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| Land ho! |
My hubby and I have just returned from our summer vacation at war. For weeks leading up to our departure, my head was buried in my sewing machine trying to finish all my new camp garb. I didn’t get it all done, but I made a good dent.
We did the eight hour trek to Pennsic in Pennsylvania to immerse ourselves in as close to a full-on medieval experience as you can get in North America . After all the preparation I was so excited to get there and get into garb. Nothing is quite as sweet as rolling into registration and having the first person there smile at me and say “Welcome home!”.
And it really is like going home. I had a wonderful time visiting with my Talfryn kin. It was like being at a cottage with great friends. The weather made for some rough patches, but with customary Canadian (Ealdormerian!) stoicism we laughed in the face of the storms.
The shopping at Pennsic this year was really my highlight. I spent a small fortune on linen garb basics from Neverland Designs. Again. I love it because I can trim and customize the pieces at home. I also finally found some gauntlets I liked and ordered beautiful new hardened leather demi-gauntlets. No helm though, once again. It is my nemesis! I also bought two new small baskets from The Basket Man. I’m so pleased with my booty!
I’ve returned from Pennsic inspired to do so many camp-beautification projects, with a focus on silk and fabric painting. We invested in some paints and supplies already so I am looking forward to getting those rolling. We discovered first-hand how important good rain garb is too so we’ve bought some rip-stop coated fabric to work on over the winter too.
Sadly, I didn’t get to fight as much as I would have liked. Partly due to my choice. I didn’t want to overtax myself with so much fighting I couldn’t get out to the rest of Pennsic. So I skipped some battles and did the Bridge Battle. Unfortunately I died often and quickly so I ended up watching most of it from the sidelines. I also missed the Field Battle due to an early camp tear down. I was a bit crestfallen about that. I’m closer than ever to getting to the point where I can debut my lamellar though so maybe by our next Pennsic I will be a much more comfy fighter out there. Oh, and the armour pants worked beautifully! Woot!
With all the shopping and visiting I still didn’t get as many classes in as I wanted. I just can’t get out of camp early enough. But I did enjoy my Combat Archery Tactics and Knots classes.
All in all, it was more of a sedate Pennsic than I was hoping for, but for every low point there was an up point too. And as I said packing out, Pennsic is weird because “it’s the only place you can travel to and say ‘I’m going home’ when you leave and ‘I’m going home’ when you leave.’” }-)
This picture is one of my favourite war wagons this year. The Lord Mayor’s Pub is a land-ship! :-D
