kareina

This week I had two appointments in town, and we still haven't made time to fix the issue with the breaks on Keldor's ca, so we decided to bring the cats in and spend the week at his dad's house.

We also brought my new work recliner and lap-keyboard desk thingie, my computer, and a second monitor. As a result, I have worked quite happily here. I am loving the new set up (though it is, of course, better with the even bigger external monitor at home), But having good posture while I work matters, and that is easy to achieve in a recliner, and with the keyboard on my lap, and my mouse or computer pen and tablet on the shelf we attached to the armrest of the recliner my shoulder doesn't hurt when working, because it is neither too high nor too low for my body. As a result I have created lots of figures for my thesis, worked out the figure number scheme for all of chapter 5 section 3 (the laser-ablation ICP-MS trace element composition maps which form the backbone of the thesis), and created the correctly labeled figure pages for all of them, ready to drop the images into. I have also written all of the figure captions for the figures that exist, and some other text that ties into all the above. Bringing the thesis itself to 21,368 words, plus 1,515 words in the figure captions.

Monday's appointment was for an x-ray which I hope wasn't really needed. Back in December I noticed a little bony lump on the top of my right foot (the light hit it just right whilst I was doing yoga, so I saw it, and then poked at it to determine that it really is a lump). It isn't in any way uncomfortable or painful, and I might not have ever noticed it if I hadn't been looking at my feet just then. But one isn't meant to have a lump just there, so, this being a country with medical care available for everyone, I called the local health clinic to ask for an appointment. I made it clear when I called that since it didn't hurt or cause problems they didn't need to try to find time to see me before Christmas, but if they could put me on the list I would appreciate it. As a result I went in to see them on 1 February, and the medical student who first saw me did all of the interview questions (yes, I am healthy, no it doesn't cause me any problems, but what is it, and should I be concerned?). He called in the actual doctor to have a look, and her first reaction was "if it doesn't cause a problem, it is probably nothing to worry about".

Then she pointed out the calluses on the sides of my big toe, and said that they can be a symptom of my toes shifting their position into bad alignment, and that one can buy corrective things to help straighten them back into place, and if left unchecked it can cause your shoes to no longer fit and become uncomfortable, at which point they recommend surgery to scrape away the excess bone that develops along the side of the joint at the base of the big toe, and she showed me the scar from her surgery for just that problem. My big toes haven't yet shifted out of position so much that they interfere with comfort wearing my sandals or my winter boots, but it does explain the calluses that had started to form on the inner edge of my big toes, which had never been there before about a year or two ago. I had been trying to eliminate those calluses by wearing five toe socks and trying to make a point of flexing my toes wide whenever I think about it. Perhaps strengthen my feet muscles will also solve the symptom she pointed out, especially as now I am more aware of it. If not, I can try one of the thingies to encourage them to go back to better alignment.

While I was talking to both the docs I remembered that my right foot had been x-rayed in october of 2021 (when I hurt my toes falling from an acroyoga balance and landing wrong), and wondered if the x-rays happened to show the part of my foot that has the lump? They couldn't look it up, as the x-rays were taken when I still lived in Norrbotten county, and the local health centers in Västerbotton county can't access my on-line health records from Norrbotten, so they asked me to call Norrbotten and request a copy of the Xrays. I did, and was given the choice being snail-mailed either a paper printout (at no cost), or a USB thumb drive (for 200 SEK, but which would have better resolution than the printout). I asked "how about email", and they said "we don't email medical records" (which I think is stupid, but they didn't make that rule, which is likely a side effect of GDPR).so I asked for the usb version.

In the meantime I got a call to the xray clinic in Skellefteå, which surprised me, since I thought we had only discussed obtaining a copy of the old xray to see if the lump existed already in 2021 and I just didn't notice. So I called the local health clinic, and the nurse said, yes, the doc really does want a new xray too.

Therefore I went in on Monday morning for that. I told the xray technician that I had the usb with the old xrays if they want to compare, but it turns out that while the local health clinics can't access my heath records across county lines, the xray departments of the hospital can access my old xrays across county lines. I guess that the doc will get back to me later about the results, and if either or both of the old and new xrays show the lump. But I just stuck a reminder on the calendar for mid April to call and ask if they haven't gotten back to me before then. (Given that I want to finish this thesis during March, April sounded like a good time to return to this question.)

