kareina

This weekend was the fourth Smoldering Arrow SCA event, which, while I had never heard of it before, appears from context to be a Drachenwald archery event that rotates to different parts of the Kingdom, and is always a four day event, even when it doesn't fall on a holiday weekend. It was held in Reengarda this time, only a 1 hr 45 minute drive south of me, so, of course, I went, even though I am not doing any archery, and, given that one needs to go out and stand in the sun in order to do it, I am not likely to.

I worked a couple of hours Thursday morning, then packed and loaded the car, went to uni and met Johan for one last acroyoga session before he returns to Storuman. Some of the others from Phire were in the room preparing for the fire show they would be doing that evening, so I was able to give Villiam some of the black currant pie crumble that he had helped me pick berries for and make the day before (but didn't get to eat as he ran out of time before he had to go to his gaming session) and he gave me his sleeping gear and jester costume to take along to the event, where he would meet me in a couple of days. Then I picked up my friend Louise at 16:00. This got us to site reasonably soon after site opened, and no one had yet chosen a sleeping spot in the upstairs room, so I grabbed the corner for my mattress and spread out Villiam's camping mat next to my mattress to reserve him a spot and put my sheepskins atop it, which gave me a nice extra area to use the first couple of days.

The first evening I would up talking with one guy, Max, whom I had previously met in passing, but hadn't really gotten a chance to get to know. We were both tired and kept yawning at one another. Eventually I commented that since no one was singing and no one was massaging me, I should just give up and go to bed. To which he replied "well I could massage you", whereupon I promptly moved around the table and sat on the floor at his feet, and got a nice massage. Then he lay down on my sheepskin (which I had brought downstairs to to yoga on earlier), so I gave him a massage. At which point one of the Finnish ladies asked if there was a queue, and so I gave her one too, and then she worked on my shoulders. Then Pól, one of the grand master archers, visiting from Ireland, asked if I would walk on his back, so I did (which pushed all kinds of things audibly back into place), and then he massaged my back (he is really strong!). After that I sat and visited with folk a bit longer, but then decided that three massages in one evening was good enough, and I went up to sleep at about 0:35.

Friday morning I got up a bit after 07:00, which gave me time to do some sit-ups before they served breakfast at 08:00. When everyone else went outside to archery stuff I went upstairs, got out my computer, and spend a couple of hours working. I put the computer down a bit before noon, as that was when lunch was scheduled to be served. However, there being a break in Archery, the Frostheim Bågskyttsmafia” had their juggling toys out, so I joined them for a bit. First I introduced Max to acroyoga—he isn’t flexible enough to lay down and put his feet straight up in the air, but he often tosses around feed bags for his livestock that are nearly as heavy as I am, so he had no problems letting me fly like superman on his shoulder. Then I practiced some hand stands and borrowed some juggling. Lunch was finally served at half past, so we put the toys away and went in to eat. After lunch I got out my dulcimer and played for a bit. Then I went upstairs and tried to work again, but only managed about 15 minutes when I decided that I needed a nap, and slept for about 15 minutes. Then I went downstairs and hung out with folk. They served dinner at just after 17:00, so I was still hungry, and I am glad I was, since it was definitely designed to appeal to me: Rice cooked in too much vegetable broth (or chicken broth for the meat-eaters), and then thickened with lots of almond meal till the rest of the liquid is absorbed, and finally mixed with some quorn (I would also have been happy with the food if they had left out the quron, but I don’t mind eating it, either), or chicken for the meat eaters. It was really yummy. There were only two vegetarians on site, and the cook made more than we needed, so I happily put the left overs in the fridge, and continued eating it when I got hungry for the rest of the event, and even got to take home the last bit, so I know what tomorrow’s lunch will be).

