission next year to "liberate" their eagle. Or perhaps the vexilla.
Made it home in good time to catch the conclusion of "Little Dorrit" last night.
Arrived in camp to find Dale had already set up and left. There were three new people I didn't know and they had garbed up for Friday night at a mostly deserted fair grounds 'cause that's what they do at their other weekend re-enactments. Introductions were made, Scotty and Randy gave me a hand raising my tent, I unloaded and threw on shift, petticoat and cloak for the evening to be polite, even as I ate my supermarket salad out of a plastic container.
Slept badly Friday night, got up early enough to snag a shower, then set out muffins, apples and hardboiled eggs. Briana had also made banana bread, Scotty was cooking up some meat and Randy had a strong pot of black coffee going. The rest of the Companie began to trickle in, unload and move vehicles out to parking, well in time to move the leather cannon out to the field to fire a salute for the raising of the flag and opening of the games.
Captain Shinn had brought a drum this year - I offered to attempt to drum for the tactical drill and the parade as no one else volunteered. (I can tell you I fiddled with the damn shoulder rigging the entire weekend trying to find something that worked for me because nobody else seemed to know.)
Scotty and Briana love to cook under camp conditions, so they kept us well fed with various stews, sauteed leeks, lentil soup. Grant's wife sent along what have to be the best scones I have ever eaten. My pie was well received.
Worked on my petticoat in camp and would periodically say, "Yes, it's going to be a skirt," or get up to talk about the muskets racked next to where I was sitting with visitors. There was this one little blonde kid about 7 years old or so who came by with slightly older sister in matching clan tee shirts. I saw him staring wide eyed at the guns and asked if they had any questions. "Are these like the guns George Washington used?" I gave him a simple run-down on flintlocks and matchlocks and told him to go next door and talk to the 77th Montgomerie "redcoats" next door and ask them about their Brown Bess. He passed by later in the day and came over and said to me, "How are you this afternoon, madam?" Africkindorable!
Briana and I were walking back from the rest rooms when we heard, "Look, mom! Pilgrims!"
Did a little busking on Saturday - handed out a couple of cards to people, dodged pipe bands and explained what a hurdy gurdy is a lot.
Saturday night it was Scotty, Briana, Peter, Alicia, Grant and myself in camp: good food, pie, lantern light, some good German beer the name of which I can't remember, a raspberry lambic that was heavenly - and a great deal of silliness. The Royal Canadian Highlanders across the way were running a DVD of Gunga Din, but we were having a fine old time around our table. Anyone who thinks "hardcore" historical re-enactors are a bunch of stiffs should have witnessed the dissertation on homoerotic subtext in the film The Neverending Story. Or perhaps the suggestion that our unit change our name to the Free Artillery Company of the Knights Who Say Ni.
More of same Sunday. As the battery in my amp had died and I couldn't find the spare, I explored the rest of the fair a bit between our regular schedule of demos, parading and so forth. The children's caber tossing concession was kind of scary, but OK, the guy running it did "help" a bit. Met and fell in love with an extremely charming Clydesdale who was eating up all the petting and neck scratches he could get from passers by. Also met a lovely old border collie of 14 who dropped his tennis ball. Also met and devoured a root beer float.
Sunday's firing demo included the traditional shtick with Legio X Fretensis, the Hadrian's Wall Roman unit: they deployed behind scutae downrange of our cannon, waving swords and screaming, "Roma! Roma!"until we killed them. I need to get their permission next year to "liberate" their eagle. Or perhaps the vexilla.
Made it home in good time to catch the conclusion of "Little Dorrit" last night.
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Date: 2009-04-28 09:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
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