My other appointment was with the hearing clinic at the hospital, to see how I like the new hearing aids they gave me a month ago and do they need any adjusting before we decide that they are keepers? I love them. They work much better than my last pair, and it is much easier to hear (the loudest loud setting is actually too loud for comfort for most things, so I mostly don't use it, unless I am trying to hear something quite quiet). They also connect directly to my telephone, and way faster than the external bluetooth adapter I needed for the last hearing aids. I had her make a minor change (turn down the volume when the hearing aids announces the name of the program I just switched to using the phone app, plus adding a couple of standard programs). She suggested that I come back in a month for final check in before deciding if I am going to keep them, and I countered that given how far away I live, I would be ok with skipping that visit. She said, ok, I will give you a month to decide you want to see me, if so, call us and book time with me, If you don't call before the end of that time I will assume that everything is good, and we will send you the bill for the new hearing aids (I think she said they will cost me 500 SEK each).

The big advantage for us living in town this week is that Keldor has been able to stay after work each day and make progress on my new helmet. He finished the construction today, all that remains is padding and strapping it. He has built it with a very open pattern, inspired by the Vendel period Valsgärde helmet, and he designed it so that I will be able to wear my hearing aids in there, without any part of the helmet coming into contact with them (I will use my old ones for this--they may not be as good as my current ones, but they will be way, way better than wearing my old helmet without any hearing aids at all, and then if something goes wrong and they are somehow damaged by a freak accident, it won't cost me my new ones).

So now we have one more work day, then we will head home for Friday evening and Saturday during the day. We will return to town for the Shire annual meeting on Sunday, and probably stay to help out a friend with projects on Monday.

We have till Thursday to have practiced enough with my new helmet that I have it well calibrated so I can fight in Nordmark Coronet on the weekend. We will drive down Thursday evening/night, sleep at his brothers house, and then do the last bit of drive on Friday during the day. It should be a good event, and I hope I get enough thesis writing done between now and the drive that I can enjoy the weekend without feeling like "I should be working".

We are on the team running Drachenwald's 12th Night Coronation this weekend, which means we have been busy. He's in charge of the kitchen, and I am doing all the spreadsheets, including trying to match up all the people who need to borrow bedding or feast gear with those who have some to loan. This house came with lots of sheets and pillowcases, etc. and we pillows, blankets and sheepskins too, so when I started packing the bedding we have for loaning out it filled 4 moving boxes!

Yesterday I spent the day packing all the things, and he stayed after work to take the pieces of the wooden bed frame, which had been in our attic, nailed to the wooden uprights that divide the central portion from the low-roof portion of the attic, and convert them into a useable double bed for our Crown Princess and her partner (our King and his partner will get the rope bed we sleep on at camping events, and the Queen and the Crown Prince will each get a single bed.

I had finished all the packing I could do early enough to attend the Drachenwald Law Council meeting on Zoom, and he was home not long after that ended, so we could pack and load the van (his car needs a problem with the breaks fixed, so right now we have only one usable car) and he could pack stuff he wants to bring for the kitchen. The things I had already packed filled the car most of the way. Perhaps we could have squeezed in the last things that he was packing, but it was already getting late, so we decided to just call it good for the day, did our yoga and sword blow practice for the day and made it to bed by midnight. This morning we slept in till 06:00, and were in town by 07:00, when we picked up the key to the event site from the main autocrat and unloaded the van.

I then dropped him at work, returned the key so that the main autocrat can bring over stuff from his place, and then head to the shire storage unit to get more stuff, and I returned home. I have just had breakfast, so now it is pack the rest of the things, and then the cats and I will head into town, and they will move into the upstairs bedroom at Keldor's dad's house for the weekend (which is a 7 minute walk from site, so we will be able to pop home now and then to feed and check on them). Since it is only Wednesday we have two days to get things set up and ready for the event before the serious last minute set up starts.

This will be the biggest SCA event ever held this far north in Drachenwald, and I think it is going to be fun!

With luck we will be able to take everything back home again in only one trip, but if not, we can just leave some in the basement at his dad's house and bring it on a different day; we won't need to do the 35 minute drive, each way, an extra time on Sunday.

We managed to get the car loaded Thursday night before Kingdom University, so Friday morning it was just pack the food from the fridge and the pillows from the car and start driving. And driving. And driving. Google says that one can do the trip in 10 hours, if one doesn't stop. We stopped. Regularly.