I was tired again fairly early that evening, and did my yoga (with a friend) around 21:20. I would have happily gone to bed directly after yoga, but David and Caroline hadn’t arrived yet, and since I had spent some time rearranging furniture in the upstairs room (moving a table out so we could put Louise’s extra tall air mattress against the wall, thus freeing up space for David and Caroline’s double bed), I wanted to stay up to show them where their sleeping spot was. They finally arrived just after midnight (not only had he worked that evening but the company’s annual Surströmming party was that evening, and, as he has just accepted a job elsewhere, he thought it would be a good idea to attend and get the chance to talk to his co-workers in a social setting one more time before leaving), and as soon as I showed them were to set up I went straight to sleep.

Saturday morning I slept in till nearly 08:00, enjoyed some of that yummy leftover rice and almonds for breakfast. My back was hurting a bit from the mattress I was sleeping on, so I asked Pól if he would be able to work on it again. He said yes, after the morning’s horseback archery demonstration. So I took my sewing project outside and watched the demo, which was quite impressive. The guy has clearly put in lots of hours shooting at things from the back of a galloping horse. After the demo most of the archers (including Pól) wanted to talk with the guy who had done the demo, so I did some yoga (which helped my back a bit), and went upstairs and worked for about 45 minutes, till it was time for lunch. After lunch I did a bit more yoga, some sewing, and then took an hour nap.

Then I helped people decorate the feast hall, a round barn on the property, which has a really tall ceiling, but a couple of solid timber beams that cross the room at about half way up. Max asked me if I would be willing to stand on his shoulders to attach a string of pennants to each of the beams, to make an arch above of/in front of high table. I thought this sounded fun, but since standing on someone’s shoulders is still rather scary to me (I really prefer three points of contact), I needed to do the climbing up there against the wall. The back wall was a bit too lacking in hand-holds for my taste, so I climbed up at the front wall, which had a high window frame I could hold on to as I climbed. Those beams turn out to be at a good height to hold on to above my head as I stand on Max’s shoulders, so he walked slowly across the room, with me standing on him, and moving my hands, one step at a time, along the beam. Eventually we got to the place we wanted the pennants, so Pernilla handed me a hammer and nail, and I attached the first end of the pennant. Then I climbed down Max’s body to the ground. He decided that while he didn’t mind at all my standing on his shoulders while walking across the room, it was a bit much to have me up there while he was standing still, so he went on a quest for another tall, strong, man for me to stand on, and soon returned with Mihal, one of the Irish visitors. Since there were now two tall men it wasn’t necessary to climb up at the wall, but instead I could just climb up right under where we needed to be, and use Max’s hand to hold onto till I was high enough to reach the beam. Shortly after we accomplished that the autocrat came in and told us where we could find a ladder, so the rest of the decorations were put up with that, which was also fun, but not as fun as climbing on people.

After the hall was decorated I went and changed out of tunic and trousers into my bliaut, because a pretty dress, with circlet and veil sounded more appropriate for court. After court I reported to the kitchen. Since I am not hungry in the evenings I volunteered to serve the feast. Since I was wearing my 12th century clothes, I also wore my pattens, which are kind of tall, which, given the length of my skirts, is a good thing. I wondered when I put them on how they would go, since I had twisted my ankle last spring, but for most of the running back and forth from the kitchen to the feast hall, I was fine. There was one time I started to slip off of the patten, but rather than twisting my ankle this time, all that happened was that the leather band holding it to my foot wound up bruising the top left side of my left food, which, while annoying, isn’t near as bothersome as twisting the ankle is.

During the feast I finally got Pól to work on my back, and after a bit of massage he rotate my arms a bit and then used his knee as a pressure point while tugging at my shoulders, which caused something in my spine to pop back into place loudly enough to hear it over the din of the conversation. After that I was about 1 cm taller and my back was much happier.

