Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Rent-A-Don
Rent-A-Don 0 - Friday
Sleep is a good thing.
It is not, however, something I've got much of recently, including last night. There have been a couple of late nights over the past week, then last night I managed a couple of hours of dozing rather than real sleep given that we had an oh-dark-hundred hours start to get to the airport. The original plan was to do at least some sleep, but then there was last-minute stuff to do and E didn't get out of work until after 01:30 so she came over to M's then rather than us getting up and out three quarters of an hour earlier than normally necessary in order to collect her on the way to the airport.
Never mind, we got there eventually. I decided against coffee with my normal "travelling breakfast" cheese and ham croissant and instead had a hot chocolate. Mmmm... Kaffitár at Keflavík do a superb hot chocolate with cream. Just what I needed to get me into the mood to sleep a little on the plane. We were on time (Icelandair have been much better about their punctuality recently) and made it to Costa's in terminal 1 arrivals just in time to receive a text from C to say that she was just awaiting her luggage. Soon after that we were all enjoying a variety of drinks and cakey goodness.
The car was awaiting us and we headed off towards Bristol, stopping off at the largest Hobbycraft I've visited. It's so convenient having a "points of interest" list of Hobbycraft stores for the TomTom... I then proceeded to cackle evilly as I introduced myinnocent victims friends to the joys of a craft superstore. I won again, by dint of spending the least amount of money. In spite of this I came away with lengths of silk and silk painting materials to do several banners and a few embroidery bits and pieces. The only downside was that we then went into a nearby shopping mall for something to eat (which involved side trips into Evans and Past Times) and I discovered that the sauce for the KFC Zinger Tower contains sweet chilli sauce. Fortunately I had only had a mouthful when I recognised the chilli burn.
We got onto site at about 19:00, well in time for an evening of sitting chatting to people before turning in for a long-overdue night's sleep.
Rent-A-Don 1 - Saturday
Ow ow ow...
Yes, there is not only a sore shoulder, but also sore ankles. Mind you, that's nothing to what some other people will be feeling. Part of this is down to the classes during the day, but a significant part is thanks to the evening - pretty much a full evening, for that matter - of fencing.
The morning was given over to three one-hour sessions introducing the styles that were available for the longer classes in the afternoon: Fabris, Giganti and Capo Ferro. Fabris was fine, particularly as that's the basis of the fencing I've been teaching over here. By half way through the Giganti though, not only was my shoulder sore but my ankles were protesting as well. The Capo Ferro class was, in many ways, a study in pain and frustration because I just could not get any of the sequences to work. There was a return to my bunkroom for a bit of a wobble during lunch, and the decision that my shoulder really wasn't up to an afternoon on concentrated drills. Had I done one it would probably been Fabris, but instead I did a bit of embroidery and talked to some of the non-fencers.
After dinner was time for the prize playing of four of the fencers, two for the rank of Free Scholar of the Academy of Defence, two for the higher rank of Provost. In these the applicant must fence three opponents twice in each of three (or five in the case of Provost) weapon styles and then hold the field against all comers for fifteen minutes (thirty for Provost). I'd been asked previously if I would like to be one of the three Free Scholar opponents but had declined as I felt that my fencing skills had atrophied from lack of use, that I was no longer fencing to Free Scholar standard. My assumption, therefore, was that I'd fence in the open section at the end. As it happened we were short a Free Scholar so I agreed to fence as one of the three anyway. I was rather surprised but pleased to find myself dispatching my opponents most of the time. Clearly all of this teaching stuff has stuck somewhere (although I was making more mistakes fighting Italian rather than Spanish, which is curious given that I've been teaching more Italian than Spanish - very strange).
This continued until well after 23:00; by the last half hour there were only five of us cycling round to meet the applicants again and again so we were all getting quite a good workout by that point. The late-night post-fight pancakes and tortilla were very gratefully received.
Rent-A-Don 2 - Sunday
After a late night on Saturday, there was an early Sunday morning.
And it was entirely because I'd volunteered to cook breakfast - Gloriana porridge and Rent-A-Don omelettes (although I find myself agreeing with M that nothing that large can possibly be -ette so I think that in future they'll have to be known as Rent-A-Don Omls). I was aided in this exercise by G and V, and between us we made sure that everyone was well-fueled for the day.
The day was mainly given over to classes given by members of the Academy of Defence and included a lot of stuff on the various forms of cut and thrust ('light' C&T appeals to me but I think that longsword is a bit too heavy), plus a long class on Silver. The only class I did was the one on cuts in 16th century rapier, from which I came away with what promises to be a rather bruised upper chest - no fault of my drill partner but rather a natural consequence of needing to be closer to my opponent do a cut than a thrust and thus being in line for more powerful parrying thrusts).
There was a break at lunch for a meeting of the Academy (during which I managed to become the interim Academy Scribe, lunatic that I am) and then a great deal of amusement (and indeed education) helping G with some mundane stuff. It had got quite hot and sunny by that point so not fencing (other than marshalling a couple of authorisations) was not too bad an idea.
