Collegium of the white mountain in Tretower: more experimental archeology, and shooting
Weekend before last was one of the last 'autumn' events in Insulae Draconis for Robert and me - Collegium of the White Mountain, in Mynydd Gwyn.
We travelled up with His Majesty Paul, who was playing peasant that weekend - it was not an official event, so thus no business could take place - and this bothered HRM not at all. :-) The focus of the event was heraldry, shooting and scribing - hard to pick an event that would suit me more.
Tretower is a 15th c fortified home in south Wales, that we've enjoyed several times before. At present we're not allowed to stay in the house overnight, so we book the church hall next door to crash in, and use the historic site during the day.
In the morning I took advantage of the scribal slope in Tretower to finish a scroll for Crown - check one for scribing - while Robert painted up my arms for the afternoon shoot.
It's a good sign of the confidence CADW has in the SCA that they allowed our group once more to cook in their medieval kitchen, with blue_dormouse leading with the midday meal menu, including pottage, gammon pie (made at home), compound salad, hedgehogs, bread and cheese, and an apple-and-cream (apple snow?) pudding on biscuits. It was hard to complain.
We furthered the interests of culinary science by testing whether the technique of whipping cream by pouring it off a balcony works without wine - HRM led the research by pouring some of the double cream into a bowl that had cream in it.
The verdict was - cream-into-cream doesn't result in very much froth at all. Pouring it into cider works much better. So having narrowed this field, we now need to test alcohol vs non-alcohol base. Will keep you (urp!) posted...
The afternoon was shooting time - I shot a few ends to warm up (and it was cool - one of the autumn days that are lovely in sun but chilly in the shade), and then we tried out the very silly heraldry archery round, whereby you try to knock down your fellow archers' armory with a blunt arrow. Once Robert pointed out the tactical advantage of taking out the better archers first, the field narrowed quickly. :-) It was a fun round, and would be great fun in larger numbers.
With a large midday meal, noone had thought very far ahead to dinner, so some folks led a hasty trip to the shops to find roast chicken to supplement the bread cheese and cold meats that were already in evidence, and Robert made his usual frumenty.
We broke out a bottle of wine to mark our 10th anniversary - we consider the last weekend in September an anniversary, of when we started going out. Where did 10 years go?
Yours truly then pushed some dancers on the floor - it's much easier when the king is a known dancer, you can always say it's his fancy - and we managed 4 dances, including Black Alman, which I don't usually dance because I don't have the music. It was a very small dance space but we managed not to tread on anyone.
It was at this event that I confirmed my move into being a Pelican has really happened: I found myself cleaning the kitchen area, and worrying about the toilet paper supply. These are two things I've previously always happily left to others to lead on; I'll stack chairs, pack up, clean tables, etc and do lots of other cleanup, but I really, really don't enjoy kitchen duties.
But all of a sudden it was the kitchen that needed work most. The Pelicans told me this would happen...
We travelled up with His Majesty Paul, who was playing peasant that weekend - it was not an official event, so thus no business could take place - and this bothered HRM not at all. :-) The focus of the event was heraldry, shooting and scribing - hard to pick an event that would suit me more.
Tretower is a 15th c fortified home in south Wales, that we've enjoyed several times before. At present we're not allowed to stay in the house overnight, so we book the church hall next door to crash in, and use the historic site during the day.
In the morning I took advantage of the scribal slope in Tretower to finish a scroll for Crown - check one for scribing - while Robert painted up my arms for the afternoon shoot.
It's a good sign of the confidence CADW has in the SCA that they allowed our group once more to cook in their medieval kitchen, with blue_dormouse leading with the midday meal menu, including pottage, gammon pie (made at home), compound salad, hedgehogs, bread and cheese, and an apple-and-cream (apple snow?) pudding on biscuits. It was hard to complain.
We furthered the interests of culinary science by testing whether the technique of whipping cream by pouring it off a balcony works without wine - HRM led the research by pouring some of the double cream into a bowl that had cream in it.
The verdict was - cream-into-cream doesn't result in very much froth at all. Pouring it into cider works much better. So having narrowed this field, we now need to test alcohol vs non-alcohol base. Will keep you (urp!) posted...
The afternoon was shooting time - I shot a few ends to warm up (and it was cool - one of the autumn days that are lovely in sun but chilly in the shade), and then we tried out the very silly heraldry archery round, whereby you try to knock down your fellow archers' armory with a blunt arrow. Once Robert pointed out the tactical advantage of taking out the better archers first, the field narrowed quickly. :-) It was a fun round, and would be great fun in larger numbers.
With a large midday meal, noone had thought very far ahead to dinner, so some folks led a hasty trip to the shops to find roast chicken to supplement the bread cheese and cold meats that were already in evidence, and Robert made his usual frumenty.
We broke out a bottle of wine to mark our 10th anniversary - we consider the last weekend in September an anniversary, of when we started going out. Where did 10 years go?
Yours truly then pushed some dancers on the floor - it's much easier when the king is a known dancer, you can always say it's his fancy - and we managed 4 dances, including Black Alman, which I don't usually dance because I don't have the music. It was a very small dance space but we managed not to tread on anyone.
It was at this event that I confirmed my move into being a Pelican has really happened: I found myself cleaning the kitchen area, and worrying about the toilet paper supply. These are two things I've previously always happily left to others to lead on; I'll stack chairs, pack up, clean tables, etc and do lots of other cleanup, but I really, really don't enjoy kitchen duties.
But all of a sudden it was the kitchen that needed work most. The Pelicans told me this would happen...