The feast, like many six course meals, wound up having more food than was needed, and by the time the saffranspannkaka* was served, just after 20:00, not so many people were hungry, so there was plenty of that to save for breakfast the next day. However, of course, the whipped cream to go with it, ran out. Therefore I told the cook that I would be happy to buy more cream when I went to town to pick up Villiam later that evening. However, by the time he managed to reach me (for some reason my bluetooth adaptor quit talking to my phone, so I didn’t hear him try to call at 20:50) it was 21:40, and the store was soon closing, so I sent him to the store to buy the cream as I drove in to get him, and we managed to get back to site just as the kitchen served the Princess with a rainbow cake with unicorns and little crown sprinkles (a perfect gift for this Princess). After the feast the Frostheim “Bågskyttsmafia” got out their LED juggling balls and poi, so, of course Villiam got his LED poi out, too. His have a rainbow setting, so, of course, I had to call the Princess out to see it, and we had the fun of seeing him spinning the rainbow poi around while also juggling with three glowing balls (one each red, green, and blue). It was a really pretty effect.

By then we were getting a bit cold, so we returned to the hall and visited with a few folk, before getting too tired to stay up any later, and heading to bed at about 0:50.

Sunday morning I again got up a bit before 08:00 and promptly whipped the cream so that we could eat left over saffranspannkaka with cream and jam for breakfast. They also made waffles, which some people had with cream (I was happy with the saffranspannkaka, so I didn't bother with a waffle, even though I normally like them. Then Villiam and I went outside and did half an hour of acroyoga before going in to pack stuff. I got the car loaded fairly soon thereafter, and then spent the rest of the morning alternating between talking with people hand helping out with cleaning stuff. I also packed up to take home one of the loaves of bread (in addition to everything else she cooked over the weekend, the cook baked fresh sourdough bread for us every day), some saffranspannkaka and some of that yummy rice dish from lunch the day before.

We left site around 12:00, and I dropped Louise off at home just before 14:00. Villiam went back to my place to help me unload the car, and we had lunch relaxed a bit before going out to climb on rocks in the yard and then picking some black currants to eat for dessert. I dropped him off at home at 17:00 and went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. Then I had popcorn and salad for dinner and went to the first session of Folk dance for the autumn, which was ever so much fun. Now it is much later than I want it to be, so I had better do my yoga and get to bed so that I can manage both work and unpacking after the event tomorrow.

*I am not certain what recipe they used this weekend, but here is a typical saffranspannkaka recipe:

Saffranspannkaka

2 dl porridge rice
4 dl water
Dash salt
1 liter milk
2 eggs
0.5 g saffron
1 dl chopped almonds
1 dl sugar

Cook the rice in the salted water for 10 minutes. Add the milk and cook an additional 45 minutes. Let it cool a little and then blend in the egg, almonds, saffron, and sugar. Pour into a cake pan and bake at 200 C for 20 to 30 minutes. Serve with whipped cream and berry jam.

My friend Villiam had a birthday on Wednesday, but spent that day with his family, so we decided that today would be a good day to make his birthday cake. He came over this morning around 11, arriving just as I had finished making a soup and salad, so we ate that, then discussed what sort of birthday cake he might want. Since he likes pretty much all cake he had problems narrowing it down, so I dug out an old cookbook that I stole from my mother when I moved out of the house (and she probably took it from hers when she left home) a 1947 masterpiece called “Learn to bake, you’ll love it!”, with an introduction that starts with “Whenever a woman says she loves to bake, you can feel mighty sure that she knows just how”. The book is a great display of science, speaking of the importance of careful measuring, and explaining that “Many stoves have oven heat controls. These regulate the flow of heat and keep the oven at a steady temperature as long as the heat is on.”, but it also goes on to explain the importance of having a reliable oven thermometer.

He flipped through the book, and was inspired by a photo of an Angel Food cake that had been baked in a loaf pan, a wedge cut out of the middle, the middle filled with a blend of whipped cream and slightly mashed raspberries, and the wedge cut into triangle slices and tucked back into the cream and berries.