After the evening's feast there was quite a fuss outside. Someone had a sharpened longsword and some of the C&T brigade were taking turns slicing plastic bottles filled with water in two. If you've ever seen the television footage of someone slicing bamboo in two with a katana then imagine something similar being done with a longsword. It was quite impressive how smooth the cuts were and how easily they split the plastic. It certainly impressed upon me just how dangerous these blades can be once sharpened.
Rent-A-Don 3 - Monday
Monday started a little later than planned, but well all the same.
The viceregal car had failed to start, so we formed an impromptu breakfast brigade and rustled up more porridge, omls and pancakes. Unfortunately this had a bit of a knock-on effect on timing, leaving things running about an hour late. I had hoped to get a couple of authorisations of my own done but there wasn't time. I've developed a theory that it's a much better idea to get all of the authorisations you think you're going to want before you become a marshal, because there are never enough marshals to go around and you'll therefore spend your time doing authorisations for other people rather than getting your own. Ah well, maybe at Raglan.
Oh yes, I'm planning to go to Raglan, and not just for the fencing. I am looking forward to having the honour of standing as consort to M at Viceroy Tournament... so I'm going to have to start sewing a new dress or two for the event very soon!
We eventually left the site at about 13:30 to head off back towards Heathrow, via Hampton Court Palace. Sadly it was almost 16:00 when we arrived, so we didn't have time to see much. We did have a good long chat with one of the living history interpreters in the kitchen - three of us wandering around wearing cloaks but not obviously part of the local team raised a few eyebrows but led to a fascinating discussion of recipes and other re-enactment issues.
We were also slowed down by the queue to see the exhibition on Henry's Women, which was actually a bit of a disappointment in many ways. It consisted of nine portraits (Henry, wives and daughters) that have been brought together from other rooms in the palace into a single cramped room. In spite of this it was quite useful - C and I had gone armed with sketchpads just in case, and I've not got a lot of small sketches of details of jewellery. I was particularly delighted to discover that all of those pendant pearls are drilled right through and held in place with small beads rather than being half-drilled. This will make it so much easier to make suitable jewellery in future. Even better, I now have a sketch pad full of details that will make up part of the documentation for future A&S projects that have been drawn from original sources at a level of detail that you just don't see on photos of the paintings.
I didn't have time to see the tapestry workshop, nor the maze, nor several of the more important artworks, nor even the Royal School of Needlework shop (the last of which was a major disappointment, particularly since I'd been quite excited by the prospect after its existance had been revealed to me the night before). I'm definitely going to have to go back for a far longer visit. Even so, by the time we'd got back to the airport there wasn't much time to do anything other than eat (and I'm really going to have to try some of the other eateries as Giraffe has a terrible selection of nuked-from-the-packet-and-therefore-unchangeable dishes) before having to leave for the departure gate.
1 comments
Sleep is a good thing.
It is not, however, something I've got much of recently, including last night. There have been a couple of late nights over the past week, then last night I managed a couple of hours of dozing rather than real sleep given that we had an oh-dark-hundred hours start to get to the airport. The original plan was to do at least some sleep, but then there was last-minute stuff to do and E didn't get out of work until after 01:30 so she came over to M's then rather than us getting up and out three quarters of an hour earlier than normally necessary in order to collect her on the way to the airport.
Never mind, we got there eventually. I decided against coffee with my normal "travelling breakfast" cheese and ham croissant and instead had a hot chocolate. Mmmm... Kaffitár at Keflavík do a superb hot chocolate with cream. Just what I needed to get me into the mood to sleep a little on the plane. We were on time (Icelandair have been much better about their punctuality recently) and made it to Costa's in terminal 1 arrivals just in time to receive a text from C to say that she was just awaiting her luggage. Soon after that we were all enjoying a variety of drinks and cakey goodness.
The car was awaiting us and we headed off towards Bristol, stopping off at the largest Hobbycraft I've visited. It's so convenient having a "points of interest" list of Hobbycraft stores for the TomTom... I then proceeded to cackle evilly as I introduced my
We got onto site at about 19:00, well in time for an evening of sitting chatting to people before turning in for a long-overdue night's sleep.
Rent-A-Don 1 - Saturday
Ow ow ow...
Yes, there is not only a sore shoulder, but also sore ankles. Mind you, that's nothing to what some other people will be feeling. Part of this is down to the classes during the day, but a significant part is thanks to the evening - pretty much a full evening, for that matter - of fencing.
The morning was given over to three one-hour sessions introducing the styles that were available for the longer classes in the afternoon: Fabris, Giganti and Capo Ferro. Fabris was fine, particularly as that's the basis of the fencing I've been teaching over here. By half way through the Giganti though, not only was my shoulder sore but my ankles were protesting as well. The Capo Ferro class was, in many ways, a study in pain and frustration because I just could not get any of the sequences to work. There was a return to my bunkroom for a bit of a wobble during lunch, and the decision that my shoulder really wasn't up to an afternoon on concentrated drills. Had I done one it would probably been Fabris, but instead I did a bit of embroidery and talked to some of the non-fencers.
