Beltaine 2008

[jamesq]

Another busy weekend, no doubt there will be many more this summer.

Saturday began with an early morning rise to go to the archery range for the Beltaine archery tournament. devoidofthought and garething went with and they both competed. Roo balked at first, but we eventually convinced her. Naturally she got a string bite that raised an impressive bruise.

The tournament was well thought out, challenging and showed an immense amount of effort on the part of the marshal in charge. I was a little annoyed about it and it took me awhile to put my finger on why. It was a really good Dragonblinder tournament and was too hard for a Beltaine tournament. Note that, among the senior archers, my opinion was unique - it got high praise from everyone else.

We capped it off with an "honour shoot" - one arrow at a difficult target. The Japanese legend that accomponied this one shot said that too miss was to dishonour yourself, so you'd have to commit seppuku. Which we were told would happen later in the event when there was a bigger audience.

I believe I tied for second in the Advanced division of the tournament (I'll confirm later when I get the final results for the ToT - garething won BTW), and missed the honour target.

Then it was off to the event. I was immediately drawn into (of all things) the pouch-making contest and Roo was press-ganged by the feastocrat.

The pouch contest was simple. Pick materials from the large tote of scraps and create a pouch suitable for gifting to other royalty. I used my own largely non-existent crafting talent to construct a pouch with the device of Duke Canard d'Bleu. The two winning entries were by [mumble mumble] and othelianna. othelianna's entry was a beautifully weird dead fish. I want one.

I met KH, wendy_licious and wackynephews' brand new daughter.

Beltaine's big thing is the Bardic championship. conejita_diabla was (in addition to being the event steward) the outgoing Bardic championship. Those things together caused more then a little stress, especially since getting people to commit to anything in the SCA, much less a bardic competition, is nigh impossible. She needn't have worried - there was a lot of competitors, with a high level of talent. The new bardic champion of Montengarde? The multi-talented thekillerb69. He had some stiff competition.

I got a small amount of praise about my humble blog from GL.

"You enjoy my emo-whining about my weight and lack of sex?" I asked.
"Actually, it was your post about Silver Arrow that I liked", she said.

Cool. I was expecting some feedback at the event, but nothing that positive.

Sadly, politics intruded briefly. HH intercepted me as I was returning from my car and we had a brief discussion. It provoked a fair amount of anxiety in me so I wasn't as articulate as I'd have liked (but I still held my own). My opinions have not changed, but I think we understand each other a little better. The peace will always be a chilly.

Thankfully the political stuff ended quickly and I returned to having a grand old time.

The feast that ES, sagaciouslu and Roo created was consumed. It was delicious and oh-so-very filling. Nobody went away hungry and they actually had enough food left over for fifty more people.

At the beginning of the feast, an anouncement was made that we (the six archers who shot at and missed the honour target) would be committing seppuku outside in the parking lot. Hearing this, HE Wilma requested that we do the deed on stage beside the head table. Swell, because I love performing in front of a hundred people.

On the other hand, there were six of us. We decided amongst ourselves to ham it up.

So we each went up in turn and commited suicide in front of the entire Beltaine hall. I opined that, having a Scots persona instead of a Japanese persona, I should be allowed to commit seppuku by drinking myself to death. The royals were'nt buying it.

My red-faced encounter with the knife was recorded for posterity by HE Sir Thorwulf and L Arnolt Brekswerd.

To keep the bodies from piling up we were dragged out of sight behind the head table. This left us with a dillema - how to get offstage without wrecking the show. So we rose as the living dead, hungry for brains! We shambled off the stage and returned to something better then brains - Roast beef!

After dinner was cleared away there was court. Many prizes and awards were given, numerous of my friends were recognized for their talents, selfless acts and general good looks. Congrats to all.

And then HH had words with the populous regarding Silver Arrow. He apologised. The room was dead silent and then court ended. It took a few seconds for everyone to recover.

And then it was back to the singing, dancing and carousing. Carousing was made better by the hall-provided bar. Normally SCA events have their own bar staff, but a condition of the hall rental was using there own bar staff. It worked really well. It meant we didn't have to divert resources, and we got a better class of booze. Sadly I was driving, so couldn't partake. The downside is the bar usually generates revenue. I think the pluses outweighed the minuses.

I was one of the last to leave, so I helped out with the tear-down. Then I got home and passed out.

Sunday doesn't really deserve it's own post, so I'll point form it:

• Got up after five hours of sleep to run in the Forzani's Mother's Day 10K Road Race.
  
• My official time was 59:18. My goal was under-one-hour, so I'm pleased with that.
  
• Had people over to break in my copy of Rock Band. It was fun, even though I did break in my coffee table.
  
• conejita_diabla, devoidofthought and I went to a local pub to play NTN and encountered a wonderfully vulgar waitress. I have to drag KE to this joint. I'll certainly be returning.

So that was my weekend. Phew.

Comments

[devoidofthought.livejournal.com]

What was the honour target? I didn't bother to try it. My arm had had enough pain for one day.
It was definitely a different experience for me. I haven't felt so utterly exhausted in a really long time.

At work, I listen to my ipod. Most of my thoughts regarding the music playing was along the lines of, this would be fun to play on Rock Band.

That waitress = my kind of girl

[jamesq]

There were three targets, each was a Japanese fan. For beginners, you had to hit inside the total area of the fan. For intermediate you had to hit the paper of the fan, but not the wooden border. For advanced, you had to hit one of the microscopic fish printed on the paper.

[devoidofthought.livejournal.com]

You gotta give Tim props for creativity.

pictures renamed

[(Anonymous)]

I renamed my 3 pictures for you.

When I get home I'll tag them as well. I can't tag them at work.

Arnolt Brekswerd