That was enough inspiration, but we decided that since Angel Food is kinda tasteless, we would do a fluffy cake with a bit more flavour:

( Read more... )
This worked really well. I enjoyed one slice, and he had two. Then we played the piano a bit (he tells me “press these four keys in this sequence, at this speed, over and over”, and I do, while he plays something more interesting). After that we went for a walk on the property. He had never looked into the earth cellar in progress (still haven’t done anything for it this summer, and, given that it is August already, I don’t know if we will this year), so we started there, then climbed on the rock pile, and went down the the bottom of the property, right to the water’s edge, and on the way back towards the house we stopped to climb on on the big rocks we could find (we have many nice rocks on the property!) and looked into the forge shed, since he hadn’t seen that either. We went back into the house when it started raining, and this time we played with the dulcimer. I demonstrated a few songs that I know and he tried to find songs that he knows how to play on the piano, which went pretty well. Then we played together. This time him finding a set of chords he could play with one set of hammers while I did some random improvisation with a handful of strings that would sound good with his chords. It was much fun!

Then it was time to head to Phire practice. It was still raining, and I didn’t think that it would be a good idea to transport the glass cake plate and dome on bike, so I drove him and the left over cake back to his apartment and put it into the fridge there, and then we went to practice. At practice we did some acroyoga, he taught me a trick with the short, one end fire sticks (without fire, of course), they taught me how to spin plates on a stick, and a bit of juggling happened. Then, since I had my car there we drove the Phire pavilion over to Florian’s house for some after Visby Medieval Week maintenance (it has been in the Phire storage room next to where we practice since coming home from the event on Monday), then he went off to his D&D session and I came home. With luck I will now spend the rest of the evening working on Durham stuff.

I managed to go to bed fairly early last night--I had done my workout, duolingo Swedish practice, dulcimer playing, and yoga earlier in the day, and took my Archaeology literature reading to bed just before 22:30, and 15 minutes later turned out the lights.

This morning I woke before my dawn light even turned on; started my morning situps at 04:49, did an hour workout starting at 05:12. Was at the office before 07:30, and worked six and three-quarter hours. Then I biked home (in the rain) and promptly turned the bread sponge I had started last night into dough. I broke off a small piece straight away, and while the rest of the dough was rising rolled it out, filled it with the yummy green sauce I made on Saturday from the silverbeet and kale I harvested from the garden (along with almond milk and garlic), and baked the pocket without letting it rise, as I was hungry. Once I had eaten that the dough had softened up enough to start work on the rest. I baked the first dozen green-sauce filled rolls, and while they were baking shaped the second dozen. However, by then it was almost 16:30 and time for Phire practice. Since I had promised to meet E. for acroyoga practice I put the second try of rolls in the fridge, rescued the first tray from the oven, and put the remaining bread dough and green sauce into the fridge.

We had much fun with acroyoga practice. At first it was just E. and I, but then C. joined us, so we took turns who was base and who got to fly. Then one of the new boys, A. came in, and we got him to join us too. (The others were practicing with staff, or poi, or juggling in the other room.) The new boy had a fairly recent leg injury which meant he couldn't be the base for the lay on your back poses and hold someone on your upraised feet, but he had no problems flying, and in being the base for standing poses. After a bit our session was briefly interrupted so that the ones who will be flying south to perform in a talent show could discuss details. Since I am not part of that project I did some yoga, and A., who is also not in that project did some hand-stand practice. I long to be as strong and well balanced as he is, and I am getting there, but have miles to go to achieve his level: He can bend over, put his hands on the floor, then lift both feet off the ground at once, legs straight, and pull them overhead to a handstand that is so stable he may as well be on his feet. After a while of holding it he did the splits, and other body movement, always clearly 100% in control, never looking like he could fall. Eventually he returned to his feet.

