I just sent a note to the expert on Finnish language names in the SCA:


It will be interesting to see what she says. It will be more interesting to see if the answer prompts a change in what title and/or name I use going forward.

 My current schedule is: Weekdays, wake with Keldor just after 05:00, and keep him company in person as we get ready, then on the phone as he does the half hour drive to work, usually arriving around 06:00. Just before 06:00 I hop on my new electric standing scooter and glide the three minutes to work.  In theory it takes 1.2 hours to clean the health center, and now that I have had some practice, I am only a little longer than that on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (some rooms are daily, some M-W-F, and the others are are Tuesday and/or Thursday), and today I actually finished before the "10 minutes left before you should be done alarm" (though I started five minutes early, and didn't change the alarm, so I wasn't quite as efficient as that sounded, and I have to go back after cleaning the pharmacy to start the washing machine with today's load of mops).  Then I glide home. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I leave the house again on time to clean the pharmacy starting from 08:45 when the pharmacist arrives. That job takes around 20 minutes, then I head home again. Mondays I have the rest of the morning to continue projects for Double Wars Prep, clean my own house, do homework, apply for other jobs, take a nap, or work on my paper that my supervisor finally sent comments on (choose one--all isn't possible before time to head to Swedish class in the afternoon.  Wednesdays I have just enough time after work to glide home, change out of work clothes, eat breakfast, pack lunch, and head to school The other days I have the remainder of the day to accomplish stuff from that list.

My camp improvement projects are pretty much all done, which is good. We start driving toward Double Wars a week from today, so between now and then I need to do a fair bit of pre-cooking. I have beets in the fridge so I can make my beetloaf today. I need to send Keldor a list of which dried fruits to buy for my Hais, we need to do some oven pancakes, and I should make some sort of vegetable pasties, at a minimum.  The problem with a 10 day event is that it is long enough that pre-cooked food is starting to reach the end of its reasonable storage time by the end of the event. However, this shouldn't be a hot Double Wars, being so early in the year (we still have 65 cm of snow here, and while they have none in Skåne, it is still only early spring, even that far south) it may take some time for my food to thaw, so it should be fine.  And we do have a campfire, so I can just swing by a store and cook in camp. It is just so much faster and easier to have things ready to eat, so I can just grab and go when I notice hunger. Unlike most of my friends, I don't really care if I eat hot food daily, or even every week. I like cold food.

After Double Wars we have events most weekends till the end of June, with lots of driving to get to some of them, at which point it is going to be harder to keep on top of my studies. Luckily Folkhögskolan ends, while we will be in Ireland for Strawberry Raid, but the Forntid i Norden class I signed up for starts directly when the other stopps. But hey, I am never bored!

It is now almost a week since we arrived on site, and there was so much more to it than just Keldor's Writ that feels worth recording, so I will give it a try, and see what I can remember.

Friday evening was the usual; catch up with people I haven't seen in a long time, and get to know a few new people, both of which was lovely. Of course I sat in the hall and made progress on my sewing as I did.  I don't recall how much, if anything, I have mentioned about this project already, so...  At Drachenwald 30 Year coronation last summer Keldor saw someone wearing a Viking Age tunic in Byzantine style, and decided he wanted one.  He didn't remember to take a photo of the tunic that inspired him, but Duke Rolf in the West has often worn Byzantine tunics, so we looked at some of those photos to decide what to make Keldor.  He found some affordable black linen, and we stumbled upon a fancy gold brocade tablecloth in a second hand store and thought they would look good together, and suit him.  However, this autumn and winter have been unusually busy. I managed to make a pattern for the neckline in September, but didn't find time to start cutting the body rectangles and sleeves and attach them to one another till mid November. At Glotta Gillet, at the end of November, I managed to cut the brocade for the neckline and start attaching it to the body, and then found time to work at it again at Reengarda's crafts afternoon on my birthday in December.  I didn't touch it again till January 1st, after I had started recovering from the push to finish the thesis enough to submit on 30 Dec.  At that point I wondered aloud if it might be possible to finish it on time for Keldor to wear at 12th Night, and he was very skeptical about my chances, since I was sewing by hand, and project creep meant that in addition to gold brocade trim on black fabric, I was also doing purple osenstich embroidery along the seams between the gold and black, and decided to do some very simple outline embroidery in the diamond shaped bits of the trim. 

( more sewing details )

All of above, plus additional sewing time during the conference and travel to 12th Night had the costume almost useable by Friday evening, so at 21:45 I set aside that project and joined the sewing party in the Royal Meeting room, where I had lots of fun sewing meters worth of possament that her Royal Highness had made to the dress she would wear the next day.  I didn't manage to get all of it done, but when I finally put the project down at 04:45 Saturday morning I had both dragon heads and some of their upper body done (including beads for their eyes), which seemed to be good symbolism--the dragons are just starting to rise out of the ocean (blue dress) at the start of their reign, but will become more and more visible as it progresses.  One of the fun bits of the evening was around 01:40, when their soon to be Majesties heard that I had gotten Keldor's tunic *mostly* good enough to wear for morning court, but that it would be good to change out some safety pins for basting threads, and do a better job tacking down the edges of a couple of bits. Since they had plans for Keldor in court they happily helped me with that basting, as I kept going with her dress, and both outfits were wearable for court!

Most events it is Keldor who is up talking until 04:00 or 05:00, and I who goes to bed around midnight. Therefore I got a few comments from people who were on their way to bed and saw me still up and sewing, hours after Keldor had given up and went to sleep (the generosity of Erich Olavsson Haane with tasty things to drink certainly contributed to Keldor's readiness to sleep). Strangely, even though I was getting tired by 04:00, it was more knowing that I *should* sleep for a while before morning court that got me to put the project down. That and how tired the others (who were working on Stigot's Coronation tunic) looked. Therefore, when they finished that tunic and I was at a good pause point for Lofnheiðr's dress, I put it down, did my yoga, and went to bed.

I woke on Saturday with energy and in a happy mood, despite the short hours of sleep. Keldor wasn't quite so chipper. I told him how late I had been up sewing for Lo, and then suggested that he put on his new tunic for morning court. His first reply was "I don't have a new tunic", as he was convinced I couldn't possibly have managed to finish enough to wear it whilst I was sewing someone else's clothes. I smiled, took it out of the bag, handed it to him, and said "yes you do".  His surprise was so much fun!  We got dressed and went up to the hall, where Lofnheiðr asked me "have you shown him the photo yet?", he said "what photo?" to which I replied:



And he laughed and confessed that he now understands how I was able to pull off making it wearable while doing her sewing.  Soon it was time for court, wherein Sven and Siobhan gave out some backlog scrolls, then some well-deserved awards, including a Queen's order of Courtesy for Ellisif, and an Albion for Vilhelm.  

The Coronation was wonderful.  First Stigot came in to claim his due, and they asked who will reign by his side, so he answered as they do in the old sagas with a Norse-style poem/riddle (but in English):

Then in came the answer to his riddle, the wise and beautiful Lofnheiðr, standing tall upon a shield, being carried by four strong warriors. I really loved the effect, even though I knew it was coming, having heard mention of the plan the night before.

