Samhuinn
Samhuinn was on Friday. It was a good.
I managed a 40 minute doze in the early afternoon, then got organised to go out.
Leather trousers are windproof and fireproof and therefore my default choice for Samhuinn and Beltane so long as costume colours don't clash. There is, however, a problem, in that if they haven't been worn for a while they do take a bit of wearing in before they get flexible, so there were some entertaining moments while I try to bend my legs and hips round enough to get my boots on while the trousers fought back.
Costume was sleeveless, but the addition of three layers of thermal vests underneath it made it warm enough even without the cloak.
I was the drum group's banner bearer, which included designing and making a banner. It was nice that people liked my design enough to include it in the makeup plan for everyone.
Here's me with the banner at the stage during the performance. You can just about see the tree pattern painted on my arm. The mask is painted leather.
And here's the tree pattern on my face
We were 30 minutes early for the start of the procession.
We all managed to stand still and silent for all that time, which was quite a challenge since there was an impatient crowd around us waiting for interesting things to happen.
Last time I did this I was a Summer Jester, so there was a lot of crowd interaction (non-speaking) during that part of the day.
The wind was a bit gusty. Less bad than the walk through on Sunday (30km/h as opposed to 40km/h) but I still had fairly achey legs by the end due to basically standing in a fighting stance for two hours in case of gusts.
There was really heavy rain at the start of the stage performance, but after a while it faded to the kind of fine drizzle that looks like glitter in the air when there's a lot of flash photography going on.
Drums, fire, summer, winter, dancing etc all happened. I wasn't in a great position to see the stage, but managed to see bits and pieces.
I managed a 40 minute doze in the early afternoon, then got organised to go out.
Leather trousers are windproof and fireproof and therefore my default choice for Samhuinn and Beltane so long as costume colours don't clash. There is, however, a problem, in that if they haven't been worn for a while they do take a bit of wearing in before they get flexible, so there were some entertaining moments while I try to bend my legs and hips round enough to get my boots on while the trousers fought back.
Costume was sleeveless, but the addition of three layers of thermal vests underneath it made it warm enough even without the cloak.
I was the drum group's banner bearer, which included designing and making a banner. It was nice that people liked my design enough to include it in the makeup plan for everyone.
Here's me with the banner at the stage during the performance. You can just about see the tree pattern painted on my arm. The mask is painted leather.
And here's the tree pattern on my face
We were 30 minutes early for the start of the procession.
We all managed to stand still and silent for all that time, which was quite a challenge since there was an impatient crowd around us waiting for interesting things to happen.
Last time I did this I was a Summer Jester, so there was a lot of crowd interaction (non-speaking) during that part of the day.
The wind was a bit gusty. Less bad than the walk through on Sunday (30km/h as opposed to 40km/h) but I still had fairly achey legs by the end due to basically standing in a fighting stance for two hours in case of gusts.
There was really heavy rain at the start of the stage performance, but after a while it faded to the kind of fine drizzle that looks like glitter in the air when there's a lot of flash photography going on.
Drums, fire, summer, winter, dancing etc all happened. I wasn't in a great position to see the stage, but managed to see bits and pieces.