Friday 28 Oct
The trip was really nice, since we have good company, and I had a sewing project, but it was still long. We didn't get to site till 20:30, which was 2.5 hours after site opened. The site is a lovely old Swedish manor house. The room we got was a little corner room, about the size of a good walk-in closet, just big enough for a bed, table, and chair. As soon as we'd unloaded the two chests of clothing and the two bags of bedding to the room and put on garb we went out to find the gravel area that we could use to set up the smithy. Then we joined folk in the hall were food was being served, and hung out talking to folk for a few hours, before deciding we were tired, and returning to our building to do yoga and get some sleep, making it to bed just before midnight.


Saturday 29 Oct
Up at 07:15 and down the hill to the Lake House for breakfast and good conversations with folk there before setting up the smithy. The morning classes were to start at 09:30, which meant we were able to get everything set up, and the forge heating before class time. Given that he didn't start the table frame for the forge until Wednesday we were really happy with how it came out.



His class was limited to 4 students because there is only so much space in which to work, and he wound up with three very enthusiastic students keen to learn forge welding, and one more who, seeing there was still space in the class, wondered if she might use the forge to make herself a small hook for stretching/holding taut fabric for easier sewing? Yes, of course! I helped with getting the forge set up, and stayed for the first bit of the class, then went on to get my things in order for my class.

I had realised the night before that when I packed I completely forgot to pack my computer, on which I had the presentation for my class. So I contacted the cat sitter and explained to her where on the computer the presentation was located, and she very kindly uploaded it to google drive for me. Then I was able to share the link with the computer in the classroom, and it all worked (though I to go through and change the font on all of the titles, as that bit imported to a weird font that was hard to read).

I had thought to addend several classes, but only managed to make it to one before lunch, on how one reads period sheet music, which was interesting. My class was directly after lunch, and we had a small group in the room at start time, so I started, and, just as I had finished with the last slide, another group joined us, so I added more information, and scrolled back and forth through the presentation to illustrate some of what I was saying. I enjoyed the time with them, and hope they did too.

After class I brought my pie to the fika room, ate a bit, and then packed a plate of snacks to bring to the smithy for Keldor, and then asked the students if they wanted anything, getting one order for something vegan, and another for wheat free. I brought back their snacks and then had time to hang out with folk a bit before court, watching the final student complete his forge welded bit of metal, ready to turn into a knife later, just before time to head up to court.

After court we packed up the smithy and loaded it all back into the car, getting that done a bit before the last class period of the day, so he went to the Secret codes in period class, and I went to the class on the role of women in the Viking Age class, and we both enjoyed them.

Then it was time to get ready for the feast, which he attended, and I served. Oh, was that hall packed. It was really difficult to squeeze between the tables, so for the soups we servers just had people pass their bowls down to the end to be filled and sent back. It was better for the second and third courses, where we could just carry a couple of filled plates to the table to be passed around. I am so looking forward to our site for Coronation, where the dance hall is so big there will be plenty of room between the tables.

After the feast we had enough energy to hang out talking with people for a while, but still went back to our building early enough to do a little yoga and get to bed before midnight.


Sunday 30 Oct

We slept in till nearly 08:00, then enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, loaded the car, and spent several hours chatting with people and touring the public rooms in the main "castle" (not at all a defensible building, but really nice). We finally started driving at 11:30, and went first to Gamla Uppsala, where we visited the museum (and bought some books, which were on sale for 50 SEK each, and a pair of leg wraps for Keldor, since he has been wanting a pair for fighting). There were several other car's worth of SCA people at the museum, of course, and it was fun to see them one last time before heading on. But first, we spent time with noses pressed up against the glass to see details of Vendel Age helmets, spears, and swords (as one does when traveling with a smith who has made things inspired by these objects before).

Then we followed Hjalmar's car to his place and Sofie transferred her stuff to our van. This is the downside of having a van that seats only three people. While we had plenty of room for the forge, we needed to take two cars for four people between Uppsala and the site. Then we were three for much of the drive north, dropping her off in Härnosand, before continuing on home, arriving just after midnight, at which point we unloaded only the bag of pillows (which we needed).


Monday 31 Oct-today

While I had taken one (short) shift driving on the way down, Keldor drove the full trip home, and was feeling rather exhausted by the time we arrived. Therefore, he planned to sleep in, and head to work late. However, when he awoke, he had a bit of a fever, so changed that to "just stay home", and we spend the day catching up on sleep and reading (ok, we did get the remaining food out of the car and into the fridge). The rest of the week we continued to take it mostly easy, since he continued to show a fever each morning, and had a bit of something going on in his sinuses. We didn't bother to test for covid--he's had it twice before, and this either wasn't it, or was very mild, but he still won't go to work again till he's had a day without fever. (I never did get any symptoms.)

