Pikeman's Pleasure
Edit: I wrote 2/3 of this message soon afterwards. Then real life hit and I just discovered a mostly written, un-posted message. oops!
Pikeman’s Pleasure was Saturday June 5. It was the 20th anniversary of the event. I can’t remember how many of them I’ve been to. I went for the first time in 2000. I remember Pikeman’s 13 with its theme of lucky and unlucky.
We were not sure what to expect because everyone was predicting rain both in Ottawa and Peterborough. It ended up being the usual glorious day that it always is. There was archery and there was a terrific feast with bardic - this is why I try not to miss Pikeman’s.
The weather predictions ended up really working out for us. Mom and Dad were originally planning a garage sale for the 5th. With all the calls for rain, they moved it to the 12th, which meant that they were able to take Rose of Avalon for a sleep over. 4 ½ year olds and archery are not the greatest combination. Grainne Fion came with us and was, for the most part, well behaved.
Perhaps because of weather, it was not as well attended as it was in years past. Once again, this seemed to work out for us as there were not the usual line ups of people at the archery range. Grainne got to do archery as there was a 10 yard target. She is getting progressively better with her bow. She hit the target a few times and scored a few points. She was talking at one point of having 14 or 16 points and I knew she hadn’t got that many. Then I realized that she is keeping a lifetime score. This is all the points she has ever got at archery.
The funniest thing was how she carried her arrows. She kept carrying them points down behind her back to look “like a peacock”. At Brownie Camp, they were taught to carrying their arrows that way since having a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds walking around with arrows can be an accident waiting to happen. However, when she started telling adults how they should be carrying their arrows, I drew the line.
Piers did well at archery. I didn’t score very many points, but my consistency and grouping is improving. We all had fun on the archery field and that is the main thing. I still wear my arm guard, but I don’t think I really need it. I have been pretty consistent in my form and I haven’t hit my arm in a long time. Grainne got an archery related injury with a finger being cut by a feather. It turns out that she is as big of a wimp as her mother and once she gets hurt, she loses interest in keeping going.
No IKAC this year, but I did a Royal Round and Piers did two. They had a fun novelty shoot with paper bags of money. You shot 6 arrows trying to hit them. Only after could you look under and see the points value. Some were negative, which meant that you could finish with a negative score. They were re-arranged between rounds.
Inge came to Pikeman's and I got to see her again on the archery range. I almost didn't recognize because of all the weight she's lost. She looked fabulous. A lot of the archery range was distracted by a very decolletee Baroness of Skraeling Althing. A friend of Anne Tinker's came by the range with her kids. I loaned one Grace's bow to let him try. I also watched Edhan very carefully to pick up tricks as to how to teach archery to kids.
Before court, Grainne picked out buttons for the cotehardie I'm making her. Court was fairly short. One scroll was stunning - all the text was inside a Viking ship.
In the grand tradition of Pikeman's, we were the only people from Caldrithig (and I think all of Skrael) who stayed for feast. Everyone else's loss. Keja was the head cook and the theme was the travels of the gypsies. The second course (between the appetizers and desserts - the main portion) was Middle Eastern. It was wonderful - I have never not enjoyed feast at Pikeman's which is one of the reasons we always sit feast. We sat with Tempus.
The bardic competition was about the number 20. I had planned a story before I knew the theme so I just threw a 20 into it. The audience seemed to really like my piece. Again, I noticed most people were talking through the performances. They talked all through the Caldrithig choir pre-feast. They talked through all the performances at feast, including mine. I wandered around the hall as I told my tale. It was funny because as I was standing before a table, they would all be quiet, but as soon as I was a table or two away, they'd be talking again. Lest anyone think I'm mad at Pikeman's, I am of the opinion that the audience at Pikeman's is typical. The audience I get in Skrael (like at Dandelion Festival) is atypical. Rather than it saying anything bad about anyone from Septentria or elsewhere, I think it shows that Skrael audiences are the best audiences and we should be encouraging more people to perform at Hare and Practicum. As part of the story, I got to present Quilliam and Dagmar each with a hand-forged nail courtesy of Thora. They were very impressed with the nail and I wouldn't be surprised if they go with them to Pennsic.