They did the usual Coronation ceremony, with Sven and Siobhan Crowning their heirs in unison, followed by fealty from all the usual officers, peers, and anyone else who wanted to swear. Then they surprised Keldor, and their first court was over. After court there was a bit of time to congratulate people before lunch, and then Keldor and I went upstairs to get him into the armour he'd borrowed from Sir Jon so he could enter the Queen's Champion tournament.  That accomplished I got my own lunch, and looked in at the market. Someone was selling a pair of orange hose in a lovely twill fabric that I thought Keldor would like. Since he and I have no problem wearing one another's trousers I tried them on, saw that they were a good enough fit, and took one leg with me to show Keldor, to see if he was interested. Yes, yes he was, so I did a quick quest for the seller, which turned out to be easy, as he was armouring up right next to us.  He agreed to trade us that pair of orange hose, and a pair of dark grey/blue with thin red lines making a diamond pattern (much more my colour) for either one of Keldor's knives, or, if Keldor is willing, a period-style awl.  (He has since sent us a sketch and some documentation for the awls, and Keldor will try making a handful to see how they go--forging at that small of a scale has its challenges, but he thinks he will be able to do it, and it sounds like a fun challenge).

Because I was upstairs for the tournament I didn't really get to participate in the Peer Garden--I did take one of the flowers, but while I spoke to many delightful people, some of whom were at their first event, no one asked me any questions that are at all related to Order of the Laurel.  I would have liked to have actively participated, but I didn't wish to miss the salutes from my champion during the tournament.  Keldor had a lot of fun in the tourney. He did get a minor injury--the first loaner helmet didn't fit him quite properly, so that one face shot brought something into contact with his forehead. He didn't notice that it had done any actual damage till later, when he was out of the helmet for a break, and Jon noticed the darkness of the fabric on Keldor's forehead, and wondered if that was blood or sweat.  We lifted up the fabric, and saw that, yes, he was bleeding. So Jon suggested that Keldor use the other loaner helmet (which Keldor had repaired last summer so that Jon would have an extra loaner helm), so he did, and there were no further problems. After his shower we found a bandaid in the building first aid kit that was a brilliant shade of dayglow yellow/green that he wore for a couple of hours, before changing it out to a smaller round one in a bright shade of happy blue, just exactly big enough to cover the small hole in his head, which has since healed up nicely.

After the tournament I was feeling super tired, and seriously contemplated heading back to the cabin to take a nap, even though I knew that if I did I would likely sleep through next court. However, then I saw Aethstan, who was arranging the shuttles to the train station the next day, and realized that I really shouldn't put off making those plans any longer, so waved at him, and he started to come over, and just then a couple of new people came up to him with a question.  That totally takes precedence, so I sat and waited. Their conversation took long enough that after he came and helped me figure out what time we needed to get the train in order to be at the airport in good time, and thus what time we needed a shuttle in the morning, it was time to rearrange furniture for afternoon court, so I didn't go back to the room, but instead helped a little with set up, and then settled down into a seat up front, and resumed work on the embroidery stitch around the trim on Keldor's new tunic (after fighting he'd put on an older silk tunic that I had made for Crian when we were together, and which Crian gave back to me when he decided not to play SCA any longer).

I was very glad to have attended court--I was tired enough I can't recall every award, but I recall the joyful surprise shown by Aelric of Battle when he was chosen as Queen's champion (for extreme chivalry and joy displayed under the tournament), and his surprise when the Knights pulled him from behind the throne and presented him to their Majesties to be presented with a Writ to contemplate joining the order of Chivalry.  I was very pleased, as when they called for the Knights, and it was clear that "their number is not complete", my mind went through the list of unbelted fighters who had participated in the tournament that day, and came to the conclusion that Aelric was a good choice before the choice was revealed.  There was also much joy for the Writ to contemplate joining the Order of the Pelican for Alienor de Salignac, but I wasn't close enough to see her reaction, and I don't recall any sort of humorous set up for that one.  I will blame my then-sleepy state for my inability to remember the other awards from that court, but I do know that they were all well deserved.

For the feast they had tried a new thing--making it possible to sign up to sit in a specific place by filling in your name on a seating chart in advance, which I gather worked very well for some people, and not at all for those who were late to find out about it and thus the parts of the hall where they would have chose to sit (if they had known about it on time) were no longer available. It didn't really matter for me--all of the feast servers were sitting together at one table, which was longer than we needed, and our head server wrote our names randomly on that table long before I knew the sign up was a thing, but told us all that it didn't matter where at the table we sit, so long as we kept the space at the end closest to High Table for the mother of the two children who had been invited to sit at High Table with their Majesties.  On the chart the spot reserved for the mother was the right hand corner of the table, so when it came time to put out feast gear I put stuff for Keldor on the left corner, and a little extra stuff next to him to mark a spot for me. Then we reported for duties as servers, got our (plastic) holly wreath crowns so that people could easily see who is serving (and the two servers for high table also got wings, because wings), and served the first course. When we went to sit down there was a lady sitting alone at our end of the table eating from the feast gear we had put out for Keldor. Yes, the mother of the kids sitting at high table, who had been told she would sit at that end of the table, and that feast gear would be provided.  I assured her she was very welcome to continue using that feast gear, and went and got a second set from Maggie's box (we hadn't brought any ourselves, as we flew carry on, so Maggie brought her extra sets for us), and we had a nice time chatting with her during the feast. (The next day I found out that when Aethstan went to that table with the feast gear she was meant to borrow he saw what looked like a single serving already set up for her, assumed that someone else had already taken care of it, and put his set away.)

During the feast there was pleasant conversation, randomly interspersed entertainment, a small bit of court business (mostly thanking the kitchen crew) and the traditional toasts. The three act play was very silly, which feels like a terrible thing to say about a tragedy in which everyone save the Little White Kitten with the Pink paddy Paws (the title character) dies, but it kept us laughing, even through the multiple deaths. The other entertainment was a live action explanation of why the event tokens contained both a carp and a goat, and when Aethstan called for volunteers to be the Fine, Upstanding Citizens of the town I was one of them that came forward, and we had fun being Fine and Upstanding, and all the other things that Aethstan's narration called for. This was in marked contrast with the people chosen to play the Terrible Folk besieging our town.  Luckily, our town had the goat (Duchess Siobhan), who did a beautiful goat-dance on the town ramparts to convince the invaders that we still had plenty of food, despite weeks of siege, and they departed, leaving us in peace.  (I think you had to be there...)

Aethstan had made some announcements during the course of the feast, and for the last one said "this is the last announcement", and everyone applauded.

After the last course of the feast was served I was feeling super tired and ready to go to bed, and said as much. Then I saw Aethstan providing bunny ears, tails, bow ties, and glasses with fake noses and mustaches to a few topless men who were getting ready to clean the kitchen, and I hurried over to join them, took of my tunic, added the accessories, and we all (a rabbit-eared Laurel, a rabbit-eared Pelican, a rabbit-eared Knight, and a cat-eared Little White Kitten with Pink Piddy Paws) marched/danced one lap around the hall singing about how the party is starting in the kitchen. This was a creative way to call attention to the fact that we needed help in the kitchen, without doing one more announcement.  Then we went to the kitchen and started cleaning, and singing, and having lots of fun. Some people laughed at us, but others joined us for the kitchen cleaning party.  I stayed in that party till I had put all of the leftover food I could find into bags or bowls in the fridge, and started cleaning work surfaces. Then I stepped in a puddle deep enough to soak right through my nålbinded socks, and decided I had had enough.  So I went back to the hall, returned the bunny accessories, and put my tunic on. Then Keldor mentioned that they were dancing upstairs, so I hurried upstairs and danced. So much fun!

I eventually went to bed at 01:00, which meant I had enough sleep to be able to pack up early enough to be able to help with a bit of cleaning in the hall before we needed to leave for the train station.  All in all it was a wonderful event, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

The flight home involved two trains and four flights, but we made every connection, and managed to get home not long after midnight, and spent a good ten minutes after going to bed telling one another what a wonderful event it had been, and sharing reminances.  