By the end of the week his energy levels were up, so we got the smithy out of the car, and we painted the living room wall. It looks much better now that one can't see the places where the wallpaper had been seriously damaged.



By the weekend he was feeling better, so we have started on organizing and putting away all of his stuff that had been in storage at his brother's property and which we moved here some weeks back, just before going into busy mode running Oktoberfest. It feels good to finally be making progress on cleaning up that, and I am glad that it is once again possible to walk easily through the garage, rather than picking one's way carefully through the narrow path between the piles.

This week he has returned to work, and I have resumed work on my research--I spent yesterday using teamviewer to access the XRD computer in Durham to process my data that I hadn't looked at in years. Hopefully I can get that finished up this week and have something useful in the way of results to add to the paper in progress.

This weekend the shire of Reengarda hosted the Norrskensbardstävlingen (contest to choose the next "Bard of the Northern Lights"). This was the first time it has been held in this shire, but the sixth time that I was the one running the event. I have maintained a list of all of the entrants and winners, with photos, on the Frostheim web page for years, but now I also have a spreadsheet showing who entered or won each year. Therefore I now know that we have had a dozen people from the Trenneälver region enter, and two from outside the area. We have had 3 to 6 entrants each year, and most folk enter more than once, but I am the only one who has entered every year. (I am considering making myself a "still not Bard" T-shirt, to echo the "still not King" shirts I have seen some fighters wear)

The event was, as always, great fun. This year my beloved Keldor was the cook, and he's really big on running the kitchen as cheaply, with the best food, as he can possibly manage. Therefore spent hours in the forest picking chanterelle mushrooms to serve at both this event, and at Drachenwald Coronation in January (where he is also the head cook), saving us lots of money (apparently they sell for something like 500 SEK/kilo), and he obtained from a friend a couple of live roosters, which had had a happy life on a small farm, that he slaughtered himself for making Cocky Leeky.

On Wednesday before the event I discovered that not only do I not know where Reengarda's storage unit is, but neither does Keldor, since they moved to a new storage unit while we were in Norway this summer. Therefore I asked in the shire internal FB group if anyone knows where the shire banners and tablecloths are, and if anyone would be able to bring them to the event. It turns out that the storage is in the village of Kåge, a full 50 minutes drive north of where I live, but no one could remember if the banners and tablecloths were actually there, and no one else had time to head there and check before the event (and I get the impression that none of us who were planning to attend the event live anywhere near there, though I don't yet know where everyone lives).

I wouldn't have minded making the time to head there if I had been absolutely certain they were there, but it didn't seem worth spending the time and the cash for the desil for the car to fetch something that might not even be there, so we decided to make do with what we could bring from home, and what my friend Ursa could bring from hers (she had lots of white tablecloths and a few wall hangings, and we had all of the nicely painted metal shields that Keldor has made, plus the Norrskensbard wall hanging, my viking cloak, and lots of other wall hangings.) I was really happy with how the site looked after we decorated it. I never remembered to take any photos, but... Here are some photos (but no promise that they are publically viewable).

Friday I arrived on site around 15:00, unloaded the car, got food into the fridge, punched down the bread dough that had been rising all morning, spread it out to thin layers on baking pans, buttered them, put the pot of veg we'd chopped the day before onto the stove, with some canned beans and lots of water, turned the burner on under the pot and set the ovens preheating, and then started the hall decorating. Ursa and her partner arrived around the time I was ready to start decorating, and they pitched in. Not long thereafter Keldor arrived, so I left them to decorate, and I went to the kitchen to bake the bread, cut up the sausage to be served on the side, and had the dinner ready 17:20, so that people could eat as they arrived.

While we had 40 people registered, I think only about half of them were there on Friday evening, which meant that there was some left over bread to serve with breakfast on Saturday, and the last bit of soup went into the vegetable and beef "gryta" that was served during the banquete.

In addition to the normal settling in to site and catching up with friends the Brewer's guild had a meeting, and also judged the contest for the "most appropriate beverage for Oktoberfest". After that ended some people hung out and chatted in the hall, some went to the sauna, and some sat in the corner and sang songs (I joined the singing after my sauna--they hadn't started singing yet when I went to the sauna, or I might not have gone). I was tired, and knew that I had to get up to make breakfast in the morning, so I did my yoga as we sang, and went downstairs to bed just before 01:00

Saturday we served breakfast then Keldor drove home to check on the cats (a 35 minute drive, one way, if one obeys the speed limit) and I went up to the hall to rearrange the tables and set up for the banquette. Then I hurried downstairs and helped Hildegard and Bjarni get the food for the first course of the banquette ready ("finger foods": bread, cheese, sausage, carrot and cucumber, apples, pears, figs, dates, raisins, dried apricots, walnuts). That took longer than I had hoped, so we didn't sit down to eat till 11:30 (the schedule had been to start at 11:00, but given that folk were still getting dressed and ready when the last of the food went on the table, I don't think anyone minded the delay, especially as if anyone was hungry, they could nibble on the things we had already carried upstairs).

