A Weekend in the Middle Ages

Wassail all, I have had a weekend full of SCA activities. On Saturday I made my way to the Barony of Rising Waters to partake in Lady Mary. Although I did not compete, or fight at all both my daughter and I had a memorable time. I cannot thank Yvette enough for the wonderful event. On Sunday I made it out to my Shire's archery practice ant got a chance to shoot some arrows off, again a memorable time, and I will be returning.

Lady Mary

Although we could not stay for feast this time, it was quite interesting to watch the fighting, and see the wares for sale. Naturally I could not leave the event without making a purchase or two. My daughter picked out a wonderful little music box and has not put it down for more than a moment since she bought it. Myself I got a new belt and a belt knife.

My new belt knife is what the vendor called a gentleman's bowie knife. Not quite period, but still an impressive knife. The balance is nice, it has a beautiful cherrywood handle, the sheath is nice. It doesn't look overly decorative, which is good, because it is meant to be a functional knife for me and not just look pretty.

Heavy fighting

Alas I did not partake in any fighting at all. I felt the tournament was too prestigious for me to compete in. However all fighters are expected to have a consort for who's honour they fight for. Kellen (aka Rob) did not have a consort that day, I am sure he would have fought for his wife's honour in absentee or perhaps for the honour of the court, however he requested the honour of fighting for Lilley's honour. I granted him permission and Lilley got presented to the court. She is ever so proud of the necklace and carnation the court gave to each consort, and she was pleased as punch to have her own personal champion at the event.

Dancing

My daughter was quite excited about Lady Mary because she recalled Yvette telling her at Winter War that there would be plenty of dancing at Lady Mary. Sure enough the dancing did not disappoint her. Once again my thanks go out to the lovely Yvette, and the wondrous Brandi (not sure of her SCA name), the two of them took Lilley in hand and helped her dance and see what she wished to see, while giving me a chance to watch some fighting bouts. Brandi even offered to be my partner when I joined them in the dance room.

Despite the fact I have three left feet Brandi was a patient instructor correcting me when I goofed up without making me feel like a fool. I do look forward to more instruction in this fine art. While heavy fighting is my main area of focus I can see dancing being something I actually look forward to at events as well.

Silent Auction

There was a silent auction at Lady Mary. Quite a few interesting items up for bid, one in particular was an offer to make garb for children. Lilley desperately needs new garb, and so I put in a bid, I was the only bidder so I bid fairly low, but not obscenely low, and lo and behold I won the item. So now I get to have some garb made for Lilley at a nice cut rate price. I am sure Lilley will be excited once she can wear her new garb. I do have to arrange a time to go to the seamstress and get Lilley measured up and pick out the style. In addition to this a friend of a friend who sewed me my first tunic contacted me with an offer to do some more garb for my daughter and I, so perhaps we will be filling out our SCA wardrobes.

I am glad that the friend contacted me about additional garb, I don't like my black tunic (no fault of the seamstress, my own fault for not knowing what I was doing when I bought the material) the material is not really period, the colour is not right, basically it just doesn't fit my persona well. What I would like is a Leine, trews, a proper brat, and a Inar to really fit the part of early irish celt. I don't know if the seamstress would be willing to do all that for me, but we shall see.

I am not quite sure what period to hit for Lilley, I would imagine she would prefer a more later period, going for fancier dress cloths as it would make her more like a princess. We shall see.

Feast

Alas I missed feast this time around, much to Lilley's dismay. Lilley already has quite the reputation as an up and comming bard due to her singing at Winter War and Masquerade, and she was so looking forward to singing some. Next event I should ensure that we get to feast and that I have some lyric sheets printed off for her so she knows the words even better yet. I will have to ask Yvette for some of the better known songs so I can download the lyrics and get Lilley working on the songs.

Archery

On Sunday I got a chance to go out to Louisa's farm for some archery practice. I shot archery once in scout camp when I was quite young, I didn't do terrible, but I certainly didn't do good, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect this time. I surprised myself by doing half decent. Raithe informed me I was pulling about 32 lbs or so, but I'll just have to take his word on that. After a few rounds with a 30lbs bow I got to try out Raithe's monster 75 lbs longbow. When I say monster, I mean monster, the thing is fantastic to shoot, the arrows whistle out of the bow and hit the target with quite a satisfying thump. The first few shots with the longbow were way off as my arm wobbled under the strain of pulling the string back, but once I got a little steadier the arrows flew truer, but I had to adjust my aim considerably because there was almost no drop to the arrows and most of my shots went sailing over the targets.