After practice E. and I went back to my house, where she looked at an embroidery book while I finished up the baking (to save time I did the rest of the bread dough as plain rolls, which is good, since I was out of bread rolls in the freezer, anyway), and pulled the last tray out of the oven just as it was time to head out the door for gymnastics class. We arrived exactly on time, and both noticed just how very tired we were, but we were both stubborn enough to stick it out for the full two hours, trying everything, with varying levels of success. While neither of us could do the practice sequence from the tall bar, we were able to go to the low bar and help one another with the swinging legs up and over the bar. After a few tries I actually managed to achieve the last task on my own--hanging from the bar, with my legs straight out forward in pike position. While I am very aware of how much further ahead of me the others in the group are, it is clear that I am making steady progress.

On the way home I also did some grocery shopping, since E. lives so close to the bigger store that I am so fond of, and it is open till 23:00, so the fact that we didn't leave gymnastics till 22:15 isn't a problem.

Since arriving home I have dealt with the baked goods, played some dulcimer, tidied up a bit in the kitchen, did my 1000 words of archaeological reading, and spent a bit of time laying on a lacross ball, putting pressure into the tight muscles in my bottom. Now I will go do a bit more yoga (because I need it after today!), probably lay on that ball again, and then get some, by now very much needed, sleep. But hey, it is only 20 after midnight...

I bought my hammer dulcimer almost five years ago now, and since then I have had to memorize each new tune I have learned, and learned them slowly, by carefully looking at sheet music, writing down the letters of each note, and then using that list of letters to learn which strings I needed to hit for each song. This works, but takes enough effort that I still only have a list of about a dozen songs I can play.

Monday night, while working on a sewing project at Nyckleharpa night and wishing we could have brought the dulcimer (there were four of us in the small car that night--no room for the dulcimer, too), and that I could play more of the songs they play, it suddenly occurred to me that if I were to put coloured dots on the dulcimer to show which string is which, and overlay coloured dots on the sheet music I might be able to learn to play from sheet music, instead of treating it as a translation language.

Today I finally got a chance to sit down with the computer and try applying my colour code:

B purple
A red
G brown
F orange
E yellow
D green
C blue

Note that for this I am not bothering to distinguish between sharps and flats--my dulcimer isn't chromatic, which means that the next string is the next note in the series. In some parts of the instrument the next string is sharp (or flat, depending on one's point of view), in some parts it isn't.

The colours of all the strings on my instrument are:



and one of the songs I have coloured is:



I tried this song (which I have heard the nyckelharpa players play so often that I can sing along with it) today from the coloured sheet music, and I am delighted to report that it is SO much easier to play it this way. I can look back and forth from the music to the instrument when trying to figure out which strings to hit and my eyes just jump to the correct spot. I could never do that when trying to look at all black sheet music. Note that for the dulcimer image that goes with the sheet music I have made it simpler by colouring only those strings that I will actually use while playing.

Last night I managed seven hours of sleep, which was more than I might have gotten, but I had forgotten when I lay down that I had switched the dawn light from 05:30 to 06:20 the night before when I had stayed up rather later. So when I finally woke up at 06:15 and looked at the clock I decided that it would be wise to do only part of the morning phone app workout, so I could make it to work on time to meet my friend at the gym at 08:30 as planned.

Then, as I started my morning situps before getting out of bed, I turned wireless on my phone to read LJ, and saw a FB message from her, sent after midnight, saying that she wasn't sleeping due to a headache, and so didn't think she would make it to the gym. My first thought was "ok, I don't have to go". Then I thought again and decided that, no, of course I was going.

Then I got up, got dressed for the phone app workout (bra out the outside of yesterday's shirt, so that should I sweat, it isn't on the bra, and I can still wear it the rest of the day), went to the living room, opened the app, and discovered that it thinks today is a rest day. For all four categories of exercises. This was a bit of a surprise, since for weeks now it has been a rest day for three of the four at once, and the fourth gets a different rest day. However, having gotten dressed to work out, I deiced to do a little anyway, and spent 10 minutes moving. Then I got dressed for work, posted to the Phire FB group that even though the one friend couldn't make it, I would still be going to the gym if anyone wanted to join me, had breakfast, and spent 15 minutes shoveling snow till lord_kjar was ready for work, and then I rode in with him.