 If you want to read my summary of everyone who helped me run Oktoberfest this weekend, and what they did, in Swedish (but the google translate version is pretty good), and see a couple of photos from it, it is available on line on Frostheim's website here.

 The Drachenwald Autumn Crown Tournament, AS LVIII, held by the Canton of Unikankare, Barony of Aarnimetsä, was a really fun event. Keldor and I were two of eight fighters to enter, none of whom have ever reigned over a Kingdom before. The full list of entrants was announced on 24 September:

• Varakreivitär Kareina Talventytär fighting for the honour of the Honourable Lord Keldor av Skellitta
• Honourable Lord Keldor av Skellitta fighting for the honour of Varakrevitär Kareina Talventytär
• Vicomte Stigot Eke fighting for the honour of Lady Lofnheithir (Lo) Halvarsdotter
• Lord Jan van Nyenrode fighting for the honour of Maestra Victoria Piera Rosselli
• Sir Mikael Carhu fighting for the honour of Baroness Margaret Walsingham
• Sir Jon fitz John fighting for the honour of Maestra Ellisif Gydasdottir
• Vapaaherra Mikael Rantzow fighting for the honour of Vapaaherratar Rikissa Apilgaard
• Lord Wilhelm Marsson fighting for the honour of Lady Emilia Murmelius

I stayed up late Thursday last week working on the thesis. One of my last tasks of the day was to compile the document from Scrivener to Word format, and then upload it to the University's OneDrive so my supervisors can see it there, and the comments that the other makes, rather than emailing them each a copy of the document and not being able to see what the other said.  I didn't know the uni had this option available till fairly recently, when I emailed someone something, and the email program suggested uploading it to onedrive instead, so I thought I would give it a try. I will be still doing my writing in Scrivener, but I will echo changes to that document, hopefully daily, right before I do my daily backup to David's server in Luleå. That upload happened just before midnight, and, because I had done so much during the day, running the synchronisation/backup took long enough to not only do yoga, but do a bit of tidying up around the house, and I didn't get to bed till 01:30.

Got up as usual at 05:20 so I could kiss Keldor goodbye and talk with him on the phone as he drives 35 minutes to work (and make progress on sewing, mending, or other easy to do task whilst talking). Then I settled into the computer to see what I could accomplish before my 10:00 meeting with my supervisor, and was surprised to see that she'd made comments on the thesis document between when I uploaded it and midnight her time!  During the meeting she said that she's trying to find better work life balance and not work evenings and weekends because her family needs her, but not only was she out of office all summer with field work and conferences, and then sick for a week, but she returned to the office last week to learn of the death of a student, and many books destroyed by flooding in the building, so that was the only time she had a chance to look at what I have been up to (and I am not the only one of her students in thesis write up mode and giving her chapters regularly).  I wish there was something I could do to help her, but there really isn't.

As soon as that zoom call ended I went to the kitchen and baked some road food. I wanted something that would be easy to eat in the car, and I felt like experimenting, and oh, my! Was that experiment a winning success!!!!  So Yummy!

Baked rice cups

I started with a 500 g package of pre-cooked rice porridge and stirred in something like (I didn't actually measure, so these are rough guesses):

• 3 eggs
• 0.25 c almond meal
• 0.5 c sunflower seeds
• 0.5 c pumpkin seeds
• 1 T flax seeds
• 1 T sesame seeds
• 1 T home-dried mushroom powder
• 1 T nettle powder
• 0.5 c frozen chopped kale, thawed
• 0.5 c frozen chopped spinach, thawed
• 1 T nutritional yeast
• garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, nutmeg, soy sauce

Then I scooped it into 20 silicone muffin cups and baked them at 200° C till they were cooked through, solid, and had lightly browned bottoms (not that one could see that the bottoms were brown till removing them from the cups)

They are amazing, and taste good both cold and warm, which made them great food to take with me this weekend (I ate a couple right out of the oven, took 8, and left 9 for me to eat yesterday and today after we returned).

Keldor got home from work (earlier than normal, because it is a road trip day) around the time they came out of the oven, and we then started packing. Ideally we would have packed earlier in the week and loaded the van on Thursday evening, but thesis work...

While packing I needed to take a bit of a break and put some ice on my poor toe, which was in the wrong place when I dropped the lid of one of my tourney chests, which, of course, landed, corner, first on the toe. Once it felt a little better I resumed packing.



We still managed to get everything together and were in the car around 16:30. We stopped at the store on the corner for him to get an ice cream for the road (I had my rice cups, and wasn't interested in anything else), and were driving by 16:47. The drive was long enough that I was able to type up notes from my meeting before I forgot, and catch up on several days worth of email (I had accidently disabled notifications earlier in the week, and was so busy working on my thesis I hadn't noticed till then).

We arrived on site at 22:00, which meant that gate was still open, so we checked in, set up our bed and stuff in the corner, changed into costume, and set out the door with a small group of others, to walk from the crash space hall to the other hall where the main event would be.  I was feeling tired (see above time schedule and the lack of an afternoon nap), but wanted to see people. Then I noticed that my toe was hurting. It hadn't bothered me the whole drive, and wasn't a problem walking with my sandals on, as that supported the toe and kept it from bending enough to put pressure on the bruise, but when I had changed into costume I put on my Viking shoes, which have soft leather soles, and now each step bent my foot just enough to hurt.

So I kissed Keldor and said good night, and I returned to the crash space hall, did my yoga, and was in bed just after 23:30.  The next morning breakfast was served at the other hall, and the event announcement had said that most activities would be outdoors, so I put on some wool (and my sandals instead of my Viking shoes, as I didn't want my toe to hurt again) and we started walking.  At which point I discovered that the other hall is at the top of a hill, so my wool was rather warmer than I needed for the walk. Oops!

After breakfast I hurried back down the hill, as the event schedule had said there would be a trailer going from there to take armour up the hill for people "around 10:00", and while I had no intentions of fighting in the war (I like fighting in tourneys, I can't pay attention to enough directions at once to be interested in war fighting), I did have my rock carving stuff that I wanted to work on, and wanted to get it on the trailer. However, when I got there there was no one there, at all. No trailer. No people. Nothing.  I looked at my phone, it was 09:40.  "Around 10:00".  Was I early? Or had I missed it?  Hmmm.  Waited a bit. Tried calling the autocrat. No answer.  Sent her a text message, so she would know who the strange number was. by then it was 10:00.  I must have missed it. 

So I walked back up the hill, feeling pretty sad and unhappy that I had missed my chance to get my rock carving stuff up the hill (the event announcement had asked us not to drive to that part of the site unless we really needed to, and please don't park there). On the way up (I took the steep forest track) I found a few lonely blueberries, long abandoned by their comrades. The berries looked like they needed someone to love them, so I did, and made them one with me, and I was a little comforted. But I was still feeling down enough that when I got back to the event site and found Keldor, happily playing a game of Kub with bow and padded arrows (try to knock over wooden blocks with the arrow) for War Points, I wound up crying on his shoulder.  He comforted me, and sent me to Fardäng to ask about the trailer, who sent me to Mirya, who explained that the trailer never made the trip at all, as all the fighters decided to just put on their armour and walk up the hill. However, she said I could just drive my stuff up the hill myself, and showed me on the map how to go around by the highway to get to this area by car.

This I did, driving past the fighting field to get to the main area at the top of the hill. I unloaded my stuff under some trees, next to a bench (on the off chance that anyone might like to sit near me as I work and keep me company), and then I drove my car back to the fighting area just beyond the fighting field (a MUCH closer walk than all the way back to the hall, and only a slight change in elevation).