After dinner was time for the prize playing of four of the fencers, two for the rank of Free Scholar of the Academy of Defence, two for the higher rank of Provost. In these the applicant must fence three opponents twice in each of three (or five in the case of Provost) weapon styles and then hold the field against all comers for fifteen minutes (thirty for Provost). I'd been asked previously if I would like to be one of the three Free Scholar opponents but had declined as I felt that my fencing skills had atrophied from lack of use, that I was no longer fencing to Free Scholar standard. My assumption, therefore, was that I'd fence in the open section at the end. As it happened we were short a Free Scholar so I agreed to fence as one of the three anyway. I was rather surprised but pleased to find myself dispatching my opponents most of the time. Clearly all of this teaching stuff has stuck somewhere (although I was making more mistakes fighting Italian rather than Spanish, which is curious given that I've been teaching more Italian than Spanish - very strange).
This continued until well after 23:00; by the last half hour there were only five of us cycling round to meet the applicants again and again so we were all getting quite a good workout by that point. The late-night post-fight pancakes and tortilla were very gratefully received.
Rent-A-Don 2 - Sunday
After a late night on Saturday, there was an early Sunday morning.
And it was entirely because I'd volunteered to cook breakfast - Gloriana porridge and Rent-A-Don omelettes (although I find myself agreeing with M that nothing that large can possibly be -ette so I think that in future they'll have to be known as Rent-A-Don Omls). I was aided in this exercise by G and V, and between us we made sure that everyone was well-fueled for the day.
The day was mainly given over to classes given by members of the Academy of Defence and included a lot of stuff on the various forms of cut and thrust ('light' C&T appeals to me but I think that longsword is a bit too heavy), plus a long class on Silver. The only class I did was the one on cuts in 16th century rapier, from which I came away with what promises to be a rather bruised upper chest - no fault of my drill partner but rather a natural consequence of needing to be closer to my opponent do a cut than a thrust and thus being in line for more powerful parrying thrusts).
There was a break at lunch for a meeting of the Academy (during which I managed to become the interim Academy Scribe, lunatic that I am) and then a great deal of amusement (and indeed education) helping G with some mundane stuff. It had got quite hot and sunny by that point so not fencing (other than marshalling a couple of authorisations) was not too bad an idea.
After the evening's feast there was quite a fuss outside. Someone had a sharpened longsword and some of the C&T brigade were taking turns slicing plastic bottles filled with water in two. If you've ever seen the television footage of someone slicing bamboo in two with a katana then imagine something similar being done with a longsword. It was quite impressive how smooth the cuts were and how easily they split the plastic. It certainly impressed upon me just how dangerous these blades can be once sharpened.
Rent-A-Don 3 - Monday
Monday started a little later than planned, but well all the same.
The viceregal car had failed to start, so we formed an impromptu breakfast brigade and rustled up more porridge, omls and pancakes. Unfortunately this had a bit of a knock-on effect on timing, leaving things running about an hour late. I had hoped to get a couple of authorisations of my own done but there wasn't time. I've developed a theory that it's a much better idea to get all of the authorisations you think you're going to want before you become a marshal, because there are never enough marshals to go around and you'll therefore spend your time doing authorisations for other people rather than getting your own. Ah well, maybe at Raglan.
Oh yes, I'm planning to go to Raglan, and not just for the fencing. I am looking forward to having the honour of standing as consort to M at Viceroy Tournament... so I'm going to have to start sewing a new dress or two for the event very soon!
We eventually left the site at about 13:30 to head off back towards Heathrow, via Hampton Court Palace. Sadly it was almost 16:00 when we arrived, so we didn't have time to see much. We did have a good long chat with one of the living history interpreters in the kitchen - three of us wandering around wearing cloaks but not obviously part of the local team raised a few eyebrows but led to a fascinating discussion of recipes and other re-enactment issues.
We were also slowed down by the queue to see the exhibition on Henry's Women, which was actually a bit of a disappointment in many ways. It consisted of nine portraits (Henry, wives and daughters) that have been brought together from other rooms in the palace into a single cramped room. In spite of this it was quite useful - C and I had gone armed with sketchpads just in case, and I've not got a lot of small sketches of details of jewellery. I was particularly delighted to discover that all of those pendant pearls are drilled right through and held in place with small beads rather than being half-drilled. This will make it so much easier to make suitable jewellery in future. Even better, I now have a sketch pad full of details that will make up part of the documentation for future A&S projects that have been drawn from original sources at a level of detail that you just don't see on photos of the paintings.
I didn't have time to see the tapestry workshop, nor the maze, nor several of the more important artworks, nor even the Royal School of Needlework shop (the last of which was a major disappointment, particularly since I'd been quite excited by the prospect after its existance had been revealed to me the night before). I'm definitely going to have to go back for a far longer visit. Even so, by the time we'd got back to the airport there wasn't much time to do anything other than eat (and I'm really going to have to try some of the other eateries as Giraffe has a terrible selection of nuked-from-the-packet-and-therefore-unchangeable dishes) before having to leave for the departure gate.
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