As an aside--the downside of yesterday's long day at work and then having fun with friends on campus is that meant that no one was home yesterday to do the shoveling when we got the first decent snowfall of the winter. Not that it was much snow this time, either, but at least it was deep enough that one wouldn't want to wear low shoes in it. To make matters worse, after weeks of lovely temperatures (read: -10 to -30 C, or "cold enough not to melt and get slippery), today it warmed up to 0 C, so after sitting in the warmth the snow was getting a bit heavier than it was when it fell. Needless to say, I didn't get much of the driveway done in the 15 minutes I had before work.

Arriving at work I took my computer to the lab, turned on the plasma on the ICP-MS, and then went to the gym, where I was met by another Phire person I had only seen one time before. We had a nice workout and enjoyed chatting while we did. I did only a short 30 minute session, as I wanted to be certain I was ready when my lab technician arrived at 10:30 or 11:00.

I was, and spent a couple of hours with him, as he looked at the laser and checked a few things, explaining as he went. I now understand why it was that when I asked for the laser to deliver a fluence of 7 J/cm2 it was only giving about 3.5 J/cm2, but if I asked for 50% output I could get 7 J/cm2. It turns out that when the laser was installed the technician opened up the sample chamber, turned off the safety feature that keeps the laser from firing when the door is open, set in a sensor, fired the laser on it, and took notes as to how many J/cm2 it delivers at each % of output. Then the computer looks at my request, compares it with that table, and sets the output level at that given by the table to yield the result I want.

Expect that sometime between installation and when I first noticed the problem something has gone wrong, so that it simply isn't giving as much energy as it did when that table was created, so now when I ask for 7 J/cm2 it uses the 40% output that it thinks ought to be good enough, but really, we need 60% these days.

Eventually the technician had enough information that he was ready to actually open up the machine and get to work, but first he needed lunch. He didn't really want me present for the opening thing up and changing stuff with the optics, saying that I wouldn't be able to help, and he didn't really want someone else in the room when the laser was unshielded. So, it being plenty late enough to do so, I went home for the day, enjoying a nice walk through a forest of snow-covered trees.

That gave me time for a short nap (~20 min), some food (baked a yummy cornbread) and a good book, running a load of laundry, and a bit more snow shoveling, before it was time to head to uni for the Frostheim social/crafts night.

I brought my dulcimer, which seriously needed tuning after the temperature changes this week, and made some progress on my tunic in progress. This week there were four of us for most of the evening, but a friend who can't eat gluten dropped by on his way to his martial arts session to try the cornbread, since I had told him I was bringing it).

We had my senior apprentice working on her wool dress, the friend from Phire who didn't make it to this morning's workout, working on her wool dress, me working on my wool tunic, and a really cute new guy, working on some chain mail project he started working on three years ago (he is so in the right place!) It was a lovely time, and I was quite surprised when the apprentice's husband returned to pick her up, as I didn't think it was that late.

As we were packing up to go I looked at my phone, and saw that my service technician had sent me a text message at 19:30 saying he was finally done for the day, having found the root cause and started the repair, and suggesting that I meet him tomorrow at 10:00. I am glad I didn't stick around till he was done!

From there I went over to the local grocery store to pick up my package, since I had received a text message earlier in the day saying it was in. But we also needed a few things from the store, so I filled a basket first. Then, when I had found everything I wanted, I looked at the line to deal with the one human on duty, and went over to the self-scanning station, and checked myself out. Then I hopped in the car and went home, and it wasn't till I pulled into the driveway that I realized that I hadn't picked up the package. Oops! I have now added it to the calendar for tomorrow, so hopefully I will remember.

However, the self-annoyance at forgetting the package was completely overshadowed by the joy at discovering that lord_kjar, who had stayed home from Frostheim to finish up a few things for work, had finished up the shoveling while I was gone.

Now I should do yoga, before lord_kjar puts down that nyckleharpa he just started playing...