Then ate a jumme second breakfast (rice cups!) and then spent an hour and a half happily carviving my soapstone--the pot is starting to look like it really will be a pot someday:



Then it was time for lunch. The person serving asked everyone if they wanted Pannkakor or Plattar, which seemed weird to me, as I would have happily have eaten pannkakor (which, as everyone in northern Sweden knows, are baked in the oven), but they had only plattar available (which, as everyone in northern Sweden knows, are fried on the stove top).  So I ate plattar, with raspberry jam and whipped cream, and they were good (but not as good as pannkakor would have been, but, apparently, the war is about the correct term for plattar (which the southerners mistakenly call pannkakor), and not about which is better, pannkakor or plattar (the answer to which is, of course, pannkakor)).

Then I happily carved for another hour on my pot. Now and then as I carved people stopped by to look and say hello. One man walked past with to small children, who looked very interested, so I called them over, and let them try carving (read: let them hold the hammer and hit the chisel, which I held in the correct place, on the off chance they should hit hard enough to make a mark in the soft stone, which isn't very hard, but they weren't very big). Then I gave them each a small chunk of stone that had broken off from the pot earlier, and they went happily on their way. That evening their adult thanked me, and said that was the highlight of their war, and they are still talking about it.

Just when I was only a couple more spirals away from having finished this round of chiseling in the curving ridges and would have been able to start the hammaring smooth the surface again before starting the next layer down, the rain started gently falling.  So I covered my work with the ground cloth and hurried to get the car, getting back in good time to get everything into the car before it seriously started raining, which is good, as I really don't want the trough full of stone powder and rock chips (in which I cradle the pot as I carve) to fill with water and become mud. It is quite heavy enough as it is!

About then the tournament was over, so a couple of fighters tossed some of their armour in the car, and Keldor took off all of his armour so that he could drive back down the hill. (Having managed to turn the van around in that small space earlier, I didn't want to have to do it again--I don't care to back up a car even with good visibility, and our van lacks good visibility, and we haven't gotten around to buying a backup camera for it--perhaps when I finish the degree and get a job).

The crash space building also contains the local swimming pool, so the event team had wisely booked the pool, saunas and showers for the event's use from 15:00 to 17:00, so I joined the fighters in the after fighting sauna and swim before dressing in wool and walking back up the hill.  Fika had been on the schedule for 16:00, and I had assumed that we would be too late for that, but it was still out when we arrived, and what a display it was--lots of fresh fruit (including strawberries), spring rolls, cheese and crackers, cookies, and more. I ate some fruit and cheese and crackers, and called it dinner.

Around this time Jacquelyna, Drachenwald's Posthorn herald found us, and gave us her phone to fill in the special form giving consent for our modern names to appear on the new, improved, Kingdom OP, now compatible with mobile devices. The web page team has done a wonderful job "giving it a new paint job" (their words for the changes). In the process they decided to make it possible, for those of us who wish to do so, to have both our modern names and SCA names searchable. However, to ensure that it is all GDPR compliant, the only way to do this is to fill in the google form in the presence of Posthorn or a designated deputy, usually at an event.

Then there was a bit of time to chat with people before court. Court was nice, as always, other than I had no sewing to work on, since I knew we would be either outdoors, or under the open sided roof, and it would likely be dark, so I didn't bother to carry any up the hill (but I cuddled with Keldor instead, so that was a win).  Lots of well deserved awards.  After court it was time for me to report to the kitchen to serve the feast, which went smoothly.

During the banquette Fardäng announced the distribution of all of the war points (there being more southerners at the event than norrlanders, the people who think that plattar are called pannkakor seriously outnumbered us), but, once the totals were proclaimed, Princess Anna announced that it isn't seemly to fight over food, and from here on out we would call them vafflår (waffles).  There were many surprised (and indignant) noises at that, at which point Nordmark's seneschal stood and let us know that if we weren't satisfied with the result we should join her in Styringheim in December, when the time would be ripe to overthrow and replace the Prince and Princess. (or something to that effect, it was late and I was tired, but I think it was a call to rebellion, which would be easy to do in Styringheim--the people on the island of Visby are still miffed about that time Valdemar, king of Denmark, attacked and burned their town in the 1300's, so they would be keen to off-set a Prince Valdemar, who originally comes from Denmark).

Being tired, I went back down the hill early on Saturday, did my yoga, and was asleep before 22:00.  

Sunday morning I woke with some inspiration for how to provide that "narrative arc" to bind my thesis together, and took notes on that before we got up. We packed up and got on the road directly, not even going up the hill for breakfast, as we had plenty of food with us for the day. I drove, as he wanted to write up the story of the War (which he participated in every possible War point), as the chronicler had asked him to provide an entertaining write up. I drove us as far at Skuleberget, where we stopped for a hike up the mountain (of course), and then he took the wheel from there. We stopped also to do some grocery shopping for the week, at the big store in Örnsköldsvik, and again in Umeå at the aquarium store for him to get a few more fish for his tank, and were home by 17:30, giving time to put away things that needed to be dealt with directly, relax a fair bit, and do yoga before bed.

Yesterday was all thesis work, and today will be, now that I have taken the time to type this up before I forget. Hope all is well with you!

I am having fun re-creating our Drachenwald 30-Year road trip route in https://kurviger.de/en which I will then export as xml, so, in theory, I will be able to pull it into google Earth and do an animation of the trip, to go with the photos of all the runestones, rock art, castles, etc. that we saw along the way. This crazy hobby just got even crazier!

Stay tuned for the final result, later. Probably much later, since we have Frostheim Medieval Days next week...

edited to add...

1.5 hours after posting I managed to get it this far:



Step one was look at my GoogleMaps Timeline, and make a spreadsheet of where all we stopped.

Step two was to create an account at https://kurviger.de/en and put all of those stops in to my route (plus as many other stops as were needed to make the route follow the actual path we used).

Step three was to export as a xml file, and open it in GoogleEarth, change the colour to white (which has much better contrast to the default purple), and then take a screen shot.

Later I will learn how to animate that...

I also need to do the data entry for the trip home, which isn't the same route (except where it has to be)

Tuesday at Double Wars I spent a chunk of late morning and early afternoon in the hall with friends working on the Laurel Coat for Þhora (who was taking a nap and had no idea that there were plans afoot to make her a Laurel. Her dear friend and adopted sister had made the cloak and eight of us had embroidered rondels containing things like Laurel wreaths, symbols of other awards and orders she's in, and symbols from her personal heraldry and that of her household. The coat was nearly done, needing only hems and buttonholes, and the rondels attached.

Since most of the roundels were on a green silk, which would have been challenging to sew down in a way that they stayed round without help, Tamara sent with the coat a stiff interfacing fabric, pre-cut as perfect circles in the correct size, and sent an example of how it should look once the embroidery was folded over the circle and sewed into place on the back side.

So I started sewing one of the roundels to the fabric while our body-double, Kytte, who is pretty much the same size as Þora, tried on the coat so the hem could be marked. It turns out that I was the one who had tailor's chalk with me, so I put down my roundel and helped with hem making and trimming, and hemming. Meanwhile other people picked up other roundels and set to work.

By the time the hem was tracked up (no point in sewing that part properly till Thora has it and can decide exactly how long she wants it, so we didn't trim more than needed to make a smooth arc--if she wants it longer it will be easy to let down) all of the rondels had etiher bern attached to their backing, or soon would be done, so I finished the one I was working on, and we spread the coat out to decide where to attach which rondel.

Once we had consensus as to which order was good, they were pinned into place, and we started sewing them down, each covered at the edge with a bit of fingerwoven cord someone had donated.