Then it was time for the contest. Sadly, my beloved apprentice Astrid, who has previously been Norrskensbard one time, wasn't able to attend at the last minute, so it was only Þórólfr Blót-Úlfsson, Dis Trumpetare, and myself entering. Gerdis had the help of her two dolls in medieval costumes to introduce the contest and us entrants, much to the delight of the crowd (last year, when she won the contest, they helped her sing the period ballad).

The first round is always the Period Piece. I chose Što j pa moru, a song I learned from Drago, who lives in the shire that they are trying to form in Ukraine. He performed it at the bardic at the virtual Kingdom University in 2020, and I liked it so much I asked him to teach it to me. It was written down in the 12th Century, unusually for the time/place, using Roman letters. Because the tune, in addition to being beautiful, is simple, I managed to learn to play it on the dulcimer (in the last couple of weeks), so I was able to play it a couple of times through, then sing (without playing), then play it again, and repeat the first verse one time. Meanwhile Bjarni stood nearby and displayed the Swedish subtitles I had prepared for each verse. I felt happy with my performance. I don't believe anyone recorded yesterday's performances, but you can hear a lovely version of this song here.

After I sat down Þórólfr worked some magic to get an invisible band to play a background music/beat as he did the Loketrätan as a Battle Rap. It worked very well.

Then Dis sang Cuncti simus concanentes, with her beautiful voice, inspiring many of us in the crowd to join in on the Ave Maria chorus bits.

We then had time to relax and hang out until the next round of food was served at 13:00 (vegetable and beef gryta, or just vegetable for us two vegetarians on site).

The second round of the contest is a piece in a period style.

Dis explained that she really liked the extra long medieval ballads, so her entry was to write 12 more verses to one of her favourite Swedish ballads. The crowd loved it.

Þórólfr read his poem, which the audience seemed to enjoy, and I did a children’s song I had written in Swedish.

Then more time to relax, play games, sit by the fire Alfarin had built outside, etc,

At 15:00 the third course of the feast was served, fried chanterelle on toast with egg and cheese, and salad on the side, followed by dancing, to the music of Gerdis’ violin. Much fun!

Then at 17:00 they served the Cocky Leeky, followed by...

The third round of the contest, the Bard’s choice round. Gerdis had decided on Praise poems/songs for this year’s theme. In all the past years, when I wrote a song, I used a period tune, and I haven’t yet won that cloak. Therefore, this year I decided to try filking a modern tune, using the “set up a rhyme, and then fail to deliver” approach, hoping that adding in a humour element might get me a few extra points. However, I didn’t mention that in my introduction, and I don’t know how many of the people in the room were fluent enough in English to know what words were missing. But it was really fun to write (and I didn’t dare try this type of word play in Swedish, I am much better, but I don’t feel that fluent), and fun to try to pack as many different things that he does and is appreciated for into one short song:


Sweet Keldor

There once was a Keldor, a smith of renown.
The ladies all loved it when he would go...
… lecture on smithing; and making a sword
he's forging and hamm’ring, its stiff as a...
… breeze that is blowing throughout his home land
a place that he nurtures; makes ever so...
… tasty by running a kitchen so fine
the strangest of dishes to try with some

…Sweet chanterelle,
frying in all the butter
cooking them for us at every feast
cooking us all of the sweet chanterelle

Now, when he’s not cooking, he’s helping us all
by building folk armour so that they can…
… look good on the field; enter in crown
At training the newbies he’s best in the…
… game, with a long sword and teaching the stance
says footwork is crucial, just as in…
… laughter and telling an extra tall tale
while sitting with folk enjoying some

…Sweet chanterelle,
frying in all the butter
cooking them for us at every feast
cooking us all of the sweet chanterelle

Now Keldor he fishes and travels around
he's hunting the forest, not making a…
…trail as he journeys; he's trying his luck
by meeting a dryad who just wants a…
…scroll he is painting, in colours so strong,
with skulls to enhance it; now I'll sing the…
…end of his tale, which just demonstrates
that Keldor has plenty to pile on our

…Sweet chanterelle,
frying in all the butter
cooking them for us at every feast
cooking us all of the sweet chanterelle



Þórólfr did a beautiful praise poem for Erik Knutsson Drake, and Dis also chose to filk a modern song—she opted to sing in praise of music itself and sang “Tackar för musiken” (to the tune of “Thanks for the music”), so I guess we were both going for the “make them laugh” approach that round.