We had a good drive home. Grainne had had such a terrific day that she was still full of energy and wanted to play "I'm going on a trip" half of the way home.
Pikeman’s Pleasure was Saturday June 5. It was the 20th anniversary of the event. I can’t remember how many of them I’ve been to. I went for the first time in 2000. I remember Pikeman’s 13 with its theme of lucky and unlucky.
We were not sure what to expect because everyone was predicting rain both in Ottawa and Peterborough. It ended up being the usual glorious day that it always is. There was archery and there was a terrific feast with bardic - this is why I try not to miss Pikeman’s.
The weather predictions ended up really working out for us. Mom and Dad were originally planning a garage sale for the 5th. With all the calls for rain, they moved it to the 12th, which meant that they were able to take Rose of Avalon for a sleep over. 4 ½ year olds and archery are not the greatest combination. Grainne Fion came with us and was, for the most part, well behaved.
Perhaps because of weather, it was not as well attended as it was in years past. Once again, this seemed to work out for us as there were not the usual line ups of people at the archery range. Grainne got to do archery as there was a 10 yard target. She is getting progressively better with her bow. She hit the target a few times and scored a few points. She was talking at one point of having 14 or 16 points and I knew she hadn’t got that many. Then I realized that she is keeping a lifetime score. This is all the points she has ever got at archery.
The funniest thing was how she carried her arrows. She kept carrying them points down behind her back to look “like a peacock”. At Brownie Camp, they were taught to carrying their arrows that way since having a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds walking around with arrows can be an accident waiting to happen. However, when she started telling adults how they should be carrying their arrows, I drew the line.
Piers did well at archery. I didn’t score very many points, but my consistency and grouping is improving. We all had fun on the archery field and that is the main thing. I still wear my arm guard, but I don’t think I really need it. I have been pretty consistent in my form and I haven’t hit my arm in a long time. Grainne got an archery related injury with a finger being cut by a feather. It turns out that she is as big of a wimp as her mother and once she gets hurt, she loses interest in keeping going.
No IKAC this year, but I did a Royal Round and Piers did two. They had a fun novelty shoot with paper bags of money. You shot 6 arrows trying to hit them. Only after could you look under and see the points value. Some were negative, which meant that you could finish with a negative score. They were re-arranged between rounds.
Inge came to Pikeman's and I got to see her again on the archery range. I almost didn't recognize because of all the weight she's lost. She looked fabulous. A lot of the archery range was distracted by a very decolletee Baroness of Skraeling Althing. A friend of Anne Tinker's came by the range with her kids. I loaned one Grace's bow to let him try. I also watched Edhan very carefully to pick up tricks as to how to teach archery to kids.
Before court, Grainne picked out buttons for the cotehardie I'm making her. Court was fairly short. One scroll was stunning - all the text was inside a Viking ship.
In the grand tradition of Pikeman's, we were the only people from Caldrithig (and I think all of Skrael) who stayed for feast. Everyone else's loss. Keja was the head cook and the theme was the travels of the gypsies. The second course (between the appetizers and desserts - the main portion) was Middle Eastern. It was wonderful - I have never not enjoyed feast at Pikeman's which is one of the reasons we always sit feast. We sat with Tempus.
The bardic competition was about the number 20. I had planned a story before I knew the theme so I just threw a 20 into it. The audience seemed to really like my piece. Again, I noticed most people were talking through the performances. They talked all through the Caldrithig choir pre-feast. They talked through all the performances at feast, including mine. I wandered around the hall as I told my tale. It was funny because as I was standing before a table, they would all be quiet, but as soon as I was a table or two away, they'd be talking again. Lest anyone think I'm mad at Pikeman's, I am of the opinion that the audience at Pikeman's is typical. The audience I get in Skrael (like at Dandelion Festival) is atypical. Rather than it saying anything bad about anyone from Septentria or elsewhere, I think it shows that Skrael audiences are the best audiences and we should be encouraging more people to perform at Hare and Practicum. As part of the story, I got to present Quilliam and Dagmar each with a hand-forged nail courtesy of Thora. They were very impressed with the nail and I wouldn't be surprised if they go with them to Pennsic.
We had a good drive home. Grainne had had such a terrific day that she was still full of energy and wanted to play "I'm going on a trip" half of the way home.