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Bottom! Life can be cr*p sometimes.
Aug. 19th, 2005 10:46 pmBum! The car situation is now much worse....
Mostly because I am an idiot. I started up to Kelmarsh Hall for the festival of history towing a trailer for the first time. It seems somewhere along the line a water pipe burst and jettisoned all the water... Not good but you would think the overheating light would come on. Well it didn't.... Well not until the whole car didn't run any more and all the lights came on...... :-(
I was less that five minutes from my destination too..... grrrr. I probably should have noticed that the car seemed sluggish and a thousand other kinds of perhaps if only... but I have promised myself I am not going to go down that route and lose loads of sleep over it. Well that is my theory and I have been nackered enough so far for it to work.
On the upside I got to The Festival of History courtesy of the generosity of Peter (otherwise know as Terafan) who came and picked me and all my stuff up. I had camping gear and enough cook gear to cook a feast for 40 odd people over an open fire with me.... ie a fully loaded Peugeot with 6"x4" trailer.
Anyway I got there and set up.... and Peter rescued Fiona from Northampton when her train arrived. Isn't he nice.... ;-)
Saturday was a hard slog not only did I do my usual 8-5:30 day for the Knights Tournament but I had to miss most of my lunch break because Oliver (the horse my knight was allocated) would not stay on the picket line and had to be walked like a huge (16+ hands) dog..... Torrential rain didn't help much either... Wet through to the skin but thankfully natural fibres like wool still keep you warm even when wet.
We also discovered that Graham my knight is a "mudlark" winning the joust for the second time only this year in the most appalling conditions seen! Rain, rain more rain, mud and oh did I mention the rain! A little put out because we won the day and the best bit if we win is that I get to handle the prize a falcon... ok we don't get to keep it but we do get to run up and down the crowd line with it and I only got to do that once.
At least I got off work at 5ish because the grand parade was canceled, Yeahish, and then have to start thinking about the banquet I somehow managed to volunteer to cook. One of these days I will learn to say ... err what is that word I am trying to remember again..... err that's right... NOPE gone again......;-)
Anyway in a major rainstorm with only just enough equipment I managed to cook the following menu;
Monchelet (Lamb stew) (Form of Curry)
Chickpea and apricot stew (Adapted from Apicius)
Mushrooms and Spinach in Red wine (made up whole cloth from left over salad and half a bottle of red wine.)
Braised Cabbage
Salad
Pommes Moyle (Apple Pudding) and Apple pies
Raspberry Fool (ok so this is probably not period but its a mere triffle really)
Gingerbread (yeah my signature dish now but its sooooo nice.)
I didn't quite have enough lamb but then passing it up the squires table first was probably a mistake! They all seemed rather impressed by the food but I take it that re-enactors don't seem to have the same banquet culture that the SCA does. Most of them didn't even turn up with stuff to eat of or with. Peter did a wonderful job on the banqueting hall with his Mannessa Codex wall hangings. Score one for the SCA I think..... Best comments of the day are "Do you do weddings?" and "All this for a fiver I need budgeting lessons!" The latter lady cooked for a journo and her hubby (yep two people) and made £20 having charged £100.00 total.
Mind you I am not sure we will bother again as Peter and I were left with most of the dishes and cleaning up and practically no one offered to help load the van on Sunday night.
Jen (one of the squires ladies) had volunteered to take peoples shoes home and dry them out and then spent a worrying night because she realized she had something like £3000 worth of shoes on her radiators and was not sure her insurance would cover them all.
Sunday the weather was better and things dried out mostly anyway. It was great to see Cathy and Lesley there even if Fiona had gone home due to transport troubles due to the dead car.
Rob and Dee wonderfully volunteered to put me up Sunday Night and then Rob would take me to the Isle of Wight for another Joust in Carisbrooke.
Got to the Isle of Wight ok but on the way got the news that the Peugeot was terminally wounded and should be put out of its misery. :-(
Got to Isle of Wight about 5pm after a good trip down and started on my last Joust. This was a little different because the knights were different (apart from Steve Mallet aka Sir James Swimbourne) and there was only mounted games and the Joust to run.
The public seemed well up for it and the arena nicely arranged for it. It was fun and not as much work as The Knights Tournaments. The weather was excellent too and I almost managed to forget my car troubles.
Upshot of the car trouble is we are now applying for a loan to get a car... wish us luck as we are awaiting approval for a loan as I write this, then all we have to do is get a car and we are sorted. Plan is to spend more money this time and get something decent. Fingers crossed.