The final round of food had been scheduled for 19:00, but the kitchen quit frying up the “plattar” (a thin stove-top pancake, not to be confused with pannkakor, which are oven baked, or so it is here in the north—people in southern Sweden use the terminology differently, and wars are fought over exactly what these two words mean). Because this weekend happened to be Anja’s 15th birthday, the kitchen stacked the plattar with layers of jam between, and then covered them with whipped cream, to make pretty cakes. One large gluten and lactose free one, one large one made from wheat flour, and one small one, with a candle on top, for the birthday girl. Of course we sang for her, followed by...

The Fourth Round of the contest: draw three words (each) out of the hat. Or, since we forgot to bring the hat (twice, I forgot it when I loaded the car, and Keldor forgot it when he went home to feed the cats), the bag. So they called Þórólfr up and he drew out his first word. Flagstångsknapp. He groaned, since he has drawn that word out of the hat twice before. He drew his next word, which was in harder to read handwriting, he turned it around a couple of times, squinted at it, and finally deciphered it. Flagstångsknapp. He groaned. The audience (half of whom were in on the joke) laughed. He tried again. Flagstångsknapp. Again. Flagstångsknapp. Again Flagstångsknapp. At this point Ranghild, holding the bag he was drawing from, looked down at the bag and exclaimed that, oops, this is the wrong bag, and tossed it aside, and handed him the correct bag, and Dis and I were called forward, so that we could all three take turns drawing words (and the audience laughed, and laughed, and laughed. After we three had taken our words and stepped aside for our 15 minutes of rapid writing a handful of folk from the audience came up and took three words for themselves to have a go, too.

My words were pestdoktor, bröd, and bard (plague doctor, bread, and bard). Pestdoktor being multi-syllabic, I grabbed the tune Turdion, which I have used more than once, because I like it, and it is a fun tune into which to squeeze long words, and started writing. I decided to be silly, and started with the first line and a half of a popular Swedish version of that song, and then took a sharp turn and took it a whole other direction:

Dricka vill jag nätt och dag
för vännen som jag minns och
… oj nej! Jag vill helst ha bröd!

Ge mig mumsig mat
istället för din alkohol.

Ni som dricker öl och vin
Vantar bara för en pestdoktor

Men vi som dricka vatten
ska leva länge.

Vi som sjunga nu idag
tävlar för den vackra manteln

En av oss som sjunga
ska bli din bard

Dis also chose to do a funny filk of the popular SCA/Lavj song Harald har konstiga vanor in praise of Gerdis “Barden har så sena vanor” (the bard has late habits, in reference to the fact that she tends to stay up very late at events), and Þórólfr did a lovely poem (he writes well, and quickly—he didn’t start writing for this weekend until the day before, in part because he has been super busy, but in part because he knows he can).

Then everyone else who had drawn words came up and did their performances, I think 5 or 6 people total, all of whom did a great job.

Then the bard slipped out to count the votes, meanwhile...

The court of Baron Gilbert, of Aarnimetsä, opened. (He, being the only landed noble on site, we asked the Prince and Princess of Nordmark if it was ok that he hold court on their behalf. They replied something along the lines of“yes, that will be a great exchange for that time we held court on your behalf when the plague prevented you from doing so” . He thanked us for the event, gave the prize to Viriyyfa av Reengarda for her Extra stora extra peppriga, turkiskpeppersnaps as the "most appropriate beverage for Oktoberfest" (because it warms your throat), called the kitchen crew forward to give a special prize to Ragnhild for her 3 words out of a hat (since the kitchen had missed all the other rounds of the contest, and saw only the final one, it was fitting that they should choose the winner from the audience members who also did the Three Words out of a Hat round. Then he called me forward, and I took Bjarni as an apprentice (they are fairly new to the SCA—having planned to join around the time the pandemic hit, and having only been to this event and Reengarda’s Medieval days this summer so far, but they are super enthusiastic and asked me to be their laurel, and I couldn’t refuse, because I adore them). While I was up there, I took a moment to thank everyone for attending and helping out, and for all the help they would do later that evening and in the morning helping to ensure we left the site cleaner than we found it. Gilbert also had tokens for those people who are new enough they haven’t yet been to a court, and for the half a dozen children on site (they got bookmarks, which have a Medieval spell to prevent book thieves written on them), and then Gerdis came back in and announced Dis as the new Norrskensbard. This is sort of the second time Dis has won—the first time she was one of the trio who entered, and won, together, which means that she is the only person to have won every time she entered, even though she has only done it one and one-third times. I am looking forward to seeing her serve as Bard in her own right, instead as one of a trio.