After getting about 1/3 of the way around the first one I started attaching I looked at the motif and thought "that is a rather ugly laurel wreath".... wait... open up the stitching to look, and, sure enough, on the side of the fabric facing the backing was a rather pretty laurel wreath. So I undid my stitching, took the roundel off its backing, turned it right side up, and then attached it to the coat. As I did that someone else noticed that the embroidery in the roundel they'd just started wasn't exactly pretty, either. Yup, it was also upside down, and much prettieron the other side! So she fixed it.

When I was attaching a second rondel Brianna thanked us for letting her joing the project and went out to teach dance. I told her that I would be happy to join, that I didn't need the lessons, I just needed to dance, and besides, I had this feeling like Þora might wake up soon, and the project should be out of sight.

So I finished the one I was on, the others anchored their needles in place, and I packed up the project to hide in my tent before heading to dance. Sure enough, a couple of dances in Þora did pass by and say hi on the way to the hall.

We had four of us for dancing. Brianna, who lives in Atlantia, a couple who have been in the SCA 8 years, but who have only danced SCA dances three times, and me, with more than 40 years of SCA dance experience. We had a great time. The students learned quickly, and we went through at least 8 dances from Arbeau, the Inns of Court, and Playford, two of which, Tinternell and Earl of Essex, I don't have music for, and if I have done them previously, I didn't remember well enough to be able to do on my own, so I wrote down the steps, to remind me to track down their music later and teach them in the north.

After dance I realized I had eaten nothing but a handful of oatcakes and cookies (grabbed to go when I dropped the tent in camp) since breakfast, and it was nearly 17:00. Therefore I went back to the tent and ate.

Court that evening, after Marlene had ber given a Gyllenedband from the Nordmark royals, and the Crown said, no, don't go, we have business with you, too, we Laurels took Marlene off to vigil, and a short bit later we saw the Pelicans leading Alma off to vigil in the next camp. By luck of the draw, I was the first Laurel to go in to talk one on one to Marlene after the royals were done, at which point I went and put my name on the list to talk with Alma, and went looking for Keldor. He was in camp with a headache, getting ready to sleep, so I tucked him in and went back out and returned to Marlene's vigil party to get my mug I had set down on the table when I went into the tent, and stayed to talk to people.

Þora stopped by for a bit and told me that she had guessed that one of the rumoured elevations must be Marlene, from all the growth she's seen in Marlene's research and personal self confidence. I was curious what rumours were going about elevations at Double Wars, and she indicated that the count she'd heard was one or two laurels, which have now both been revealed, one or two pelicans, one of which has now been revealed, and possibly a knight. I was delighted to hear that her sources had only two laurels, as that meant she hadn't figured out she would be next (I had heard Erich Hane and Keldor counting their guess of 4 laurels and 1 or 2 pelicans earlier in the week, which, clearly, they didn't do in her presence).

Þora decided not to get in the vigil queue as she isn't a night owl, and it would clearly be hours before she'd get a chance to go in, but said she had enough energy to go to the hall and sew a little. So I checked at Alma's vigil, and they guessed that it would be about two hours before my turn, so I joined Þora in the hall and helped her with some of the long seams on her dress, thanking her for the chance to get my hands on that delicious wool fabric.

Eventually she went off to sleep, much later than usual and I returned to the vigil to learn that it would soon be my turn.

I told Alma that I live too far from Styringheim to know what service she normally does, but that I would never forget how, when the entire Autocrat team for Coronation forgot to arrange for servers for the feast, she noticed the problem, and solved it, before we even realized the problem existed. If that is typical of Alma, then I understand how she wound up sitting vigil for a Pelican. I will always be thankful to her for that.

After that conversation I went straight to bed (having done my evening yoga with Emma while Þora was working on a bit of the dress that meant no one else could work on another section of it), just before 02:00.

Wednesday was the Laurel Sponsored Prize Display in the afternoon, so I slept in till almost 10:00, which gave me time to have breakfast before heading to the hall with Keldor.

He set up his display: one forge-welded Viking style sword he made last year, the sword he is currently working on, which has all the layers in place and is ready for final shaping, and another packet he'd started, which shows some of the problems one can have with the forge-welding not taking in a twist, or near an edge.

I tried to talk to everyone, and managed to see:

• Kytte (caligraphy/illumination)
• Þora (northern Norway research, inclding bits of stockfish to taste, with butter, and textile reproductions)
• Baltezar (reproduction of a tarrot card set)
• Alienor (Finnish Iron Age bronze spiral decorations)
• Görvel (dress after a specific church wall painting)
• Sabine (caligraphy/illumination)
• John Smith (casting a reproduction of a candelabra from painting)
• Agnes (gender and sexuality in the Viking Age)
• Duncan (decorated belt fittings are an accessible and affordable hobby)
• Matti (Migration age clothing and accessories for the common man)
• Alfhild (systamatic tests of inks made from period recipes)

The highlight of the evening court was Marlene's laureling ceremony, and the presentation of the "scroll", or in this case a painting--a portrait by Richard of Salisbury of Marlene herself, wearing the beautiful embroidered headdress she had made for her Golden Egg project (which was inspired by a period portrait), and with a selection of pottery of her making on the table in front of her, and a minimum of text recording the When/where/who of the laurel ceremony.

That night during even yoga Keldor and I did a little acroyoga too, and we made it to bed at 00:30.

Thursday was a long day. I was up at 06:00 to begin setting up my tent for the vigil: hang the inner curtains to make an intimate place in the front of the tent, hang my Laurel cloak, with its Viking knotwork motief against the outer wall, and a bit of green and gold brocade fabric against the outer wall on the other side of the door.

Empty the shelves of my things, and displayed the bentwood box that Keldor (with a little help from me) had painted for her on those shelves, set up a chair for her (complete with the cushion she had woven and given to Lia at Lia's vigil), and added padding to one of my chests for her guests. Hung up a cute little wall hanging with a Viking Ship that Adelais had found at a second hand store and gave to Keldor , a hanging candel lantern, and a stockfish, because northern Norway.

I was nearly done with the inner space when Beata arrived to help, so I paused to help her get a table from Sven and Siobhan's camp and she started putting the food on it.

I filled a plate and a glass of water and put them on a table by Þora's chair, and then it was time to go to my meeting wiith the Crown in preparation for morning court, for which I was the herald.

We waited till we saw that Þora, Admiral of the Northern Seas, had arrived, and then processed in, lead by the Royal Choir (Martina and Ermina from Reengarda).

Their Majesties began by explaining that they had heard that there was still some confusion about the site token challenge game, so they would demonstrate, one of them being a flat sider, the other holey.

He challenged her to a game of rock paper scissors (best of three), which she won, so one of his tokens were dropped in the appropriate bucket. At midday of Friday the side with the most challenge tokens would earn war points.

Then I called up Þora, Admiral of the Northern Seas, to pay their taxes, as is their right and custom. This Þora did, presenting them not only with the royal due of one fish for every 20 for the current year, but also for the plague years during which no taxes were paid, though the fish still were caught. (These fish are small beeswax fish that they will be able to give to others).

Her taxes paid, Þora made ready to leave, but she did not have their Majesties leave to depart... "Their Majesties command the presence of the Order of the Laurel", and we whisked her off to a day-time vigil. The first I have seen since moving to Drachenwald.

We didn't put a time limit on people as they talked, but we did take a mid-vigil market break to take her around and see what the merchants had on offer. She bought a hat and a ceramic mug, and was gifted some lovely weaving accessories. I bought the last of the blue enamel feathers, as it was the right shade of a nice dark royal blue. Then we took her back to camp and a steady stream of visitors finally came to an end with two hours to spare before court.

Some of her friends had been finishing up her dress during the vigil, so she was able to wear it, and her Golden Egg project hand spun, woven and dyed hood to court that evening.

