Event report: Fall Harvest

[eveglass]

Saturday dawned cloudy and cold as I set off towards the event site. Though I was certain I knew where I was going, I still managed to get lost, driving several blocks too far down the correct road. Don't ask me how I missed the site, a huge community centre. I don't know. All I know is that I can apparently get lost with the simplest of directions, at a site I've been to several times already.

In any event, I was one of the first to arrive and promptly sat down at gate to help Serena string site tokens. It was slow going until she, with her crazy sewing skillz, was able to thread a needle onto some very thick wool. The token-stringing speed suddenly burst up from one-a-minute to one every few seconds. I give many thanks to both Serena and whoever invented the needle.

Afterwards, I sat at gate for a while, chatting with friends and newcomers, and generally enjoyed myself. Conrad bought the gatekeepers Timbits, to our general cries of thanks. There are few things as tasty on the morning of an event as warm Timbits.

For the better part of the afternoon, I drifted from conversation to conversation without any real purpose. I spent some time with Ernst, sang a song or two for the kitchen crew, and generally tried to keep myself out of trouble. I somehow managed to continually have my back to Her Majesty when she walked by, and constantly needed to be informed by people (ie: Ernst) that I should turn around and curtsey. Another few times, and we'd have a running joke.

I also gathered a few of the bards of the group to learn a song Chiara had written. Together, we sang as Their Majesties processed into court. And, while I can't harmonize to save my life, some of our other singers could, and we sounded pretty durn good, if-I-do-say-so-myself.

Court itself was not nearly as bad as I expected. There were very few pieces of business, which is always a bonus. Congratulations to Lord Xavier the Sinister, who was given his AoA. Also congratulations to Lord Cairn and Lady Serena, for their induction into the Order of L'Ile du Dragon Dormant. Well deserved, all around. It also seemed that this was the court of heraldic slips of the tongue (eh, Lady Cairn?), which added a touch of humour into an otherwise serious affair.

After court was feast. The food was quite tasty, for the most part. Also, we had bardic! During feast! And people actually listened to the bardic. I consider this a massive step forward from our usual state of affairs in the East. I performed twice, once with Chiara ("The Boreal Army Muster") and once alone ("The Wild Eastman Spam"). Their Majesties gave out coins to all the performers, so I received one. It is muchly spiffy. We also had some other fantastic performers: Chiara presented an original poem about Lucan's coronation, Olivier did a period piece, as did Domenego (both of them with excellent vocal styles), and Yoshi (formerly known as Amaury) presented a piece as well. All told, I think I need to step up my bardic game and learn some period stuff -- I'm being crowded out by the up-and-comers!

After feast, I stripped down to my chemise and got wet and dirty in the kitchen. By which I mean, of course, that I washed dishes. I'm one of those strange people who actually likes washing dishes at events -- you get a great cameraderie among the cleanup crew, and I can sing as many bawdy drinking songs as I like. This is especially true when Dannicus is there, as he was last night.

Finally, I left the site around eleven. It was a fun day, and I enjoyed myself. While I know that there are other events coming up soon I would like to attend (including a bardic event in Albany next weekend), I suspect I won't be doing much SCA-related travel until I get a regular income. Alas.


So that's it for now. I have quite a number of things to do today before gaming this evening. So, off to do them! TTFN!