After court the party started, and a bunch of us sat in the corner and sang together late into the night. I would have loved to stay up all night singing, but I was so tired that I caught myself waking up three different times as we sung Herr Mannelig, even though I never stopped singing along (note, we sing that song a little faster here in Norrland than they do in that recording, but it has English translation, so it seemed to be a good version to link to). Therefore, I wound up heading to bed just before Midnight (which felt much later).

Sunday
We had set an 08:00 alarm, since breakfast was on the schedule for 09:00, but we woke early, so Keldor went to start setting out breakfast, and I packed our things up and loaded the car. Then I went to get breakfast at 8:15, and the room was already full of people enjoying their morning meal and conversation. Then I went up to start taking down the decorations in the banquette hall, and when that was done, I went to the kitchen to start packing up my things, and packing up the leftover food. There were already a couple of people hard at work cleaning, so I could focus on packing. I got all of my stuff into the car by 10:00 (which is when cleaning the hall had been scheduled to start), and then helped with the final cleaning of the kitchen. By 11:00 the site was spotless and we were ready to leave. Cleaning after an SCA event is always efficient, but I think this was the record time that I have witnessed. We have some amazing folk up here.

I had a wonderful time, and have already posted a pretty extensive thank you list in Swedish (though I don’t know who did all the cleaning in the parts of the building I wasn’t in just then).

I really look forward to attending Kingdom University next weekend, and to Drachenwald Coronation up here in January, and I have already had some thoughts as to what songs to write for next year’s contest!

Two of my all time favourite activities in the SCA are singing and dancing. This easily explains why the Höstdansen event in the shire of Uma is one of my favourite SCA events. Friday night we sang late into the night, and I didn't go to sleep till 03:00, Saturday we danced all day long and again for the masked ball in the evening. Plenty of time in between dancing to hang out with delightful people, renew old friendships and make new friends. I really recommend this event, it is always wonderful.

Monday and Tuesday this week were my last couple of days to work in Luleå before my summer vacation. Given how much prep work said vacation needs, I was not at all surprised when I left work early on Tuesday. Flex time is handy and, despite getting on the road at 10:15, I was only just over five hours behind for the month (being able to start at 06:00 that morning helped.

I made good time on the drive, arriving home 2 hrs and 40 minutes later, including a stop at the big grocery store in Skellefteå. Then I relaxed a couple hours on the couch, during which I read fb, ate homemade ice cream, etc.

We spent the evening finishing up sewing projects that will be good to have in Norway, and finally did yoga and went to bed not long after midnight.

Not quite 4 hours later I woke and thought of the Badger Face mask design from Wisconsin. I had planned to make one last year as protection from both stone dust and viruses when working at the Viking Museum, but then the border was closed, so, not having the job, I never made the mask.

So I got up and tried to find that plastic face shield so I can add the fabric needed to close it up. I have seen it, more than once, since we bought the house. I know it is here, and suspect it is in the office/craft supply room.

The room we still hadn't completely unpacked. The one with a mountain of stuff on my desk needing to be sorted and out away. Four hours later the room looks much better. The empty wooden boxes I brought home from work are now stacked against the walls, filled with UFO's, mending, and project supplies, each labeled, and the desk is clean and dusted. Sadly, I still have no idea where that mask is.

Then I took a nap, and now it is time to do the final event packing for Skellefteå Medeltidsdagar (luckily, I packed most of my stuff last weekend)and load the car and trailer.

We have that event till Saturday, Sunday we drive, and Monday we start working at the museum!

Keldor and I have just acquired a house and are busy cleaning it and getting it ready to move into. So, of course, we are also making time to prep for the Build Your Own Knife course he is running for Frostheim next week.