I spent the entire time between vigil and time to get ready for court cleaning up, putting things back to normal, and returning stuff to those we'd borrowed it from, getting done with just time to confirm my understanding of my bit with the herald before adding a warmer tunic, wool veil and circlet to the leight wool dress and linen ubderdress over wool tights, short nålbinded socks, and Viking Age style leather shoes.

Had evening court been the same lenght as it was on other nights so far this event, that would have been plenty. However, while the Drachenwald court didn't have do much business, the Nordmark Royals had many, many well deserved awards to hand out, all of which made me happy to see, but taken together, as the sun sank ever lower below the horizon, and the big tall fire torches were lit so we could see court, it began to feel colder, and colder. We did have my fur muff, and the big sealskin mittens we bought at a second hand store on the way to the event, so our hand weren't cold, and snuggling up together helped. Except when they called for all the members of one or another Nordmark Order to stand and one or both of us was in that order. It is hard to snuggle while transitioning from standing to sitting or back again. Luckily standing up so often made it easier to tolerate the increasing cold.

Then Nordmarks court ended, just as I noticed increasing pressure from my bladder. So when Drachenwald's Herald announced a five minute comfort pause, I was up and running towards the toilets before they finished the sentance.

Bladder emptied I ran further to camp and got my fur hood and laurel cloak and made it back to our blanket in the front row before court re-opened.

Soon it was my turn for business with the Crown, saying that "I bring this suit properly on behalf of Þora Sumarliðadóttir, and against the cruel winds of fate, which have conspired on many counts to delay the due and proper advancement and recognition of Þora, by blocking, at every turn their admittance into the Order of the Laurel, and have thereby deprived them of the station and respect due to them by virtue of their many skills, services, and accomplishments. I proclaim this complaint publicly that it may be heard and judged in the court of Drachenwald where it properly belongs."

Then I called forth witnesses to testify for my case, one from each order, and another from the populace, and each spoke (and in one case sung) beautifully in praise of Þora and all she does. During the speeches from the witnesses we got to bonus speakers as Princess Anna also stepped up to add her praises, and one of the laurels from another Kingdom read words from the Laurel that Þora had been apprenticed to years before, and who continues to be a good friend.

After the witnesses were done the Crown asked the order if we were satisfied, and we were, so they judged the case and elevated her to the order of the Laurel, and we gave her a medalion, coat, and wreath, and her scroll was read out, and we greeted her as our peer, and then as one we turned to the Crown, who asked uf our business here was complete, and as one we replied "No!" So that the word echoed over the field.

And the Crown asked us if there is another who is a Peer in deed, but not in name, and as one we replied "Yes!", and the Crown bud us find the canidate. But it was dark, and she'd moved since last we'd seen her, so it took a bit of time before our searchers returned with Ermingard, who we sent on vigil.

Alas, I was too cold to stay for her vigil party, so I just went to the hot tub till I was warm, soaked a nit longer, then did my yoga and went to bed at 01:30.

Today I slept in, started typing this after Keldor left to fight in the war, took a 2 hour nap, continued typing till he came back from war, ate some waffles, continued typing, dressed in All the Wool, and am now ready for evening court, which promises to be a long one.

Given that our shire hosted Drachenwald's Coronation in January, none of us felt up to also running our normal annual spring event JMB (short for Jungfru Maria Bebådelsedagsgille, which google translates as "Virgin Mary Annunciation Day party"), which typically has 20 to 40 people spending the full weekend at a site a half hour or so inland. But neither did we want to do nothing at all, so Keldor suggested that we do a JMB lite event here at our house, and created a FB event for, it and we even dropped it on the Kingdom Calendar, on the off chance that anyone who isn't on FB might go looking to see if we are doing something.

Between deciding to do that and now I got that tuition bill from the university, which, even though we worked out that I am correct, I do, in fact, have till the end of spring term before my funding runs out, nonetheless put me into panic thesis mode, trying to finish all of my data processing and write all the words for the thesis as fast as possible, so that I don't have to pay £2,500 a term (which, given I have no income just now, is not something I wish to do). Due to the limited amount of funded time available my thesis advisor and I agreed that, rather than doing the degree as the PhD we had originally planned, I should just down-grade to a Master's, which is a more easily achievable thesis format in a short time.

Then I saw that ad for funding, aimed at supporting two individuals who are in their final, otherwise unfunded, year of writing up their PhD results, and I dared to start dreaming again. An entire year to finish up converting all of data to a thesis would make it possible to get that second PhD after all, and would be fun, and, I think, my contribution to the science is worth the higher degree.

The funding application is straight forward: turn in a 2 page CV, a 500-word Thesis Summary, a 750 word General Interest Pitch, and... a three-minute video introducing myself and my research.

I have never edited a video in my life, and have almost never filmed video, so why not try? (I have filmed some acroyoga training, as it is a good way to look at what we are doing, and figure out what is going wrong and what we need to do different to make the pose work, and, when it does work, it is fun to have a record of it.)

Yannick of Normandy, in Insulae Draconis (he who did the wonderful trailers for Drachenwald's On-line Kingdom University Event), was kind enough to give me a two hour zoom call wherein he taught me the basics in using Lightworks, by having me edit together a couple of random segments of two of my acroyoga films, so that I could learn how to add film clips to a project, how to move them, how to select a subset of them, and discard the rest, how to overlay one over the other, with a dissolve transition from one to the next, and how to zoom and pan, and how to add a title. The result was a very short film using all of those skills, but, because it was randomly chosen bits, wasn't worth keeping.

Then I went to Luleå for my last week of work, working long days, so I practiced none of those skills directly after learning them. On my bus ride home, after doing filming of me in front of a greenscreen talking of my thesis reading a script, talking of it without a script, and even reading both the Thesis Summary and the General Interest Pitch (which gave me 45 minutes worth of film, in which I hope I have enough for the three minute film), I started thinking of the whole pan and zoom thing Yannick taught me.

I had always assumed that the panning and zooming in the yoga app videos was done by moving the camera, but, now that I have learned the skill, I understand that it is probably just video editing. However, I felt that this tool much be good to call attention to specific details in graphs or maps in my research. Then I suddenly felt inspired: GoogleEarth! That program has wonderful fly-in to your chosen location feature. But how to get that from that program into the video editing program? So I asked google, and sure enough, there are tutorials to do just that, and, it turns out, I didn't even need to use a third-party software for the screen recording, Windows has a built-in low end model, that works well enough, if you are willing to use the editor's zoom into the part of the screen you want, rather than selecting that portion before recording.

What does all this have to do with the mini SCA event at our house, you ask? Well, I got home late Thursday evening (where "home" = Keldor's dad's house in Skelleftehamn, since that is MUCH closer to the bus stop than our place is). Friday Keldor went to work, and I set to work transcribing all of my films I had made the day before, including noting where I stuttered, and if I added hand gestures, so that when I get to the part where I add me to the film, I can quickly grab the correct film to pull the words I need from. (In an ideal world I would have had a complete film plan and script done in advance, so I could have just recorded the words that would be used, in several takes, rather than needing to also record lots of additional stuff, as I just don't know yet exactly where the film is going. Apparently, I grow film projects in the same, barely planned organic way I approach most of my sewing and embroidery projects, with a strong "I will figure it out as I go" component).

