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a week off after adventures
Nov. 8th, 2022 06:26 amWe 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.
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.
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