He's written up lots of notes on different shapes of knives, what they are used for, period examples thereof, what one need to think of even before one walks into the smithy, etc. (My job is to take the notes from his phone onto the computer and re-arrange them into the order he wants to present the information.) He's also spent a day in the smithy making a set of knives with each of the basic shapes, so that he will have examples to show folk during the theory course, which we will run over Zoom:
https://www.frostheim.se/program/frostheim-kurs-gor-din-egen-kniv-lektion-1-teori/

If you are interested in knife making, please join us on Jan 5.

 Years ago, I was invited to Gyllengran’s Glöta Gillet event to teach an embroidery class and had a delightful time. I haven’t made it to another since. Therefore, when Keldor sent me a message a couple of weeks back saying that there were a few places available for this year’s Glöta Gillet, and would I like to go with him, I, of course, said yes.

We had a fun "Luleå is a small town" moment this weekend. Kheldor, Odal, who was visiting from southern Sweden, and I were on our way to Frostheim's Sunday archery practice and social/craft afternoon. We stopped at a petrol station along the way.

As we waited for the tank to fill, I looked up and thought I saw Viscount Björn Sneskägg (who lives in Styringheim, an island quite a long way south of here) leaving the building, so I asked Kheldor "Is that Björn?" he replied that it could be (the waxed and curled mustache is a pretty good clue), and then I thought I saw the Honourable John Smith (also of Styringheim) come out of the building.

One could be a coincidence, two of them together and I am now certain that I have correctly recognised SCA people in their modern world guises. So we hopped out of the car and went over to chat briefly before they started their journey back down south and we went off to Frostheim's practice to climb trees, shoot things, throw things, stab stuff and generally enjoy a lovely afternoon socialising with friends.

The Shire of Frostheim is lucky enough to share a home island with the Scouts. Grundet is a small island in the Luleå river by the village of Sunderbyn, which was briefly famous in the 1990's at the filming location of Swedish TV's series Bondånger (which I had never heard of before yesterday).

The island had been used as a center for timber collection back when logs were transported by floating them down the river, and the various buildings left over from those days are still present, including the smithy, which is used by both Frostheim and the Scouts (especially when we teach workshops for them).

The building in which the smithy is located is a long one, clearly built in segments over time--the smithy end is concrete block construction, but the far end of the building was timber-built. That end had been partially damaged at some point by fire, and, much more recently, the roof caved in from heavy snowfall. The city, which now owns the island, and hires it out to our two organisations, looked at the damage after the roof collapse, and decided that the cheapest thing they could do would be to send out some bulldozers and level the whole building, including the smithy and the other segments between the damaged one and the smithy.

However, both Frostheim and the Scouts like having the smithy, so we got permission instead to dismantle the damaged end ourselves, and this weekend we had a working weekend, with a bunch of us from Frostheim and a smaller group from the scouts hard at work.

Saturday was hot and sunny, and we started with the dismantling. Since we like heights Kheldor and I went up onto the roof and worked to free up the bits of roof still attached to the walls, tossing stuff into the middle of the house, while the rest of the crew worked outside to remove the boards covering the timbers, expose the windows (which have been boarded up for years), and take them away. Eventually they opened enough of the wall on the side where the roof had most completely fallen in, at which point they could start pulling out boards and stuff while we continued to dismantle the remaining bit of roof on the far side (and switched to throwing bits down on the outside, since there was no one working there any longer.

Meanwhile some others cut down some of the trees behind our archery range, and then used a tractor to extend and level the archery range, which will be very nice for being able to find the arrows that fail to hit the targets.

We were at it from just after 10:00 till almost 18:00, with a pause for fresh baked pizza for lunch (one of our members has a new, portable, wood-fired pizza oven, that cooks a small pizza in around 90 seconds, Yum! Followed by a quick swim in the river (wearing our clothes, which stayed wet long enough that it was much more comfortable to be up on the roof in the heat).

This morning when it was time to return to the site it was pouring down rain, However, we also had work to do inside the smithy, so that was today's focus. While some folk fixed the ventilation and electric the rest of us washed the walls and then gave them their first coat of "whitewash" (calcium/lime water-based paint which, in this case, is actually a little pink (probably coloured with a bit of iron oxide, I would guess).

You can see photos from the weekend on Frostheim's FB page, and, even better, there is a delightful time lapse film of the work they did on the back side of the house, from first starting through to getting the (rather large) windows out and taken away. Since that was the side we couldn't see from where we were working on the roof, I was delighted to see the film.

It will be a bit more work later this summer to finish dismantling the damaged part of the house, but we think there will be enough good timber in the pile to make a sauna for the site, which will make our camping events and fighter trainings much nicer.