a quick round trip

Yesterday we were looking for the fire bricks and the chunk of soapstone that Keldor uses for the portable smithy, and not finding it in any logical place.  Eventually we wondered if our past selves had left that bucket in the smithy at Grundet after the event last summer?  So Keldor checked with a friend in Luleå, who was kind enough to do the half hour drive out to Grundet to check, and yes, that is where it was. To today we packed lunch, snacks, sewing projects, and the reading I need to do for History class, and headed north.  As we were approaching Luleå I called David, and he let me know that he had just started driving south to go visit his parents, so we waved at one another as we crossed the river in opposite directions. That was kinda fun. 

Once at Grundet Keldor saw that he had left his spare anvil and tree trunk base up there as well, so we loaded up his portable smithy (he will re-use those legs for the new one, and we will recycle the timber into other things, and those bellows belong to Reengarda anyway, so better that they be in this shire's storage than that of the next shire north), the bucket of stone we came for, the anvil and base, and a set of broken smithing tongs that Keldor will fix for them before their Broken Arrow event this summer. He generally takes 2 or 3 each time we are there, so that gradually all those old tongs (they are left over from when the smithy was in use in the 1800's, I think) will be usable again.

Then we borrowed the microwave there to warm some soup for lunch before locking up and heading out again. We stopped at a store and bought a couple of hot water bottles, which are likely to be good to have at Double Wars, and started home again. We arrived home pretty much exactly six hours after we left.  We had planned to pick that stuff up after the last time we were in Luleå, but it had been such a good snow year that there was still about 1.5 meters snow covering the path to the smithy, and we decided not to even try to get all the way to the building. I still think that was the right decision. This evening and tomorrow we have available for packing and more last minute projects before the event. Tuesday we will join other Reengarda folk selling hotdogs, hamburgers, and snacks to people coming to the big city bonfire for Valborg. Wednesday we help E move to her new house, and Thursday we start driving to Double Wars.  I am beginning to wonder when I am going to work on that essay...