I got all but one of them transcribed before he finished work for the day, and we packed up the cats and did the 35 minute drive home and got everything unpacked and put away. Then I settled to the computer with that final transcription, till time for the zoom meeting for the Drachenwald 30 Year songbook project, where I confessed that I had accomplished nothing for the project since our last meeting, due to thesis focus mode, and we delegated parts of the things I had hoped to do to others (thanks others!). As I listened to the meeting, I went to the web page where they are collecting the bits that are done, and tested pulling the list into Scrivener, copying in the plain lyrics, and adding clickable links to the various versions of each song (phf, sheet music, with chords, midi) where they exist. The meeting lasted long enough I got as far as the Ms. Then, as the meeting wrapped up, I exported the result to an epub, and sent it to the others, wondering if they think it is worth also doing an epub version of the song book. Then, at events with poor internet access one could still have the songbook in a format that is easy to read on a phone or a tablet, and, if the access is good, one could click through to the web page.

I have been wanting an epub songbook for ages, and haven't taken the time to sit down and do it. It really isn't hard to do, and would be fairly fast to just drop the old word doc for the Oerthan songbook into scrivener and convert it. It is just finding the time. The only reason doing the Drachwneald 30 Year songbook takes longer is the part about coping in the links to the other version. No one has replied to that shared file yet, so I have no idea if it is only me who likes the idea of epub, or if the idea is worth pursuing.

After the meeting I finished my transcription and got ready for bed, glad that we didn't have a normal JMB, as I would have missed all of the Friday night part of the event for work. The event announcement Keldor had done said that the event would start at 10:00 on Saturday, by which time I was sitting at the computer, happily experimenting with recording GoogleEarth fly-in to a quarry location, and fading from there to a photo of the rock from the quarry, fading to a photo of the crystal from the rock that I analysed, fading to the maps for each of the interesting elements for that crystal, one at a time (gee, it is GREAT to see the maps replacing one another like that--one very clearly sees the difference in distribution of each element!!!!).

As a result, when the first guests arrived, I don't know how much time later, I waved hello from the computer, and kept woking. A while later I was hungry, so I went out, chatted briefly with the first two visitors, accompanied them and Keldor on a tour of the house, ate some lunch, and went straight back to the computer to work.

At 15:00, I finished my first short sample film clip, which you can see on google drive here, or on FB here. So I put on some SCA garb, my hearing aids, and went out to the kitchen to discover that a number of others had arrived, so I shared with them my short film, had some dinner, during which I took of the dress I had put on, because it was too warm, and just the linen undertunic, to which I added my cotton flannel Thorsberg trousers, was more comfortable.

But as soon as I had finished eating, I returned to the computer to see how much time film # 2 would take, now that I know how to do it. That first film took five hours, the second, which you can see on google drive here (or on the same fb link, since I just edited the first post to add the next), took only 3, so clearly I am getting faster. Now I wonder how I can automate this? It must be possible to set up a template, and just drop in the sample photos and stuff from a folder, so that every sample has the exact same approach, making it easier to play the films side by side and see the differences.

When I came back out to the kitchen it was full! Well, ok, there were only 9 people, including me, and two dogs (our cats declined to join the party, but stayed hidden in the bedroom), but the kitchen is small, making it seem like a larger event than it really was. I hung out with them, and then gave Helena a tour of the house, then Lena and I did some yoga in the living room, and there was more hanging out and swapping stories.

Then I felt inspired to finally cut the fabric for a much lighter weight pair of Thorsberg trousers. I have a really light weight white cotton fabric, with a blue print that looks rather 12th Century in motief, that we found at a second hand store ages ago, and I thought at the time it would make some lovely Thorsberg trousers for wearing under a split-skirt bliaut, but I hadn't gotten around to doing anything with it. Because the fabric is so thin I wanted to line at least the square but panel and crotch rectangle with another fabric, but I didn't have anything in my stash that was an appropriate weight. So I looked in the mending pile, and saw an old light weight black cotton skirt that has been languishing waiting for someone to sew shut the rip in the fabric for ages, and saw that it was exactly the same weight as the blue printed white cotton fabric. Having survived for months without the skirt, I decided that it would make a great lining, so, since the party was just in the kitchen at that time, I claimed the living room floor for fabric cutting (and was able to cut out all the pieces without help from the cats, who were still keeping to the bedroom for reasons of people, and probably especially, dogs, in the house).

I got the pieces cut, and, since the fabric piece wasn't, quite, long enough to go from waist to ankle, but was wide enough to have extra fabric over in the middle after removing the butt and crotch pieces, I added an extra wide waist band. That chunk of extra fabric was wide enough to line up the pattern exactly, so at any distance at all, one won't see that there is even a seam there. So I started sewing the first waist band to the first leg, and left the other pieces spread out over the floor, so I wouldn't loose track of which side was up for the other leg and waist extension, and took my sewing to the next room to be sociable again.

Of course, this was around the time that some people were deciding to head home, so instead of joining folk in the kitchen, I stood, stitching in hand, talking in the entry area, as they got ready to go (and shouted twice "don't step on the sewing project on the floor!" to Keldor and the guy he was showing off all of the swords, spears, and axes that line the living room wall with. (Really, with no one, not even cats, in the room at all, it had felt safe to leave it spread out during the short time I sewed those two pieces together. Nope.)

I got the first two bits sewed together during the time we were doing goodbyes with the first group departing, and started the next set as we hung out with the last couple of folk. After they, too, left, I put down my sewing, and did a bit more tidying up after company (the guests had helped with dishwashing before departing, which was truly appreciated), crawling into bed just after 01:00. As I was setting the dawn light to get up at 06:00 for my fortnightly call with my sisters, Keldor reminded me that it was the night for the change to daylight savings, so we would soon "spring forward" an hour. So I reset the clock on the dawn light to show that it was already 02:00, and went to sleep.

When dawn went off I might have considered sleeping, but Skaði wanted breakfast, so I got up, fed her, and sat down at the computer, where I had a great time catching up with my sisters, sharing my videos with them, and getting some edits for the funding application text, as well as working on my new sewing project and hearing what they are up to.

Then I went back to bed, and slept for three more hours, which was seriously needed, during which time Keldor took this cute photo of Skaði and I:

I enjoyed the weekend, but acknowledge that it wasn't good for thesis progress, since I wound up spending Thursday getting ready for the road trip, then we were on the road from midnight Thursday evening to noon on Friday (including a stop for a nap for both of us, and a stop at a second hand store, where he bought some things for making knife handles, and some silverware for doing silver inlay in swords/axes.

That got us to site well before it opened, so we took another nap, and got up when the autocrats arrived. Friday evening we enjoyed hanging out with people (and I managed to get the gambeson done enough to wear, then did yoga and I went to bed around 22:00. Keldor, on the other hand, stayed up later, despite having done all of the driving (while I happily made progress on sewing my gambeson). Since I had gone to bed early on Friday, I wound up waking early on Saturday, so I used the time to mend the strap holding up my leg harness, which hadn't broken, yet, but was clearly about ready to break, so I riveted on a short extra bit of strap above and below the damaged area. I really need to completely replace the belt and straps--they were made from a second hand belt in the early 1990's. Now that the gambeson, fighting trousers, and quilted collar for under the gorget are done, I can start thinking about doing that, and all of the other upgrades the armour needs.

The armour more or less functional, I had time for breakfast and some yoga before the tournament. The day was cold and very windy. Therefore the did the court for the invocation of the lists indoors. When Keldor and I went up to present ourselves and fighter and consort for one another the prince and princess thanked us, and dismissed him to join the other entrants and bid me stay and kneel, and then presented me with Ljusorden (the order of the light, Nordmarks's arts and science award) for my enthusiastic participation in bardic arts, dance, and acrobatics at events.