Mostly because I am an idiot. I started up to Kelmarsh Hall for the festival of history towing a trailer for the first time. It seems somewhere along the line a water pipe burst and jettisoned all the water... Not good but you would think the overheating light would come on. Well it didn't.... Well not until the whole car didn't run any more and all the lights came on...... :-(
I was less that five minutes from my destination too..... grrrr. I probably should have noticed that the car seemed sluggish and a thousand other kinds of perhaps if only... but I have promised myself I am not going to go down that route and lose loads of sleep over it. Well that is my theory and I have been nackered enough so far for it to work.
On the upside I got to The Festival of History courtesy of the generosity of Peter (otherwise know as Terafan) who came and picked me and all my stuff up. I had camping gear and enough cook gear to cook a feast for 40 odd people over an open fire with me.... ie a fully loaded Peugeot with 6"x4" trailer.
Anyway I got there and set up.... and Peter rescued Fiona from Northampton when her train arrived. Isn't he nice.... ;-)
Saturday was a hard slog not only did I do my usual 8-5:30 day for the Knights Tournament but I had to miss most of my lunch break because Oliver (the horse my knight was allocated) would not stay on the picket line and had to be walked like a huge (16+ hands) dog..... Torrential rain didn't help much either... Wet through to the skin but thankfully natural fibres like wool still keep you warm even when wet.
We also discovered that Graham my knight is a "mudlark" winning the joust for the second time only this year in the most appalling conditions seen! Rain, rain more rain, mud and oh did I mention the rain! A little put out because we won the day and the best bit if we win is that I get to handle the prize a falcon... ok we don't get to keep it but we do get to run up and down the crowd line with it and I only got to do that once.
At least I got off work at 5ish because the grand parade was canceled, Yeahish, and then have to start thinking about the banquet I somehow managed to volunteer to cook. One of these days I will learn to say ... err what is that word I am trying to remember again..... err that's right... NOPE gone again......;-)
Anyway in a major rainstorm with only just enough equipment I managed to cook the following menu;
Monchelet (Lamb stew) (Form of Curry)
Chickpea and apricot stew (Adapted from Apicius)
Mushrooms and Spinach in Red wine (made up whole cloth from left over salad and half a bottle of red wine.)
Braised Cabbage
Salad
Pommes Moyle (Apple Pudding) and Apple pies
Raspberry Fool (ok so this is probably not period but its a mere triffle really)
Gingerbread (yeah my signature dish now but its sooooo nice.)
I didn't quite have enough lamb but then passing it up the squires table first was probably a mistake! They all seemed rather impressed by the food but I take it that re-enactors don't seem to have the same banquet culture that the SCA does. Most of them didn't even turn up with stuff to eat of or with. Peter did a wonderful job on the banqueting hall with his Mannessa Codex wall hangings. Score one for the SCA I think..... Best comments of the day are "Do you do weddings?" and "All this for a fiver I need budgeting lessons!" The latter lady cooked for a journo and her hubby (yep two people) and made £20 having charged £100.00 total.
Mind you I am not sure we will bother again as Peter and I were left with most of the dishes and cleaning up and practically no one offered to help load the van on Sunday night.
Jen (one of the squires ladies) had volunteered to take peoples shoes home and dry them out and then spent a worrying night because she realized she had something like £3000 worth of shoes on her radiators and was not sure her insurance would cover them all.
Sunday the weather was better and things dried out mostly anyway. It was great to see Cathy and Lesley there even if Fiona had gone home due to transport troubles due to the dead car.
Rob and Dee wonderfully volunteered to put me up Sunday Night and then Rob would take me to the Isle of Wight for another Joust in Carisbrooke.
Got to the Isle of Wight ok but on the way got the news that the Peugeot was terminally wounded and should be put out of its misery. :-(
Got to Isle of Wight about 5pm after a good trip down and started on my last Joust. This was a little different because the knights were different (apart from Steve Mallet aka Sir James Swimbourne) and there was only mounted games and the Joust to run.
The public seemed well up for it and the arena nicely arranged for it. It was fun and not as much work as The Knights Tournaments. The weather was excellent too and I almost managed to forget my car troubles.
Upshot of the car trouble is we are now applying for a loan to get a car... wish us luck as we are awaiting approval for a loan as I write this, then all we have to do is get a car and we are sorted. Plan is to spend more money this time and get something decent. Fingers crossed.