The tourney went really quickly--they decided to do a full round robin list, so they had prepared in advance the list of who would fight who in each round, which meant that each fight begin promptly after the one before finished, and each round continued promptly after the one before, which meant that while it was really cold and windy we fighters stayed reasonably warm for the first part of the tournament. I did about as well as expected, given that I hadn't actually been in armor in months due to lack of time and not having gotten the gambeson etc. done before the event, which is to say everyone killed me, but I got to model the new pretty helmet my love made for me, as I fought, and died, for his honour. However, the new helmet was designed to be able to wear my hearing aids in side it, and, being patterned after the Vendel Valsgärde helm, has plenty of openings to let sound in. Guys, it was amazing. For the first time in my life, I could hear while fighting! I could talk to people between fights, and hear what they said! I totally recommend this. Now I just need to get glasses that are legal to wear while fighting (sports glasses), or contact lenses.

Keldor wasn't feeling on top of his game, with timing not working for him till after the tourney and during pickups, so he and I were the first two eliminated, and then they did a five person second round robin, since all of the other fighters had tied after the first one. Since I was no longer fighting at that point, I quickly became quite cold watching the next part of the tourney, even though my helmet was the only thing I took off (and I was wearing a coif--it wouldn't have been possible to be out in that wind wearing hearing aids without one).

Then the final round was between Valdamar and Erik Hane, the two people from whom I had gotten bruises during the tournament. They are both large fighters (Valdemar is pretty close to two meters tall, and while Erik isn't that tall, he is big), and very strong. When Erik hit me his sword first contacted my upper arm, right under the pauldron, and just over the top of the arm harness, and pivoted around to strike my back as well. I shouted "good", and he replied "wasn't that your arm?". I replied "också" (also), and everyone laughed. Perhaps the arm took enough of the force that the sword in the back might not have been a killing blow, but, believe me, it was good, and was happy to take it and not let him hit me again. When Valdemar hit me the sword contacted my sword arm, right on the shin bone. I called good arm, and then said since I can't switch due to not being able to hold a sword with my shield gauntlet, I would happily yield. Valdamar and the marshal both said I could just keep using the sword arm, but it was hurting enough I said that I would rather yield. Better arm armour is on my list of things that needs to be done.

After the tourney I went in to the hall, put out the knives and axes that Keldor and brought for the market (which many people admired, but no one chose to buy--we were not surprised--many of the items he has available are pattern welded and/or inlaid with bronze, and/or have decorative carving on the hilt, which upps the price), took off my armour, packed it, and got some lunch. Then the other fighters came in, and we soon wandered over to the other hall for a sauna.

After the sauna I returned to the main hall, and thought to take a nap. Then I realised that I had left the bag with my nålbinding project at the sauna building, so I switched back to outdoor shoes, put on my Viking coat, and walked back over. I got the bag, and then returned to the main hall, this time taking the scenic route through the forest and over the hill instead of taking the road. Then I noticed that the garter holding up my nålbinded socks was missing on the left leg. After checking the hall for it, I went back out and retraced my steps, without spotting the garter. Came out of the forest just after Keldor and one of the other fighters had walked past, so I called to them, and he accompanied me back to the sauna building (no garter there, nor on the road), and then back through the forest. When we came out of the forest in the parking lot of the hall he made his spot check and found the garter. Yay! But that used up time for a nap before court!

Investiture court went well. The new Prince and Princess hit the ground running, with awards to give out already, which is always a good thing (and kinda impressive, that they even had scrolls ready, given that they have so little time between tournament and investiture). It helps that Anna was the first Baroness of Aarnimetsä and has been Queen, so she knows how these things work. I wish that they had called for people to swear fealty to them, as I would have liked the chance to do so, but they didn't. I get the impression that that isn't often (ever?) done in Nordmark (I have not made it to every Coronet/Investiture here, and it is on a nine-month cycle, and the pandemic canceled a few, so there haven't been all that many I have been to, so I don't know if they ever let folk swear fealty during investiture court).

During the feast there were a few performances and much merriment. At one point I noticed Jovi and one of the jesters doing a little acroyoga out in the entry area, so I quickly changed out of the dress I had worn for court and put my Thorsberg trousers and a tunic on so I could join them. We did only one quick Candlestick before they went in for the next serving of food, but it was still worth the effort to change!

But given the early start to my day, I was feeling tired and started moving towards bed... and got distracted talking fighting with Erik Hane, who gave me a few lessons (fight like a boxer--moving your hands on the shortest possible path between the starting point and hitting the target, and the secret to moving someone much bigger than you are (him, for example), is to get low and then use the force of your legs to generate a push (which worked way better than I expected, given he is about twice my size). However, after that I went to bed, and managed to sleep before midnight.

The next morning it was pack, load the car, eat breakfast, take a couple of the left over boxes that were on offer, say goodbye to everyone, and start driving before 10:00 (I feel guilty that we don't stay to help clean the hall, but given the length of the drive, we didn't).

Long drives are more fun if one makes a date of it, so soon after we started driving we consulted the Swedish runestone map page to find a random one not far off the road home, choosing one that stands directly behind a very nice farm mansion that was built in 1816. We took a photo, and then started to walk back up to the car (we parked on the road, rather than driving up the nice tree lined long lane to the house).




However, before we'd gone more than a couple of meters we saw a group of people heading towards the stone. People we recognize! Four of our friends from the event, who also thought this stone to be located in a convenient location with respect to the road home. So we took a group photo and chatted at the stone a bit, during which time a guy came out of the house and explained that the 1816 inscription on the stone was from when the house was built. Back in the early 1800's people didn't think runestones were that special, so when they built the house they used the runestone for one of the door steps. During a more recent renovation they realized that that step was a runestone, so they stood it in the backyard, and used a plain stone to replace it in the steps. As one can read if one clicks through all the way to the detailed information on this stone, they painted in the runes in 1981, and again in 2005, to make them easier to see.





The other car full of people went to look for the other runestone in the area, and we decided to get back on the road. But as we started driving Keldor noticed an old oak tree that had come down, so he stopped to look, and found a large branch which still had some good wood, so he salvaged it. The farm right next to the oak had a sign saying "Vendel GÃ¥rd", and while we know this isn't the location of the main Vendel grave finds, about 130 km to the north west, we still think that is cool, and the oak was thick enough to probably have dated from the Vendel period, and will likely make a good sword handel.

Our next stop was at the antique store associated with the Sala Silver Mine, which is a particularly good antique store, with lots and lots of interesting stuff to look at (we went home with a set of hand-forged shears for only 90 Kr (he couldn't make one that cheap--that would be less than 20 minutes work, and shears are much more than 20 minutes), and a small birch box that will be good for storing my old hearing aid with my helmet (while I trust the helmet to protect the hearing aids, I am nonetheless using the old ones when fighting, just in case).

The next stops were not as exciting, in part because it started snowing a bit before Gävle. Petrol and toilet at Tönnebro, toilet and a walk through the store just to stretch our legs at a random Biltema big box store (where we did buy more window washing fluid), a toilet stop at a gas station just before Sundsvall, and at grocery store in Örnskoldsvik (toilet, and buy more energy drink), and one side of the road stop about 45 minutes from home. The company on the drive was great, and I managed to change the sleeves on our new linen tunics--I had done them with straight arms, but we decided that it would be nice to taper them from the elbow to wrist so as to better fit under other tunics.

We got home at 22:30 and unloaded and put away only the bare minimum before doing yoga, taking a shower, and heading to bed.

Today I worked a little, did some laundry and vacuuming, took a nap, worked some more, took another nap, worked some more. Somewhere around there he got home from work, ate, and took a nap while listening to a documentary or something as I kept working, then he got up, I took a break to do yoga with him, and then I finished writing up the results for the sample I had done the data processing for this evening. By then it was midnight, and thought I would just do a "quick" write-up of the event. Now it is 02:00 and perhaps I should get some sleep before starting the next sample's data processing...